Cateye Double SHot mod Lux 3 to SSC P4 (with Pics)

Hi Chaps

I just finished modding my Cateye double shot...again. I modded it to have K2s before.

It uses the stock controller still at 700mA

Discalimer this hasn't been tested off the bench yet....modify yours at your own risk!!!

THE BATS IN ME CAM DIED...I'll edit and upload missing piccies later. Phots will be hyperlinked to keep the detail for you...and I'm lazy.

Open the lamp by undoing the 2 allen bolts on the front. Pull the Housing apart. The glass may fall out so be careful. It has a rubber gasket either side of the glass.

carefully prise out the optics.

Piccy if innards

Piccy of Optics

To remove the LEDs undo all the screws inside.

remove the rectacugular piece of plastic ontop of the LEDs

The LEDs can now be liftwed up on their wires (You can feed a little bit through to a point by pushing the cable into the rear of the light).

NOTE THE CABLE COLOURS AND LED ORIENTATION...YOU WILL HAVE TO DO THIS FOR THE LUX 3 NOT K2'S.

Unsolder LEDs and remove figure 8 pkastic piece

my figure 8 is demelled for the K2 corners....the seoul should fit in fine with out mods.

keep these peices and do what you want with the LEDs

Half way

I learned from my mistakeds on the K2 mod, and made it a bit easier for myself.

at this point the bats in my camera died...so I resorted to the camera in my phone....sorry about the quality.

you need a small cable tie for the next part.

straighten the kink out of the legs the LEDs

Put the LED in the holes in the figure 8. the lead stub with the little notch denotes the side of the cathode. with the figure 8 on its side the left LED notch should be down and the right LEDs notch at the top as you look at it.

now you need to do as this piccys shows

note the notches ib the figure 8s side at the bottome and the bendy wire at the top. put the rectangular piece over the LEDs as shown and put a cable tie around it all to hold it all together temporarily. solter the bendy wore to the leads and bend it dow a touch so it won't t toiuch the inside of the metal housing.

the back of the LED needs bonding to the housing, I put two layers of Sekisui #5760 double side thermal tape i got off ebay. make sure the slug is covered so metal to metal doesn't occur. I figured tape would stop metal to metal, where compound could squeze out the way.

solder the cables to the correct terminals (i said note what went where )
I used my meter on diode check to test the connections as it has enough juice to light the LED. touch the bar when testing as this will test your solder joints too. I had to test the LEDs individually as the meter would only light one at a time. If the meter trick doesn't work Don't apply full power...maybe a fraction of second. The KEDs aren't heat sinled at this point.

gets bit fiddlier now. remove the cable tie. the plastic pieces will come away from the LEDs.

Pope the figure 8 ibn the housing with the wire cut outs down. carefully lower the LEDs in with out them sticking where they shouldn't. pop the smaller plastic piece on top.

screw together to make sure the LED is against the body. power on.

hopefully it should have lit.

pop the optics in and put the front on.

leave it on for a few mins to makes sure the LEDs don't pop due to bad thermnal bonding.


The results of mine.
It is a load brighter (than my k2s...which were a bit brighter than lux3) it looks brighter than my stock triple...not as floody...but the double only has narrow optics compared to 1 narrow and 2 wide on the triple.

the beam is ringy....but no worse than stock I would say. Cateyes optics are a bit ringy on white walls.

Hope that makes sense. Feel free to ask anything. These haven't been roadtested....so if you do this. the results look good.....but untested long term. Its not my fault if you break something hehe

Might do my triple tomorrow, if there are any major differences I'll say here

Stu

Its dark enough to do some phots for comparisonmns between the stock tripleshot and the seouled double shot. Same battery used for both lights. Lightr is shining on white ceiling 7 foot or so above bed. Camera and light on bed.

Stock Tripleshot 1/50th F2.8

Seoul Doubleshot 1/50th F2.8

Stick Tripleshot 1/100th F2.8

Seould Double Shot 1/100th F2.8

The double has a bigger brighter spot. I need to charge both batteries, but It lookes like the double is as good at flood too now.

The colour is more blue than the greeny tint the K2s I put in had.

Stu

Just a word of warning

I just started on my triple which is virgin. The black screws are some sort of alloy of cheese. So be careful not to strip the heads out.

Stu

Nice work!

Do you think it would be easy to change one of the optics in the Double Shot for a floodier one?

Calina said:

Nice work!

Do you think it would be easy to change one of the optics in the Double Shot for a floodier one?

Click to expand...

Cheers

I am not sure if the optic is propriatory to cateye, they call it opticube i think, so i guess yes. I posted a pic of the optics in my first post. I didn't realise till this morning that all the optics are the same (well they look the same) in the tripleshot version, the floodyness comes from the textured/misted glass/plastic at the front. I will try and measure the optics dimensions later. I guess the answer is if there are suitable optics/reflectors that will fit. Or try an create the misted effect that the triple uses on the double on the lense.

I would say the seouled double has more flood than the stock triple (which has 2 floods 1 narrow, the double is 2 narrows).

Stu

I was thinking of something like trying to use one of the floods of the triple in the double; just as a test.

Calina said:

I was thinking of something like trying to use one of the floods of the triple in the double; just as a test.

Click to expand...

I had that thought too before I opened the triple. All the triple optics are the same and look the same as the double optics. The flood comes from the frosting on the front glass. This is one piece and is dedicated to the triple as is 3 long and not 2 long.

