milkyspit
Flashlight Enthusiast
FOUND MY WIFE when I got discouraged with years of non-success on the dating scene, and finally decided just to enjoy my life and stop worrying about trying to find that special someone. Suddenly, there she was!
So it was with my latest mod, the Master Blaster. Not that I was ever trying to give MR Bulk a run for his money, but on some occassions in the past I would go into a project with the goal of creating a monstrously bright light, but it never quite worked out the way I had planned. Finally I decided to give up such foolish ventures! I would simply take the lemons I had been dealt and try to squeeze some lemonade out of them.
Enter my Blaster Jr., a nice little light. Well, originally I removed the resistor to make the light direct drive, then replaced the stock emitter with a TV1K Luxeon III, only to find out that my emitter produced a lime green beam and worse yet, had the highest Vf of any K-bin I had ever seen. To add insult to injury, when a few fellow NJ flashaholics (KartRacer31, richpalm, and silvercloud) came over to mod some lights, I saw clearly that my Blaster Jr. was the worst of the bunch by far. And theirs were using both stock emitters and the infamous high resistance 3-to-D battery packs! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif
I hung my head in shame. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
An angled photo of the LuxIII TV1K emitter in my Blaster Jr...
An overhead photo of the same emitter. Although not visible, note that I applied Arctic Silver II thermal compound (NOT epoxy!) to the underside of the star. As you'll see below, this might have ended up one of the success factors in what eventually became a fabulous light!
After thinking about things for a few days, though, I decided to run this light on 2x123 just to get the light working on a cheaper power source. You see, the extremely high Vf of my emitter made it unsuitable for NiMH rechargeables, and lithium AA cells are expensive! As for alkalines, they would grow dim far too quickly, and wouldn't do so well in the low temperatures outdoors in this uncommonly cold NJ winter. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif
Tailcap view of the stock light...
First I needed a battery holder. No problem there! Just happened to have bought some rubber radiator hose from the local auto parts store for a different mod, but never ended up using it. I sliced off enough of a piece to fill most of the Blaster Jr. battery tube, then sliced an 0.25 inch (approximate) strip longways from the hose so I could squeeze it a little smaller and more easily get it in/out of the battery tube. Next, I cut a piece of PVC pipe exactly 3.25 inches long. This pipe was just the right diameter for the 123 cells to sit securely inside, and the length was just right to eliminate sliding around inside the light with the tailcap on.
A look at the opened tailcap with radiator hose, PVC pipe, and 123 cells clearly visible...
I took the spring out of the stock tailcap and set it aside. Now I found a spring in my parts box that was narrow enough to sit on the metallic tail end of a 123 cell. I decided not to attach this replacement spring to the stock tailcap so I could switch back to the stock light more easily if desired later. But to keep the spring from flopping sideways while attaching the tailcap, I put a nylon spacer behind the rear 123 cell.
Nylon spacer sitting behind the rear 123 cell...
Now the spring could sit in the spacer fairly securely, yet completely unattached to the tailcap! Here's a look at the spring sitting in place, ready to pop the tailcap back on the light...
That's it! A dollar's worth (estimated) of parts yielded a nifty 2x123 battery holder. Now we're cookin'! Here's an overhead look at the parts so far...
Same stuff, but looking at it from an angle...
Time to crank up this little puppy! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I should note first that there was one operational premise at work: since I was really displeased with the emitter, I figured it would be no great loss if I fried it. I made sure everything fit, fired 'er up, and... it lit! Always a good sign. Before going much further, I popped off the tailcap for a moment to check current flow from the fresh 123 cells... and measured 2 amps! Actually, that's not as bad as it sounds. If anyone's ever checked a Space Needle II running with new 123 cells, you know the SNII can go even a bit higher in terms of current flow, but that the current also drops steadily while watching the tester. It's like watching a countdown timer!
At any rate, the emitter wouldn't be subjected to such abuse for all that long due to the steady drop in current flow typical of direct drive 123 cell lights. Besides, that Arctic Silver II thermal compound ought to do a good job with heat transfer; it's designed for power hungry CPUs that pump out far more heat than this emitter ever could! And last but not least, if the emitter fried it would just give me the opportunity to put something better in my Blaster Jr.
The housing did grow warm after a minute or so of use, but that's as far as things went. The beam had some faint blue rings near the edge of the spill light, but no blue in the hotspot and certainly no "angry" blue to be seen anywhere. The Master Blaster seemed to be holding together.
Finally, I pulled out my trusty LM631 light meter to take a lux reading, just for the sake of learning more about the light's performance, and was promptly floored by the result! Take a look...
That's 7320 lux at one meter, which puts the Master Blaster squarely in Space Needle territory! A terrific surprise indeed. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif
The beam is now a yellowish white, and very intense. At close range the outline of the LED die is faintly visible, as is a ring around the outside of the spill light. At greater distances, both those artifacts disappear, and the only thing left is an evenly bright, super intense hotspot that carries far into the distance.
