Xeno G42 resurrection

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Here’s an odd one for me: no colors! The Xeno G42 is a big super thrower tactical light, and someone recently gave me a broken one to resurrect. I hadn’t heard of Xeno before but it is a very well built light.

First I stripped it all apart. The pill was a bit tough to get apart. The dead driver was fully potted—I stripped the potting off to check out what they used on it:

Well, nothing in there I want to keep, chuck it! Here’s what I’ll be using: XP-L, 9 AMC7135 regulators, and a PIC12F617 with my basic power cycle firmware:

First I wired up the emitter. Three strands of 30AWG on each connection:

Then I made all the connections to the contact board. Three strands from B+ to LED and one to the microcontroller; the same from B-:

I grouped the regulators into three groups and tied all the connections together. Then I made the ground and LED- connections:

And the final piece of wiring: Microcontroller gets wired to B+ and B-, and a single connection out to the gates of all 9 regulators. I tacked the decoupling capacitor (2.2uF) right on top of the micro, and I parallel a 150k resistor which sets my reset time to about 2.5 seconds:

Then everything gets heatshrinked to prevent shorts:

Press it in, reassemble, and done:

The UI on this is a basic one I created for my power-cycle lights (usually throwers). There are 3 modes: maximum (default after reset), user-configurable brightness, and beacon strobe (1 pulse per second). Quick power cycles change mode, and if you cycle through all modes twice quickly (6 cycles), the light will start ramping brightness (logarithmic ramp) up and down. Quick tap on the desired brightness, and it will then be permanently memorized as the level for the second mode. I will gladly share my source code—let me know if you want it, I don’t have a place to host it since google code stopped taking files

2

Speechless. Your pictures do not do justice to how small these components your working with are. Love your idea of simple. Thanks for sharing. Amazing.

3

Impressive! Can we see some beam shots when you power it up?

4

Its nice working on white only lights isnt it lol.

5

Another light that was long on my lust list .

6

Great job. How many Amps on max? How’s the thermal path? Would you consider de-doming it for adding more to it’s throwy character? I have always LOVED the looks of G42, but found the UI not impressive, you improved it greatly.

7

Nice job! And i concur to what MRsDNF said about the size. Everything looks big on a 17" screen. Not so IRL. Well done and very tidy for something air wired!

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I’m rather new to flashlight firmware programming and don’t know of the PIC12F617. I’ve made my own version of the Star firmware for the ATtiny13A and flashed them successfully. How would I go about programming the PIC12F617? Would I need a new programmer and clip?

9

Thanks for the great response guys!

This one is 3.15A on maximum. Good thermals—I have the XP-L on a thin aluminum star, which is on paste pressed into the pill by the reflector. The pill is solidly connected to the body with big square-cut threads and a large shoulder that butts against it. I’ll never dedome after seeing the numbers on how much light you lose.

Yes, you’d need a PIC-compatible programmer. I use the PICkit3 which is about $50, but there are cheaper knock off units available.

Here you go, Blackshadow Queen for comparison. It throws very well, but not any better than my Raidfire Spear clone, which is disappointing because it’s so much bigger.



(120ft is to the tree in the back, not the one with pink flowers)

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The Attiny13 is a 1k 8-bit AVR chip (Atmel), the 12F617 is a 3.5k 8-bit PIC chip (microchip). You can use the same clip since they’re both available in SOIC8 package but everything is different, the programming hardware, the software / programs to write the code / program the chips, the code, the pinout.

tterev3’s who got me to start PIC, now all my new projects are PIC based.

11

ya those Xeno builds are great values