Ultrafire W200 conversion

I recently purchased a W200 which apparently is a copy of the Tilly Tec W30.
I have yet to see the tilly tec but by all accounts they seem very similar except the Tilly uses an optic while the W200 uses a reflector.

Anyway. The construction of the W200 is very good. The body is made out of some sort of plastic., probably acetal.
The head is made of aluminium.
Total legth is 200mm and 40mm diameter at the head.
I like the form of it and the attachment at the end for a bit of line to hold a snapbolt. I imagine it would fit really nicely clipped off to a chest D ring on a BP/W harness and then tucked under a bungy or inner tube.

It has 3 O rings sealing the body from the head. Activation is achieved from turning the head.

The front lens is held in by a O ring, pick this out and a 6mm thick lens drops out ( or can be pushed from the other side). There is another O ring that does the actual sealing of the lens.

It is recommended for the light to be run on alkaline AA's (3). I found that after 20 minutes of run time the light started to flicker. I have heard the same report from another purchaser. Its very anoying. Although I like the light in every other way the flickering is enough to put me off.

So now I have a dive light that I dont want to use. What to do? You guessed it, mod it!

There is a aluminium tube in the body that coducts from the - of the battery to the head. If you remove this then the body will take 2 18650 Li Ions (Wahoo!). Problem is there is no longer a source for the electrons to travel along. So what is needed is a new tube with a ID large enought to take a 18650 and OD small enough to fit in the body. I managed to fine a tube with the right ID but to large OD. A bit of machining sorted that.
Next required a custom LED/driver assmebly and also an aspheric lens with spacer rings. Both require use of a lathe.
I could have used the same aspheric as I did with the ISTs but decided on a 30mm aspheric instead that is capable of a 4 deg spot. The lens requires reducing its diameter which I got a local glazier to help me with. I defocued the lens alittle to give a 6 degree spot.

Overall Im pretty happy with the outcome. Its driven at 1 amp so I should get over 4 hours burn time with 2500ma cells.
As you can see from the pic it does have a halo caused by the use of a reflector behind the aspheric. Its mainly used as a spacer so painting it black would get rid of the halo but not effect the hot spot.

Im hoping to try another aspheric soon that will gather more light making it brighter and I should be able to set the focus at anywhere from 5 degrees up.






10w WA HID (trailtech "6degree" bulb

Modded W200

Both

What a P7 version would look like at 2.8 amp

Sorry, my bad.

Is the P7 using the stock reflector? It actually doesn't look too bad. Definitely not as focused as the other (assuming R2) but a decent amount of light in that setup

heffay said:

Is the P7 using the stock reflector? It actually doesn't look too bad. Definitely not as focused as the other (assuming R2) but a decent amount of light in that setup

Click to expand...

No its using a modified reflector from DX. I am quite impressed. It really puts the HID to shame. Coupled with a 3 mode driver I think this will be a great all round light. I will probably use a R2 and a P7 myself. That way I can choose between a piercing spot or a nice wider beam. And they are still small enough to use as a backup when I have my can light with me.

I have had a bit more of a play with these.

I found the R2 version is optimally tuned at about 10 degree beam.


W200 R2 at 10deg vs 21w HID



W200 R2 vs IST

I did a P7 and MCE version and they were quite similar in output and beam.

The stock Orings are crap and so I replaced all of them with duro 70 ones.

Packhorse said:

No its using a modified reflector from DX. I am quite impressed. It really puts the HID to shame. Coupled with a 3 mode driver I think this will be a great all round light. I will probably use a R2 and a P7 myself. That way I can choose between a piercing spot or a nice wider beam. And they are still small enough to use as a backup when I have my can light with me.

Click to expand...

Hi!

I'd really appreciate if you have some pics of the P7 modifications to share!

What DX parts did you use for the P7 modification? I'm thinking it may be a simple enough mod for me to get a basic diveligth for the summer's divetrip.

Cheers
/OS

Took a few new W200's apart yesterday and found only half of them had 3 Orings sealing the lens while the rest had 2.

The O rings are...
One that sits at the front and holds the lens in place. I doubt this actully seals it at all.
One that sits around the base of the lens
And the thirt that isnt present in all W200's sits behind the lens and probably does the most sealing although my 1st modded W200s dont have this (yet ) and have not leaked.

