Fall in love with your E01 all over again, 5000K, 90CRI

I am a self professed tint snob and beam profile snob. I tried the usual stuff with my Fenix E01, like sandpapering the LED and reflector to smooth it out. I also bought a bunch of these flashlights looking for a nicely tinted version. I was never 100% pleased with the results. I don't like angry purple.


I have now fixed that issue. Enter the 5000K, 90 CRI, 5mm LED:


As you can see, I bought a few more than I need. Nevermind that, let's move into the mod. Click for larger images.








First step was to remove the pill in the light. As you may know, the pill is epoxied into place. I read about many people boiling or cooking their lights to remove the pill. I figured the epoxy would be brittle and so took the less refined approach. I placed the head in a vice so that the lip of the light rested on the lip of the vice, grabbed an allen key with a diameter <5mm and a hammer. The allen key was centred on the LED and the hammer struck the allen key. Out popped the pill. Easy peasy.


You will notice that the LED is not a focused LED - it a shortie, so that required a bit of creativity. Basically, the LED needed to be raised up in the body of the light to get a reasonable beam profile. A bit of sandpaper and I was able to remove the lip on the base without too much trouble. I placed the LED so that it was flush with the base of the cone. This produced a nice beam profile. Check that one off the list.





Once the LED was in place, I soldered a couple wires to the clipped leads and placed it in position. A bit of epoxy to hold it in place, and we were ready to go the next day.


For the pill, I had to take a pair of wire cutters to try to break away the epoxy and uncover enough of the connectors on the board that I could solder to them. I tried the first time with a bit too much cable and had to trim it down so that it was very short and tricky to work with. The result were two very short wire leads that I soldered to the former LED stands. I had to break away some more epoxy to get the pill back in, but managed to coax it all the way back into place.











The LED itself is specified at 5000K and 90 CRI. I don't think it is quite up to that specification, although I am quite pleased with both its colour rendering and also the tint. Check that off too.


I am very pleased with the result. Beamshots below. I selected a manual white balance on the camera (daylight, I think) and these are the results. The LED actually does look better than is depicted here.


Original LED:



Modified LED:






eala

Great mod! Could you name your source for the emitters?
Was there much of a change in the overall output?
Thanks for any info,
Robert

Are you doing anymore

No perceivable change in output. I plan to post my surplus LEDs on MP when I get a chance. They came from Optosupply in HK. Had to hit a minimum order quantity, hence the number I have.

No plans to do more. It was more work than I anticipated, but I suppose now that I know how to I actually don't have any more E01's.

I modded some Coast lights I have too (the freebies from their website). Pure flood.

eala

PM sent. What a great find!
I've got a few lights that I really like and are worth hanging on to that would really benefit from an upgrade. I've ordered a few 5mm here and there based on an advertised "pure white" or "warm white" and was less than impressed. This is the first solution I've seen that looks worthwhile.

Cool, well I hope I'm lucky enough to snag some when you put them up.
:thumbsup: on a great mod

Not only a nifty mod, but nicely presented as well.

I've just had the good fortune to have another CPF member send me a 4500 K Nichia 119 (CRI 92), so I'm looking for a suitable host for that and seeing how it's color rendering abilities compares to some of my filtered lights.

Thanks for sharing this mod, eala.

I would love one, too! Great mod!

The E01 mod is one of the more PITA mods I've done. I would love a HCRI E01 though, are you sure you couldn't just do a couple?

eala said:

No perceivable change in output. I plan to post my surplus LEDs on MP when I get a chance. They came from Optosupply in HK. Had to hit a minimum order quantity, hence the number I have.

No plans to do more. It was more work than I anticipated, but I suppose now that I know how to I actually don't have any more E01's.

I modded some Coast lights I have too (the freebies from their website). Pure flood.

eala

Click to expand...

I'd be intrested in picking up some LEDs from you. Have you thought of modding the Nitecore T0. The electronics arn't potted. I have 3 coming in for a 365nm UV mod

I have a few lights that could benefit from these LEDs as well. olease link to your sale post when it's up.

Has anyone modded an Inova X5 successfully?

I've done a X1 successfully many moons ago. It was a PITA. Used the freeze method.

Great mod but I can't help wondering why there is this "pill" in the LED. I don't know many specifics about LED bulbs but it seems strange to produce something that could be so much better with a slight change in production. Is there a down side to removing it?

Hmmm... I'm intrigued.
I have an E01 and a Princeton Tec Apex Pro that these could look amazing in.

Sweet mod eala. As think2x has mentioned, the E01 was the absolute worst modding experience I've had of any of my lights. You make it look easy. :thumbsup:

My only question is whether your labels are correct on your before & after images (original vs. new LED)? I tested a bunch of these exact LED's a while ago, as did CPF'er THE dAY and the greenish tint of your before picture looks exactly like the LED's I received.

I found the pill removal the easiest part. The rest of it was a PITA.

Interesting question on the beamshots. I may have messed them up. The good news is that I just grabbed my friend's E01 on the weekend and can do some comparison beamshots now. I also have access to whitish walls. Will update a little later on with the results. Will try some with coloured stuff too.

Once I have some more shots done, I will try duplicating the mod on the second light. Will try some more photos during the process this time.

@Player: The only downside to removing the pill is that you have to put it back in

eala

I am pretty confident of my labelling above based on the beam diameter alone. The modified one is much wider. The original is much more focused. Both pictures were taken with the light the same distance from the subject, so I think it is correct. I have a better camera here than the one I used for those shots. I will make some more with this camera to see how they turn out.

@calipsoii: I don't find the tint green at all. On the contrary, they are a hint of blue, but certainly not a green tint.

Let me test some more...

eala

I remember reading another thread on the Nitecore TO, that would probably do nicely

In the following beamshots, the white balance was set to "Outdoors", the shutter speed and aperature were fixed for comparison images and the ISO was set to 80. The first image in each case, is the new LED, the second one is an unmodified E01, and the third one is a Peak Eiger XPG High CRI 90 (added this in for comparison - it is 3000K - I had to stop the camera down a bit so that it did not blind the shots - it is much brighter):






































eala

CarpentryHero said:

I remember reading another thread on the Nitecore TO, that would probably do nicely

Click to expand...

Hmm I was thinking more about the SWM R01A.

The T0 does sound nice too. One of the things I don't like about the T0 is the emitter isn't near as recessed as any of the 5mm lights I've owned. The emitter almost sticks out. So one of those lower profile emitters would really be an improvement for that issue.