Put a SL Stylus Pro head on a Microstream body with 1x 10440?

aramid

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Just had this idea last night, and wanted to run it by someone before I went out and spent money testing it. I did some searching but couldn't find any previous attempts.

I've been carrying a Streamlight Microstream for about a year now, and it's great - it's cheap and replaceable, unobtrusive, very convenient, and generally bright enough. But now that they're getting 48 Lumens out of the Stylus Pro, I see an opportunity for improvement. Would I be able to get away with swapping a Stylus Pro head onto the Microstream body, and powering it with a single 10440? It's a bit higher voltage than even 2xAAA lithium primaries, which is what concerns me. I don't know what the actual limit on that circuit is going to be, and it's more expensive a risk than I want to take.

If it works, I'll double the brightness of the Microstream and hopefully not totally ruin runtime - we're talking 800 mAh vs 500 mAh but more than double the voltage feeding presumably double the power.

Of course, I'll be even more interested if someone tells me the two lights actually use the same head anyway. I'd be surprised, though.

And yes, I know I can stick a Fenix head on there and get even more light while staying with an NiMH battery. I'd rather not, because that's less attractive and more expensive, and because the mode I'd use most often is PWM, and because I really like the beam shape on the Streamlight.

Thoughts?
 

Patriot

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Just had this idea last night, and wanted to run it by someone before I went out and spent money testing it. I did some searching but couldn't find any previous attempts.

I've been carrying a Streamlight Microstream for about a year now, and it's great - it's cheap and replaceable, unobtrusive, very convenient, and generally bright enough. But now that they're getting 48 Lumens out of the Stylus Pro, I see an opportunity for improvement. Would I be able to get away with swapping a Stylus Pro head onto the Microstream body, and powering it with a single 10440? It's a bit higher voltage than even 2xAAA lithium primaries, which is what concerns me. I don't know what the actual limit on that circuit is going to be, and it's more expensive a risk than I want to take.

Thoughts?


I'm not 100% sure but I fairly convinced that the Stylus Pro is using the exact same head as the Microstream. I don't own the 'SP' though so I'm not able to verify this. My guess it that the extra lumens from the 'SP' is due to running it at closer to 2.4V rather than 1.2V. I realize that these numbers are based on rechargeable voltages but alkalines sag like crazy under this load, even two of them. Regardless, I've been running 10440s in a Microstream on a daily basis for 3 weeks now. I've used the cells to the point that I had to recharge them for several hours in the AAA Nano each evening. Ceiling bouce lux measurements place the output in the 120 lumen range but if I conservatively compensate for the narrow beam read by the meter, it could be closer to the 140 lumen range. While it doesn't post the extraordinary lux numbers of some other AAA lights I've tested, it's certainly the single most distant throwing AAA light I've ever owned, presumably due to the tiny die and deep, smooth reflector. Thinking of the various AAA lights currently available, I don't think any of them can approach the throw performance of the Microstream / 10440 combination without the help of an aspheric.

Some members may remember that I have a long history of running 10440's in virtually every AAA light that I have a good guess, won't be destroyed by the act. I'm not sure how I missed this combination earlier but I'm glad that I finally tried. I'm getting a good 75 -100 yards of discernible throw out of this thing!
 
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aramid

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How hot is the light getting, and how long are you letting it run? Does the extra power do anything nasty to the tint?

Any ideas on total runtime, or what the regulation looks like?

If you're actually getting 100+ lumens from that combination, that's pretty insane. I was expecting closer to the Stylus Pro's 48 lumens, although the voltage is actually a lot higher than 2xAAA, so I can't say I'm totally surprised. I'm not aware of another single AAA light with anything like that performance - if it proves reliable, this could be a pretty incredible combination.

I suppose I ought to give it a try, then. At worst, I kill my Microstream and replace it with the newer, slightly brighter model.
 

Flucero28

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I ran a 10440 in an old microstream I used to have, which immediately resulted in the "high flux" led turning angry blue. I never tried again as I knew it would only be a matter of time until the LED was damaged. From what I have been reading the newer "C4 LED" version is using a Cree XP-C emitter, which may handle the higher voltage. Is this the model that you are using the 10440 cells in patriot?
 

Patriot

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How hot is the light getting, and how long are you letting it run? Does the extra power do anything nasty to the tint?

Any ideas on total runtime, or what the regulation looks like?

If you're actually getting 100+ lumens from that combination, that's pretty insane. I was expecting closer to the Stylus Pro's 48 lumens, although the voltage is actually a lot higher than 2xAAA, so I can't say I'm totally surprised. I'm not aware of another single AAA light with anything like that performance - if it proves reliable, this could be a pretty incredible combination.


It's not getting terribly hot like the Preon1, Maratac, ITP, and LDO1s, but it certainly gets warm. I guess this is simply due to the fact that it has a bit more mass than the others but I'm not certain if that's the only reason. It's at least 100 lumens but closer to 120 or 140 compared to the yet much brighter Preon1 and Maratacs. I think like the others, the Microstream just goes to direct drive and there is no regulation. Runtime will obviously be fairly short on a continuous discharge but if I use it 15 seconds at a time, 33% duty cycle, while momentarily lighting objects during an hour walk, it holds up surprisingly well.

I'm using a brand new Mircrostream that was just restocked at my local gun store, so it came out of the package 3 weeks ago.
 

Patriot

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I ran a 10440 in an old microstream I used to have, which immediately resulted in the "high flux" led turning angry blue. I never tried again as I knew it would only be a matter of time until the LED was damaged. From what I have been reading the newer "C4 LED" version is using a Cree XP-C emitter, which may handle the higher voltage. Is this the model that you are using the 10440 cells in patriot?

Yes, it's a "newer" C4 LED marked package but I thought they've been XP-Cs for quite a while now, perhaps for the last year or so anyway. No tint shift so far and seems to be working as well as many of the other 10440 combos I've ran. The only difference being the incredible amount of throw that I'm getting out of the Microstream. The beam is very visible at 75+ yards and can be seen reflecting off a power line tower at 125 yards not far from my house. I'm so impressed with it that I'll probably take some beamshots or just do a video on it when I have time.
 

Kestrel

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I also thought that the heads of the MS and the SP were the same, but early this year I removed the heads from both and to my surprise the SL SP head, while working fine w/ 2xAAA, didn't even fire up from 1xAAA at all. :confused:

I'm not a 10440 person so I don't know much about that, very very few folks have posted about 10440's regarding the SL AAA line.

I think that they have been XP-C's since they were introduced. I don't know the specific changes for the newer C4 models.
 

Patriot

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I also thought that the heads of the MS and the SP were the same, but early this year I removed the heads from both and to my surprise the SL SP head, while working fine w/ 2xAAA, didn't even fire up from 1xAAA at all. :confused:

Good info! There ya go guys, they're regulated differently and the SP head needs more voltage to operate. This means that as far as hot rodding goes, the standard MS is the best candidate.
 
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