All Pocket Illuminators are SOLD. Thank you all very much.
Since this is the first group made, your comments and feedback are anticipated here so continuous improvement can take place.
Of course, like all projects, this modification was not without its challenges. I had first thought of offering this as a kit, but cuting down the reflector in the head without special tooling would limit this to only advanced modders.
First, just getting the flashlights apart without leaving marks in the finish was like pulling horse teeth with tweezers. The threads where the battery tube screws into the head were given a generous coating of glue at the factory, which does a great job of bonding the two peices together. But after some effort, a method was worked out to unscrew the flashlights using rubber jaw pliers and the lathe. Some units come apart quite easily, but others require some heat to be applied to loosen the glue enough to come apart. A liitle bit of caution here with regards to heating the flashlight - Ed reported that he tried to boil a flashlight in a plastic baggie to soften the glue, and ended up melting the reflector. So practice caution if you try to use heat; keep it below 212F (100C).
The second challenge is the reflector. The very thick front window and reflector are press fit into the head assembly with about a million pounds of pressure, and as if that wasn't good enough, some form of super duper glue was also used to secure the window in place. Don't even think about removing the front window and reflector, it won't turn out pretty. While the front window is made from some kind of bullet proof plastic, the reflector is made from the softest, most fragile plastic I've ever seen.
The reflector does a great job of focusing the light for having such a small diameter, but the focal point unfortunetly is too far forward for use with a Luxeon LED without trimming some material off the back of the reflector. Trimming the reflector when it cannot be removed from the head, is well, difficult. I found the solution in an old end mill bit that was just the right size to fit into the back of the head. Carefully turning the bit by hand, it was possible to cut just enough material off the back of the reflector to focus with the Luxeon. However, even holding the head assembly upright, flakes of plastic will get inside the reflector. The only way to get the reflector clean again is with compressed air to blow the chips out the small hole in the back of the reflector.
The third and hardest challenge was how to fit a MiniPro converter with heatsink into the same space the stock LED driver board occupied. The stock driver board is only 1/32 inch thick, so a direct swap out is not possible. However, by slimming the height of the MiniPro circuit down by eliminating one circuit board and direct bonding to the heatsink, it was possible to make things fit. The design of the Nuwai also differs from the typical MiniPro application where the heatsink forms the negative contact, but instead the Nuwai brings the negative power contact to bottom of the driver board; the head assembly in the Nuwai is electrically neutral.
This required a new circuit board for the MiniPro converter with the negative and positive contacts on the back side of the circuit board.
Once the new circuit boards were finished, work on the custom heatsink could begin. The heatsink needed to be thin, but also needed to be thick enough to provide descent cooling for the Luxeon LED, and to effectively transfer heat to the flashlight body. Also, since the reflector was trimmed to focus with a Luxeon, there was a little more room available to work with in front of where the stock PCB sat. The result was a heatsink with a 1/32 inch thick flange to allow it to sit where the stock PCB was located, and a thicker part forward of there that would position the Luxeon for proper focus with the modified reflector.
So in the end, these proved to be much harder to build than anticipated; not unheard of
Thanks again, and looking forward to your comments when you get these in your hands.
Lambda
1AAA
they're all gone!
