Cateye HL-EL510 modified with a SSC P4 U-Bin

I've noticed that no one has reported on modifying a Cateye HL-EL510, yet. There are modified HL-EL500s and HL-EL530s but no HL-EL510s, until now.

In a little over a year of commuting by bike I've made a few attempts at bike head lights both to be seen and to see. Everything I've bought so far, except the NiteRider Minewt Mini-USB, has been a disappointment and that includes the HL-EL510. It puts out a decent amount of light for a compact unit but it doesn't put out enough light to see where you are going. Pointing the hotspot about 25 feet out in front of the bike on a completely dark street you can barely make out a lighter spot compared to the surrounding darkness.

Recently, I bought a few Seoul SSC P4 U-bin LED emitters recently from DX and they arrived today. Since the HL-EL510 was a disappointment and it was so easy to take apart and mod I just could not wait so here we go...


Here's the head as it sits, waiting to be taken apart. You carefully pull on the legs, wiggling as you go, being careful not to get the black plastic piece cockeyed in the reflector housing, preventing it from coming out. If you manage to pull the assembly with the legs out then you have to carefully pry the remaining black plastic piece out carefully. Don't pull too hard or you could pull those wires out.


Here's the black plastic assembly removed from the reflector assembly. The two wires go to the heatsink which is attached to the reflector assembly by two small screws. Remove the two screws and the heatsink comes out, too.


Here's the heatsink removed from the reflector assembly. Two more small screws (these are shorter than the first two you removed so don't mix them up) and the plastic shroud comes out. Desolder the LED and you're in ready to replace it.


In the foreground is the new SSC P4 LED waiting to be installed. In the background is the old Luxeon LED. I had to flatten out the contacts before soldering. After removing the Luxeon LED I noticed that there was no thermal compound nor any type of epoxy in place to assist the conduction of heat to the heatsink from the back of the LED. I made sure to dab some on there before soldering the P4 LED in place.


Here's the SSC P4 LED soldered in place waiting for the reinstallation of the shroud. In hindsight, I should have installed the shroud first to hold the LED in place to make soldering the leads easier.

Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly but the parts are keyed to go back together in a certain orientation relative to each other. The heatsink is keyed to attach to the black plastic piece that holds the circuit board in one orientation and the black plastic part with the legs have to go in only one way relative to this, too. The black plastic assembly is keyed to go into the reflector housing in only one way, too. Before assembling everything to the reflector housing I put the heatsink in the black plastic housing assembly then lined up the keys with the slots in the reflector then lined up the tail piece with the legs so that the red line on the one leg lines up with the red line on the reflector assembly then snapped that piece into the housing assembly with the circuit board. I then lined up the heatsink with the reflector assembly and reinstalled that first. The rest just falls into place.

And now, the beamshots against my ceiling. All pictures, except for the last two, were taken at 18 mm, f3.5, 1/4 second, and ISO 800. The camera was tripod mounted low to the ground and the lights were placed on the ground about a foot over from the camera to avoid having the shadow of the camera in the picture.


Here's the baseline shot showing the relative light level in the room. Dark, eh?


Here's the unmodified HL-EL510 headlight beamshot. Those straitions are from the lens in an attempt to widen the beam on the road.


Here's the modified HL-EL510. The hotspot is larger and brighter. The spill is brighter, too.


This is a beamshot of the unmodified Minewt Mini-USB for comparison. The hotspot is a lot larger than what I actually see so I had to take some more pictures at a faster shutter speed, which are the next two pictures.


Here's a beamshot of the modified HL-EL510 at a faster shutter speed of 1/15 second. You'll notice that this picture looks almost like the before picture which was taken at an exposure that allows four times more light to be captured. I'd say that this new LED has doubled the light output based on this. Not bad.


Here's the beamshot of the Mini-USB at 1/15 second. The hotspot is a little larger than what I actually see both on the ceiling and out on the open road. This light is rated at about 110 lumens.

I brought both lights outside and compared them but did not take any pictures as it is really foggy outside right now and the pictures would not have been very good. The HL-EL510 is not as bright as the Mini-USB in overall light output but the hotspot is about as bright. It's just that the hotspot is smaller. Mounted low it lights up the road nicely compared to what this light used to do.

