That’s not a bad idea for a backup. But I was really planning on an H10, since I have so many of them
1 Thank
Big thanks to @YBF650 for the mcpcb that allowed to me finally do this mod!
A little while back I modded my M21H to use a D4S mcpcb and Ledil Angie optic, but I’ve always wanted a multi emitter B35AM. It has four 4500K emitters purchased from Simon, and has the stock Convoy 12V2.5A driver with an R020 resistor stacked on top of the stock R010. I don’t really know what kind of output it’s actually making, but it’s drawing ~10.8A with a fully charged P45B.
I had to sand about 1.5mm off the diameter of the mcpcb to get it to fit.
Surprisingly clean beam with the Angie-S optic:
Angie-M beam:
TM-30 report 100% brightness:
14 Thanks
Hello,
I modded this Skilhunt M300 v1 yesterday, swapped out the 6000k XHP35 HI for a 3000k XHP35.2.
Unfortunately the XHP35.2 I swapped in has a blue hotspot with a dark dot in the center. I tried to show the issue in these photos, but it’s more apparent in person.
I’ll try ordering a 5000k, hopefully it won’t have the same problem.
2 Thanks
Try a different gasket
2 Thanks
Thanks, I’ll look into a new gasket as well.
1 Thank
Looks great !
Today I modded Nitecore D10 (XR-E Q5) with XP-L HI V4 3A and ITP SA1 (XP-E R2) with SST-20 5000K (L4 DA). Both LEDs from Convoy, both ligts run on 14500. Theoretically the D10 should’ve went from the original stable 130 lumens to 230-240lm, SA1 from 190 to about 320-330lm, both with higher efficiency due to the lower Vf of modern emitters. In practice D10 is even brighter because before its output stabilizes it runs brighter until battery voltage and emitter Vf get closer (DD-ish behaviour but at much smaller scale).
With the ITP I had one challenge - I had to grind the original LED gasket/spacer/insulator to make it flat because the original one was also covering the sides of the 12mm PCB and it didn’t fit when I installed new emitter on 16mm board (obviously).
D10 was a bit more difficult - first I had to grind the sides of the PCB because 16mm one was a fraction of a mm too wide. Then I had to modify Convoy’s gasket/spacer (3535 to 7mm reflector hole) because it didn’t have cutouts for the solder blobs on the side and it was crushing them. I also had to slightly grind the part that goes into the reflector because it was a touch too wide. Once I assembled everything the beam was floody with some rings so I replaced the original plastic reflector insulator with a piece of paper which was much thinner and it fixed the beam. Surprisingly original thermal paste was in a really good condition.
I wish I took more pictures of the process but I forgot (and I was pretty stressed out) so I’m going to replace them with the wall of text. I took some comparison beamshots though, from the left - Nitecore MH20 NW on mid mode (measured by ‘maukka’ at around 270 lumens) - ITP SA1 - Nitecore D10 (both on high using 14500 cell).
Before:
After:
(1/400s, f1,8, ISO 50, WB set to 5000K)
I tried taking them at faster exposure but it was overlapping with ITP’s pwm and shots were unuseable. Pre-modded D10 wasn’t as cool in real life, it probably got “cooled down” by the ITP’s spill which had the coldest tint of them all)
Impressions? ITP is not as cold as it used to be, it is slightly greenish in the lowest mode but I usually use on mid or high so it’s not a problem. Beam is surprisingly tight, I expected it to be much floodier considering how much bigger the chip is in the SST-20.
As for the D10 it’s MUCH brighter now, tint is much warmer with much nicer color reproduction but there’s a pretty strong tint shift, hotspot is much cooler compared to the rest of the beam. Throw is still impressive for a such small light.
5 Thanks
I get a lot of enjoyment modding/seeing old lights recieving with new emitters, I don’t feel like drivers have changed a huge amount in 10 years but LEDs have improved several orders of magnitude.
Tint shift on the D10 might be as simple as a focus issue with the new LED, worst case, the reflector was designed for the weird XR-E package and will never properly focus a modern 3535 style emitter…
1 Thank
One guy on CPF did the same mod and he was happy with the beam profile, he didn’t mention anything about the tint shift. Altough he didn’t use any centering rings so his emitter was slightly deeper inside the reflector, that might’ve changed the focus as well. I replaced the original insulation ring/spacer with paper one and that fraction of a milimeter made a noticeable difference which was surprising because the original XR-E wasn’t sitting deep inside the reflector, it was about where my XP-L is now (my guess is that the reflector focuses light from the center of the XP-L where the XR-Es tiny chip used to be and that part of XP-L’s beam is cooler). Maybe shaving the centering ring down would’ve helped but I was worried about the reflector grinding on my piss poor soldering job so it’s going to stay as it is.
congratulats on your D10 mod! A nice little light made nicer.
I dont see any tint shift in that pic…
Very nice mod, I love to see old lights get modern emitters.
