I have my old Super Sabre I carried as a second light source in the pocket of my fire coat for years. It's been in my locker for years. Still works but I've retired it for an LED light as a back up. I wonder what I could do to change it over to LED? It has a Xenon? thing, like bulb and reflector all in one piece. The light uses C batteries.
Super Sabrelight LED conversion?
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Looks like a cool light. I'd leave it be. It'll never be very good converted. Incandescent lights are designed to isolate the heat they produce. And led needs to absorb the heat and remove it from the emitter. So incan designed lights generally don't make good LED flashlights
sgt253
Enlightened
I have three Super Sabre lights myself. I have looked long and hard over the years in reference to led replacements and have struck out. I do believe there was one person on this forum to do a mod but it sounded pretty technical. Certainly above my skill level. I have left all three incandescent and just use them. I'm all ears if you find a solution.
I did see that old old thread and I believe it's above my skill level too. The old light still works well enough for what it is. I'll keep it the van as a 3rd? 4th? back up and actually still have a new in the package bulb/reflector assembly . I'll listen to those more knowledgeable than me and not mess with it. I have another I've found,in my firefighting kit, an orange one. It'll work with a little coaxing I think.
uk_caver
Flashlight Enthusiast
I'm not sure if I wrote in other threads about this, but I made some LED conversions for friends' Sabrelights ages ago (when Cree XR-Es were close to the cutting edge of performance).
On the mechanical side, I used a section of 28mm copper pipe with a copper disc (older pre-steel UK 2 pence piece Dremeled flat) soldered in as a base. The battery contact was a large conical battery contact spring with a wire soldered to it (the wire passing through a hole drilled in the disc). I coated the wide end of the spring with a little JB Weld for insulation, then when that had cured, the spring was JB-welded onto the disc with a layer of epoxy to make sure the rest of the spring couldn't contact the disc if compressed.
I added a rim of JB Weld to the pipe end to help stop scratching of the inside of the bezel.
Electrical contact to the insert body was by a wire added when soldering the base on.
IIRC, electrically, I just used a pair of AMC7135 regulators to give 700mA, and the optic stayed cool enough when running.
The optic I used (a fairly long conical one which gave a good spot beam with an XR-E) allowed space for the 7135 board to be epoxied to the inside of the shell. Modern LEDs with shorter optics might need some kind of platform to raise the LED so the optic was close to the bezel.
The end result looked reasonable, if somewhat old-fashioned, and the copper body made a good heatsink. The only minor annoyance was that the tips of the U-shaped lower battery contact 'bar' could need bending inwards very slightly to avoid the chance of the insert being pushed between them, which meant that the bar might need pulling out when changing cells, as the clearance between the tips was less (the bar material was surprisingly stiff, so bending was more of a vice-and-hammer activity than just using pliers, so there wasn't perfect control about how bent things got).
On the mechanical side, I used a section of 28mm copper pipe with a copper disc (older pre-steel UK 2 pence piece Dremeled flat) soldered in as a base. The battery contact was a large conical battery contact spring with a wire soldered to it (the wire passing through a hole drilled in the disc). I coated the wide end of the spring with a little JB Weld for insulation, then when that had cured, the spring was JB-welded onto the disc with a layer of epoxy to make sure the rest of the spring couldn't contact the disc if compressed.
I added a rim of JB Weld to the pipe end to help stop scratching of the inside of the bezel.
Electrical contact to the insert body was by a wire added when soldering the base on.
IIRC, electrically, I just used a pair of AMC7135 regulators to give 700mA, and the optic stayed cool enough when running.
The optic I used (a fairly long conical one which gave a good spot beam with an XR-E) allowed space for the 7135 board to be epoxied to the inside of the shell. Modern LEDs with shorter optics might need some kind of platform to raise the LED so the optic was close to the bezel.
The end result looked reasonable, if somewhat old-fashioned, and the copper body made a good heatsink. The only minor annoyance was that the tips of the U-shaped lower battery contact 'bar' could need bending inwards very slightly to avoid the chance of the insert being pushed between them, which meant that the bar might need pulling out when changing cells, as the clearance between the tips was less (the bar material was surprisingly stiff, so bending was more of a vice-and-hammer activity than just using pliers, so there wasn't perfect control about how bent things got).
WriteAway
Newly Enlightened
I also have a SuperSabre that is mainly used for scanning for critters on rainy dog walks. I managed to find a replacement bulb (Pelican 2004) this spring, so I will keep it "as-is" as long as it works. Once my bulbs run out, it will become just a relic in my small collection. You may find a source of bulbs online but I had a very long hunt to track down the only bulb I found to date.
uk_caver
Flashlight Enthusiast
A single piece of aluminium is used to make the reflector and the 'outer' battery contact (a chamfered disc of metal behind the reflector which is pushed onto the end of a pair of prongs running from the other end of the battery case as the bezel is screwed in).
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