DIY P60 Building Guide

Work in progress : So please be patient ...



You will need empty pill [ I buy mine from Kaidomain.com ]

Also a driver for your battery and emitter choice ...



Now the P60 Pill takes 17mm round drivers ...

P60 pill takes a 16mm or smaller base/star



Now for gluing down the emitter ..



You can use :



http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_a...l_adhesive.htm

Now the Alumina is good for , Diamond Dragon , SSC P4 - P7 , etc , basically any emitter not mounted on a star that needs to be isolated from the pill so as not to short .



http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_s...l_adhesive.htm

Now the silver epoxy can be used on any mounted emitter with a base/star , just use care as it is conductive [ electricity ]



Now once you have assembled the components you need ..

The first thing is to fit the driver to the pill , I use a good file , to work down the diameter of the driver to fit the pill , a very light press fit will do , too tight and it might jam tight , bad if you make a mistake and wish to disassemble .



Once the driver fits correctly [ NOT TIGHT ] , you can glue the emitter to the pill ..



Now depending on what emitter , one usually makes sure it will fit , I go to the trouble of lapping the Base/Star flat before gluing for a better thermal path . Youd be amazed how not flat they can be [ base/star ] .



Now make sure the + and neg pads are pre-soldered , just a minute amount will help quicken the process [ base/star ] for when you solder on your leads .



I use the reflector to center the LED while the glue dries , I also use it to press the emitter down for the thinest possible glue join [ better thermal transfer ]



Just make sure you dont block your holes for the leads doing all this , yeah , lots of stuff to watch out for ..



With SSC P4-P7 emitters , great care is needed not to short the emitter on the pill [ bottom of emitter is conductive and part of the circuit ] , + other emitters as well .

So it needs to be just so , and once the glue sets , check straight away for a short , before the glue hardens so much you destroy the emitter trying to pry it lose . [ SSC P4-p7 etc ] [ Disregard for mounted Emitters ]



Ok the Emitter is successfully glued to the pill , the lead holes are not blocked , and the emitter is centered .



Time to solder on the + and - wires from the emitter , you do know which is which right [ you better ] ..



Pre - solder the ends , push them through the back side of the pill , and solder them in place , I have recently found that a pair of tweezers helps enormously as it can be real fiddly in there .



Once the wires are Soldered in place , it test with a 2xAA battery holder fitted with gator clips , at this time its good to know everything is working OK .



Now solder the driver into the pill , dont use too much solder , as it can be a real pain to remove should something go wrong ..



Once soldered in place , test again ..



Now pre solder the + tab on the driver , pre solder the + spring , and then solder in place , pre soldering should help quicken the process ...



Once done I like to blow on it to cool it as quickly as possible [ much heat for this process ] and re -test to make sure all is fine ..



Now , XP-G XP-E XM-L emitters can be shorted out by the reflector crushing or making contact with the + - points on the base/star



So its important to A] , isolate the pill-reflector so it wont short , B] dont screw the reflector down too tight or it might crush the + - leads and cause a short .

C ] Try fitting lightly [ screwed down lightly ] and glue the reflector in place so it wont loosen or tighten over time .



Now with SSC P4 - P7 , DD , K2TFFC , builds one will want to isolate the reflector as well ... [ from the pill - driver - leads ]

I started to use a little bit of glue so that things would not move over time [ leads ] , youl know what I mean if you go , SSC P4-P7 , DD or K2TFFC . For the + and - wires soldered to the emitter .

[ I will expand on this :



The SSC P4 P7 etc have little tabs sticking out , trim to fit in the pill , when soldering the leads on , two things to watch for .. If the tabs sag down they may make contact with the pill and short ..

If the tabs spring up and make contact with the reflector , again a short ... I started gluing around the emitter [ 5 minute epoxy ] just enough to encase the + - leads in epoxy , so they wont move or short .

Use great care not to get epoxy on the emitter = Bad , as the dome gets hot and possibly damaged if something cooks on it . I do this just in case when screwing the reflector down some how makes the tabs flex , or when things warm up there is flex , it helps avoid any shorting .. Super glue is an insulator as well , and may be easier to apply to help insulate against shorts . ]



Wow ,I think that just about covers it ...



Pictures











Testing the emitter for + and -













The driver does not quite fit ,, needs a little file work .







A bit of a trim , and it fits







Driver soldered to LED [ remember to pre solder + and - ]







Testing for shorts , etc







Dont go overboard soldering driver to pill







Pre solder the +







Pre solder the + spring







Hold centrally and do your best to solder in place ..







Hopefully it will turn out ok ... :wave:







Uploaded with ImageShack.us



And when done , hopefully works ok ...



Now I didnt show the emitter , as I dont know what you will be building ..

Also this build was only temporary , so as to give you an idea ...

The most important thing , is to keep checking your work , and make sure there are no shorts ...

Bran'-Nubee...been reading this forum for weeks, got hooked, signed up 3 min ago.

I want to build something like you are talking about here, same host, same drop ins, but I need more hand holding.

I dont want to hijack this thread but I can't find what I would like to know...........what makes one drop module in better than another more expensive one. They are all made in China, in he same factories, with different color stickers on them?

I'm sure this has been asked thousands of time on this site but, can somebody post a link that addresses this Nubee question?.

Thanks

aR

Browse through this search.

Norm

Thanks Norm! I'm on my way!

Thanks for this