I found that the new (flipchip) XP-L HI have a tint shift problem in reflector lights, my XP-L HI swapped BLF-A6 had a similar issue with tint shift. I suspect it’s related to the side-light emitted from the new gen flip-chip die.
The main catch with 3535/5050 swapping an XR-E light is that the XR-E had peculiarly odd focusing.
AFAIK this is because of the tiny die and huge dome as well as the dome shape itself, so if the reflector is made to compensate for its optical effects it usually results in an unfocused beam with modern emitters.
A similar problem can happen with old XM-L/XM-L2 lights where the reflector was optimized for it (Sunwayman V11R for example), and it gives an ugly beam with domeless/small-die emitters like a Nichia 219b or a dedomed 519a
You can find references to this problem in old threads on CPF and BLF from the late 2000s and early 2010s, especially when it came to C8-style hosts getting swapped to newer throwier emitters like an XM-L2 (from an XR-E) or a dedomed XP-G2 (from an XM-L T6)
Example 1: Technical evaluation - Cree XR-E Q4 bin | Candle Power Flashlight Forum
The optical system of the XR-E is interesting - there’s a thick silver ring, with the optical dome (made of glass). The LED chip sits quite deep down relative to the glass dome, indicating that the beam pattern will be relatively narrow and forward projecting, compared to other power LEDs that we’ve become accustom to that have nice, wide, lambertian distributions. This could pose a problem for certian reflector configurations.
2 Thanks
It’s slightly overexposed but even there you can see that hotspot is pure white while the rest of the beam is creamy-yellowish.
I don’t know if you noticed but my D10 is a Magma edition by Swissbianco, number 7/25. It’s a true little gem, it’s like 16 years old now (!!!) and still works like a charm.
1 Thank
I agree the center is slightly overexposed.
I would say the center looks whiter because it is brighter, and that brightness masks the actual tint we see in the corona and spill.
But I dont see two different tints.
This is what I would call Tint Shift, where there are two clearly different colors, purple and green (XP-G3 LED):
1 Thank
I can tell you that in real life hotspot is whiter not only because it’s brighter - it is cool white with large creamy yellow corona around it, color difference is very obvious (maybe not as much as in your picture and the other way round but it’s there).
ok… I hope it does not bother you too much 
one way to balance out different colors coming of the side of the LED vs the front of the LED is to use diffusion film such as DCFix, or use a Pebbled Tir to blend the beam
in a reflector the light from the side of the LED gets focused forward around the corona, so any difference between the color of the sidelight of the LED and the center light will show separately on a white wall
I hope you enjoy your light, regardless… you did a good mod
I’d have to get used to it, I don’t want to diffuse the beam. It’s been less than 24 hours after owning it and using almost every day for the last 10+ years so it will take time.
1 Thank
if its any consolation, here is the beam of a Stock HDS Rotary w sw45k (iow a very expensive light with an imperfect tint across the beam):
on a white wall there is a slightly greenish yellow corona around the hotspot, that I dont notice in actual use
its very difficult to get a completely homogenous tint across the beam from a reflector…
and in actual use, in the dark, the intensity of the hotspot is mostly all I notice… not the tint shift across the beam that we can see on a white wall…
The corona tint is worse in person, the photo barely shows the color difference of the corona. Also, the ambient light color temperature can interact in different ways with the color of the beam… In daytime the ambient light is greener, so it will downplay the green tint of the corona… Under incandescent, which is less green than daylight, the tint of the corona, on a white wall, can be more noticeable…
Welcome to the Tint Snob cult…
1 Thank
I’d take discolored corona. Mine has yellowish everything but hotspot (which is pure cold white, it’s hard to catch on picture but it’s really clear irl) and it’s a big contrast. I think it may be a common issue with modern LEDs, they’re very bright at the expense of light quality and those issues started to emerge in the recent years.
ok, good description… Im starting to wonder if what you are seeing might be the Tint of the XP-L Hi 3A, rather than tint shift.
maybe it is normal that the tint is most noticeable in the spill, while a hotspot looks white because it is intense
Here is the Tint of an XP-L Hi 3A that maukka tested.
Notice the X marks in the yellowish tint area on this chart:
1 Thank
No, it is white, pure white, a completely different color.
I think you posted wrong chart, here’s the correct one:
Maukka also tested Nitecore MH20 NW where the difference was even bigger and I can tell you - it’s nothing compared to my D10. But I think I caught what I’m talking about on camera:
Hotspot is very very white compared to yellowish spill and corona (corona itself is pretty wide probably because XP-L has a much bigger emitter area). My uneducated guess is that the reflector was designed for XR-E which has very narrow beam so it focuses the light from the middle of the emitter’s beam, something like this (picture from the internet):
And that part is usually cooler in most LEDs including XP-L HI. The rest gets dispersed as a very wide yellowish corona.
1 Thank