Packhorse said:

Took a few new W200's apart yesterday and found only half of them had 3 Orings sealing the lens while the rest had 2.

The O rings are...
One that sits at the front and holds the lens in place. I doubt this actully seals it at all.
One that sits around the base of the lens
And the thirt that isnt present in all W200's sits behind the lens and probably does the most sealing although my 1st modded W200s dont have this (yet ) and have not leaked.

Click to expand...

I have opened 6 W200's now (at least 2 different types) and all of them only have 2 O-rings in the head. One around the lens (for keeping the water out) and one in front of the lens (for keeping the lens in).

This means that there at least already 3 different type of W200's

Well at least they are changing things, because the last ones I got did not flicker any more

Greetz Johan

I dont know.
I do recall an extra O ring I found after taking some apart a while ago.
The lot I took apart over the last frw days were all brought around the same time 4-6 weeks ago. So far I have had 10 (I think) and only one had a different body to the rest. I have only had one flicker as standard but then thats the only one I ever powered up in standard form so it doesnt say much.

Anyway I just brought some 28 x 1.5mm O rings to go behind the lens. To be honest I dont know if this is the same size as what should be there but it fits nice.

Messing around with some LED/heat sink assemblies out of W200s today and I found a few of them actually have a "driver" board!!!
Well it contained some resistors and also a gold plated(?) ring that is visible when looking it to the head from the back. ( the only way to tell if you have a "MKII" version). Maybe they use a newer higher bin XR-E????

My guess is the ring is there to make a better connection and solve the flickering problem. The resistors save the LEDs from being over driven.

I dont know if these upgrades from the factory work or are beneficial in any way as I have never powered up a stock W200 since I brought the 1st one 15 lights ago.

Hi,

I will probably be modding this light as well.
I tried to figure out what my options are, but I'm a bit confused.

are these assumptions correct?
If I replace the batteries by 2 18650's, I can use the either the Cree XR-E Q5, Cree XR-E R2-WC, Cree MC-E or SSC P7, correct?
If I don't replace the batteries and just use alkaline batteries, I can just swap the led by a Cree e.g. XR-E Q5 or will that not work? (or wouldn't that give much benefit over the stock P4 led?)

thanks in advance,

Johan

You could use any of those LED's with AA's. The difference will be run time and brightness over that run time.

Easiest mod would be a R2 or Q5 upgrade. Improvement would not be huge. But perhaps a AMC 7135 driver inthere too instead of the resistors would also be an improvement.

Packhorse said:

a AMC 7135 driver inthere too instead of the resistors would also be an improvement.

Click to expand...

Where would it go, doesn't look like much room any where for a proper driver board?

yeah, I guess the upgrade from a rated 176 lumen to 200 or 250 lumen is not a huge difference.
I will probably go with the R2 and 2 18650's (probably the 2500mAh that you linked somewhere since I'm new to li-ion batteries).

For the R2, did you just replace the led+star or did you use a complete module from dealextreme like this one: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.14442

or depended that on whether you used a reflector or a lens?

Johan

gav6280 said:

Where would it go, doesn't look like much room any where for a proper driver board?

Click to expand...

There is plenty of room. You just have to think outside the box a little.:thinking:

jspeybro said:

yeah, I guess the upgrade from a rated 176 lumen to 200 or 250 lumen is not a huge difference.
I will probably go with the R2 and 2 18650's (probably the 2500mAh that you linked somewhere since I'm new to li-ion batteries).

For the R2, did you just replace the led+star or did you use a complete module from dealextreme like this one: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.14442

or depended that on whether you used a reflector or a lens?

Johan

Click to expand...

Yes you can use that drop in but you are getting into a much more in depth mod. Same with the 18650s.

I like to do such things, it's fun, so I don't mind.
Well I'll first have to wait until the W200 arrives anyway so we'll see how it goes.

Johan

Hi packhorse,
Which aspheric did you end up using for the R2? I read that you tried a few. Are you using the same lens that you use for the Q5's?

I use Ahortons aspherics. Although they do need to be ground down to fit.