Am I happy with this mod? Absolutely. Do I want more output from this light? Absolutely. I really cannot give a good assessment of this mod until I have had an opportunity to take it out on my regular commute. I will report back on Monday evening after I have had a chance to use this light to get home from work.

Hi, good job and excellent light!!!!

Greetings - Saludos

msxtr

One more picture. This is a closeup of the shroud surrounding the LED. Sorry, I did not take a picture of it before I modified it but the central hole was a simple hole like you would get if you just drilled into it with a drill bit. It serves the purpose of holding the LED on to the heatsink so that intimate contact can be made between the two for heat transfer. I noticed that it partially blocks some of the light from the side of the LED to the reflector so I chucked a countersink bit into the drill press and, while turning the chuck and countersink bit by hand, countersunk the hole that exposes the LED. I don't know if this little mod will affect the output from this light nor do I know if it will affect the beam pattern or not but it seemed like a worthwhile and simple mod so I did it.

With fresh batteries this light now puts out enough light to actually use out on the open road. Unfortunately, my NiMH batteries ran low on juice about an hour into my 90 minute ride home and the output looked about like it did before I modified it. I'll have to try using this light again next Monday as I don't anticipate riding all the way to work for the rest of this week due to weather and having to pick up the kids after school.

While riding home today the thought occurred to me that the LED must be getting about 250mA when it should be able to handle up to 1A. Then wild ideas started dancing through my head about using an external battery pack, a buckpuck, a heftier heatsink and vents in the plastic to allow cooling air to circulate through the host for thermal management, etc. Then again, I can probably modifiy the circuit board to bump up the current to something more like 350mA or 500mA.

I wonder what would happen if I run 7.2V through the circuitry? It's running 4.8V now but it was intended to be used with 6V.

Just in case anyone out there is actually contemplating doing this mod, I found a little problem with this setup. The old LED is a bit taller than the P4 by about .5mm at the shoulder. I realized that the LED was not sitting on the heatsink at all because the shroud's job is to hold it down. I took the shroud out and reduced its height by a little bit more than .5mm by sliding it back and forth across a large file to hold down the LED to the heatsink. I had to resolder the leads on the LED because the leads, being soldered to the solder points, would not allow it to sit squarely on the heatsink. Now I want to make a shim to raise the LED assembly by about .5mm to restore the beam pattern since it has an even larger hotspot, now, and a slight dim spot right in the middle of the hotspot.

It looks like I'm getting around 4 hours of run time from a full charge of the 2500 MAh AA NiMH batteries. That somehow does not add up as I thought the circuitry was supposed to put 200 or 250 mA to the LED, which should equate to about 9 or more hours. Hmm...

Nice mod. I did the same to several Planet Bike Super Spot 1W bike lights. If you attempt to boost the power, you WILL need to upgrade the heatsinking. I permanently "blued" one of the SSC's when using the original heatsink and feeding it 900ma. The LED overheated and the phosphors were burned.

I ended up putting the original Luxeon III emitter back into it. It just wasn't putting out enough light for me to be happy with it. The battery life was pretty good and I would have sacrificed some of that for a few more lumens but it just wasn't bright enough to use without running a second light to assist it.

I put the P4 into my NiteRider Minewt Mini-USB and that light seems to be brighter, now. I don't know what the original bin of that LED was but this U-bin sure seems brighter. I'll know for sure Monday evening as I ride home from work. As for the HL-EL510, I think I'll mill out the lens and replace it with a clear lens and use it as a flashlight around the house.

the ssc must be using much more juice than what they are supposed to.

I thought that the driver handles the power output and that the LED puts out the lumens. Putting in a more efficient emitter should make it brighter without using more power. Am I wrong on this?

PCC said:

I thought that the driver handles the power output and that the LED puts out the lumens. Putting in a more efficient emitter should make it brighter without using more power. Am I wrong on this?

Click to expand...

Correct. Runtime should not change.

I ended up swapping the Lux III out for an XP-G R5 on an 8mm board and its putting out around 100 lumens, now. It's putting out enough light to actually make this light usable!