Hello everyone,
I wanted to share a bit about my experience modifying or DIY-ing a flashlight. After joining the forum, I got really excited about building a flashlight, initially because I had two broken ones at home and love fixing things, and also because I started to really enjoy this whole LED thing.
The first flashlight I worked on was one of those zoomies that come as a freebie when you buy a battery. Most of the work was widening the aluminum pill it came with so I could fit a coin in there, which would help with heat dissipation from the MCPCB. I couldn’t fit a plastic washer to stabilize everything due to height constraints, but I used an O-ring and that worked, at least initially. I started having flickering issues after using turbo mode, though. After lots of testing, I figured out it was the switch, which is pretty bad. I did a sort of bypass and soldered some parts, which has solved the issue for now. For this flashlight, I used an LMP W5050SQ3 3000K with a 3V 6A linear driver. I’m running it on convoy group 8 (0.1-1-10-50%) because the thin body gets insanely hot at 100%. At 50%, I find it fun enough to use, plus it’s probably safer (I think?).
The second one was a much older flashlight that also doubled as a taser, with a built-in battery. I had more trouble getting this one to work again; I had to use a bunch of different pieces (rings, coins) and drill them to create a makeshift pill to stabilize everything, since it didn’t originally have one. I also had to adapt the tail using parts from another plastic flashlight, which was relatively simple. The original switch was really bad and didn’t work anymore. In this one, I used a KW CSLNM1.TG (W1) with a 3V 3A linear driver. Unfortunately, the reflector (plastic) is pretty worn out, so there are some artifacts on the wall because of it, but I’m really happy with the result.
What did I learn from all this? A lot! I realized that grounding the flashlight through the driver is crucial. I learned that the reflector needs to be at the right height from the LED (or donut), and that the switch is also a crucial part of the flashlight, as is the entire body. I know that putting these LEDs in such cheap hosts is a bit of a waste, but I believe the experience was invaluable, and it was a lot of fun! Now I feel confident enough to move on to building more robust things.
My first post, sorry for any mistake/ bad quality images and poor english, not my first language.
Modifying cheap zoomies is an essential part of the hobbie, is where you learn how not to mess things up, by messing things up. Stay bright out there .
Modded TS10 Max with a MTN quad mcpcb and Carclo 10622 optic. It was an old mcpcb I had laying around so not sure what CCT the 519A are. Beam doesn’t look terrible, even with the amount of optic covered by the bezel. The hotspot looks nice while the spill is quite jagged looking, much like my S21A quads.
Not sure if I’ll keep it like this or go back to the stock triple setup after reflowing some different emitters.
Took apart my bike light and reflowed some Yingding 6500k onto it, paired with a dual 15⁰ and dual 10x45 striped TIR lenses from Simon. This upgrade made a HUGE difference in the performance of this cheap amazon light
Definitely some nice intensity boost there. Is the egg yolk variant high CRI? I have a glass version and it’s truly a unicorn, 7000K of super rosy high CRI
Yes, they would work on the TS10SG, but the finish will not match, as the TS10SG is more matte than the T2 black bezel. If Wurkkos decides to launch the SG in red with the standard glossy anodization instead of the new matte anodization it will be a 100% match. Orange will be very close too. Threading is a 100% match, and the outside diameter is also exactly the same (SP10 bezel is slightly skinnier).
The SP40A TIR will need some sanding to reduce the diameter, and you will need to make a custom centering solution for it.
Edit: the listing is closed, but there’s the link in case they have more units. ----LINK----
Nice mod! I noticed that in your beamshot, the hotspot is quite a bit yellower-greener than the spill. This might explain why the SFT25R measured such high duv in this light: the optic fails to blend emission from different angles and accentuates green tint in the hotspot.
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