So the story has a happy ending. I got my lemonade, at least until the emitter burns out, which so far it shows no signs of doing. I can still run the thing on 3AA batteries whenever I want, although at not even close to the same brightness. This is one tremendous light. Given the compact size and cheap batteries ($2.xx per feeding), I couldn't be happier! I've created... the MASTER BLASTER! A light to make even the great MR Bulk proud. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/buttrock.gif
So it was with my latest mod, the Master Blaster. Not that I was ever trying to give MR Bulk a run for his money, but on some occassions in the past I would go into a project with the goal of creating a monstrously bright light, but it never quite worked out the way I had planned. Finally I decided to give up such foolish ventures! I would simply take the lemons I had been dealt and try to squeeze some lemonade out of them.
Enter my Blaster Jr., a nice little light. Well, originally I removed the resistor to make the light direct drive, then replaced the stock emitter with a TV1K Luxeon III, only to find out that my emitter produced a lime green beam and worse yet, had the highest Vf of any K-bin I had ever seen. To add insult to injury, when a few fellow NJ flashaholics (KartRacer31, richpalm, and silvercloud) came over to mod some lights, I saw clearly that my Blaster Jr. was the worst of the bunch by far. And theirs were using both stock emitters and the infamous high resistance 3-to-D battery packs! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif
I hung my head in shame. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
An angled photo of the LuxIII TV1K emitter in my Blaster Jr...
An overhead photo of the same emitter. Although not visible, note that I applied Arctic Silver II thermal compound (NOT epoxy!) to the underside of the star. As you'll see below, this might have ended up one of the success factors in what eventually became a fabulous light!
After thinking about things for a few days, though, I decided to run this light on 2x123 just to get the light working on a cheaper power source. You see, the extremely high Vf of my emitter made it unsuitable for NiMH rechargeables, and lithium AA cells are expensive! As for alkalines, they would grow dim far too quickly, and wouldn't do so well in the low temperatures outdoors in this uncommonly cold NJ winter. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif
Tailcap view of the stock light...
First I needed a battery holder. No problem there! Just happened to have bought some rubber radiator hose from the local auto parts store for a different mod, but never ended up using it. I sliced off enough of a piece to fill most of the Blaster Jr. battery tube, then sliced an 0.25 inch (approximate) strip longways from the hose so I could squeeze it a little smaller and more easily get it in/out of the battery tube. Next, I cut a piece of PVC pipe exactly 3.25 inches long. This pipe was just the right diameter for the 123 cells to sit securely inside, and the length was just right to eliminate sliding around inside the light with the tailcap on.
A look at the opened tailcap with radiator hose, PVC pipe, and 123 cells clearly visible...
I took the spring out of the stock tailcap and set it aside. Now I found a spring in my parts box that was narrow enough to sit on the metallic tail end of a 123 cell. I decided not to attach this replacement spring to the stock tailcap so I could switch back to the stock light more easily if desired later. But to keep the spring from flopping sideways while attaching the tailcap, I put a nylon spacer behind the rear 123 cell.
Nylon spacer sitting behind the rear 123 cell...
Now the spring could sit in the spacer fairly securely, yet completely unattached to the tailcap! Here's a look at the spring sitting in place, ready to pop the tailcap back on the light...
That's it! A dollar's worth (estimated) of parts yielded a nifty 2x123 battery holder. Now we're cookin'! Here's an overhead look at the parts so far...
Same stuff, but looking at it from an angle...
Time to crank up this little puppy! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I should note first that there was one operational premise at work: since I was really displeased with the emitter, I figured it would be no great loss if I fried it. I made sure everything fit, fired 'er up, and... it lit! Always a good sign. Before going much further, I popped off the tailcap for a moment to check current flow from the fresh 123 cells... and measured 2 amps! Actually, that's not as bad as it sounds. If anyone's ever checked a Space Needle II running with new 123 cells, you know the SNII can go even a bit higher in terms of current flow, but that the current also drops steadily while watching the tester. It's like watching a countdown timer!
At any rate, the emitter wouldn't be subjected to such abuse for all that long due to the steady drop in current flow typical of direct drive 123 cell lights. Besides, that Arctic Silver II thermal compound ought to do a good job with heat transfer; it's designed for power hungry CPUs that pump out far more heat than this emitter ever could! And last but not least, if the emitter fried it would just give me the opportunity to put something better in my Blaster Jr.
The housing did grow warm after a minute or so of use, but that's as far as things went. The beam had some faint blue rings near the edge of the spill light, but no blue in the hotspot and certainly no "angry" blue to be seen anywhere. The Master Blaster seemed to be holding together.
Finally, I pulled out my trusty LM631 light meter to take a lux reading, just for the sake of learning more about the light's performance, and was promptly floored by the result! Take a look...
That's 7320 lux at one meter, which puts the Master Blaster squarely in Space Needle territory! A terrific surprise indeed. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif
The beam is now a yellowish white, and very intense. At close range the outline of the LED die is faintly visible, as is a ring around the outside of the spill light. At greater distances, both those artifacts disappear, and the only thing left is an evenly bright, super intense hotspot that carries far into the distance.
So the story has a happy ending. I got my lemonade, at least until the emitter burns out, which so far it shows no signs of doing. I can still run the thing on 3AA batteries whenever I want, although at not even close to the same brightness. This is one tremendous light. Given the compact size and cheap batteries ($2.xx per feeding), I couldn't be happier! I've created... the MASTER BLASTER! A light to make even the great MR Bulk proud. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/buttrock.gif