I would have been more than happy to do that test if it was possible.

I will double check that the optics are different in use. But they all look the same.

Stu

Re: Cateye Triple Shot mod Lux 3 to SSC P4 (with Pics)

I just finished the triple. It was a bit more of a fiddle this one. I striped the black scres heads. They seemd to be made of cheese and threadlocked in. In the double the silver ones also hold the LEDs against the rear, So I drilled out the black ones and kept the screw shaft to keep everything alined. This did mean I couldn't get the bigger plastic piece out. I gor the LEDs out and left the big bit in. I decided to use multstrand insulated wire instead of the bendy wire so everythin was more manouverable (to make the bodge easier . Couple of hours later I have a nitroed triple.

I have leant something too. The flood is not proviided by the optics...all the optics are the same. The flood on the outside LEDs on the triple is provided by the frosting on the front glass.

Which is a little unfortunate as it measn you can't swap between the triple and double.

Before I would say the double was noticabley brighter than the stock triple...now the seouled triple is noticable brighter than the seouled double.

The triple is no more ringy than before I would say. I will take similar beam shots as before tonight.

Edit I didn't take phots....but its the same kinda thing as the double.

Stu

Re optics, I have some optics sitting in front of me that look similar. They came from RS, part no 467-7812, narrow beam for LUXEON leds, £4 each.
They measure 27mm dia, 20mm deep. RS also have other beam patterns, wide etc. Might be worth a try if they fit.
Nice mod by the way.

Essexman said:

Re optics, I have some optics sitting in front of me that look similar. They came from RS, part no 467-7812, narrow beam for LUXEON leds, £4 each.
They measure 27mm dia, 20mm deep. RS also have other beam patterns, wide etc. Might be worth a try if they fit.
Nice mod by the way.

Click to expand...

I'll check em. I still need to measure the stock optics

Here is a beamshot of the triple


This is at 1/100th of a second exposure and F2.8

significantly brighter than stock

I did some static runs today. the lights gets as warm as it did before (by feel) when not in moving air. I observed some temperature related dimming. the unit was probably 50 Celcius (guess). I have heard that seouls are quite temperature sensitive. I would guess it was still a fair bit brighter than stock.

I will do a soak but with the unit being blown on by a fan simulating riding and update you.

Stu

Hi again

I soak tested the triple using the fan, it ran perfectly fine for 2 hours. It started gettiing a bit dim due to the battery at this stage. I will try again tonight with a freh battery to check. The original figure says it shoudl run for 3.3 hours. The LED voltage should be thee same. Even so, there isn't much head room above the battery voltage with three leds and its hgoing into unregulated mode. I am nort sure I ever used the triple for 2 hours straight before with out recharging, I used to use the HID more which I have 2 batteries for. I will ask my mate to do a similar test with his stock triples to see if its a new feature hehe. I know its the battery as I quickly swapped the doubles battery on and all was bright again.

I am tempted to try it with my LiIons and buck puck. I can try em at 1 amp then. whoich in theory should be 25% brighter. If I can find a source for the double shot extnebsions to chop up I'll try it. This will have greater voltage headroom also.


Check out the new light testing rig hehe



I haven't tried it yet....but I might if I go to my mates house up the road later in the week ....offroad at least. If I use it on the pavement I will annoy cars as a tilt the crutch back when I move it forward. I need to see whre I am going arounf the back of his flat (unlit steps and narrow path), I usually have a small torch in my mouth dribbling...it ain't pretty.

Stu

Update

It looks like the IMS 20 is a perfect replacement when using the Seoul if you chop the legs off. It loses the top plastic part and relies on the reflector pressing the LED into the back, the front of the reflector protrudes by what looks like just the right ammount to allow the rubber gaskets to compress and press it in to the rear.

The beam is far less ringy the the cateye optics and it seems to be catching more light. The edge of the bubble is shaded slightly using the stock setup.

I have ordered a bunch from the sandwich shoppe as I only have 1.

Stu

Stu, That is GOLD :lolsign:

Crutches with LIGHT !!!
Sensational.

hehe

Just a little update here. There was mention over on MTBR about the Khatod relectors making an improvement.

They certainly do!. Went riding in the snow tonight with my SSC P4 Tripleshot after swapping from the Opticube to the Khatod and I'm very happy. I cant say it changed one thing drastically, but it improved a little all around. Clearly there is more light coming out the front now, and it seems to have a better overall pattern; not so... "fuzzy." It was absolutely gorgous in the snow, but the real test will come on those dark, rainy rides of spring...

Very nice and useful mod!

Following the instructions, I upgraded my Double Shot with good results - the P4s are clearly brighter, and also have a better color cast. No Christmas card for the Engineers at Cateye, though - the threadlock on the bolts which hold the case shut both snapped off halfway through backing them out.

Hi,

Did you try the buck puck driver for this setup? How did it work out? I don't see why the buck puck wouldn't work from the standpoint of the LEDs but I have some concern about the batteries which give 12 volt while the LEDs need 11.1 volt. The buck puck instructions say that you need the input to be 2 volts more than the voltage drop of the LEDs.

Thank you,
Dan

I changed my driver to a 1000 ma Buck Puck with potentiometer using the original LEDs and the light is already brighter. I imagine that the new LEDs will make a huge difference.

Using the meter on diode check doesn't seem to do anything for me. Do you have a specific meter that can supply 3.5 volt?

Thanks,
Dan