milkyspit
Flashlight Enthusiast
Hey everybody! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Like so many fellow CPFers, I bought a Nuwai Quantum-III 1x123 light a while back, and while I thought it was a neat little light, I also found some things not to my liking... so naturally I began modding, heh heh... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Introducing... my pimped-out Nuwai Quantum-III! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif
Okay, well it looks pretty much the same as the UNMODDED Q-III. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
In the interest of offering one example of what can be done with these things, here's a quick rundown of what I did, and why...
1. Replaced the stock LuxIII star with an SY0J binned star, which runs at lower voltage than stock and comes closer to a pure white color. (The original star had a distinctly blue tint.)
2. Replaced the stock boost circuit with a modified board pulled from a Dorcy 1AAA LED light, available for $5.94 at any WalMart. I've been using these boards quite a bit lately, both because of the low price and the easy availability. It does entail a little more labor to prep the board for use, though. Anyway, the board performs more-or-less like a MadMax, or perhaps MMLite and greatly increases the runtime of my Q-III over the stock board, plus fails MUCH more gracefully than the stock board did, with hours upon hours of lingering light that's bright enough to navigate around my house and find stuff in drawers. That's after 120 minutes of basically flat output, followed by 30 minutes of gradual dimming to the low output mode. Here's a runtime chart I did for my MilkMite mod, which uses the same circuit...
3. Removed the switch from inside the tailcap, and inserted an O-ring to recess the rubber boot just enough for the light to stand upright.
4. While the tailswitch was opened, I replaced the switch board itself with a dual brightness one from another Nuwai light, and replaced the resistance for the low beam with a 10 ohm resistor.
5. Added a stainless steel split ring from Berkeley Point, to facilitate easy lanyard carry. If you look closely at the photo, you'll notice something unusual about the split ring: one of the turns is missing around roughly half the circumference of the split ring. I snipped it off! This was because the stock split ring was a little too thick for the attachment point on the clip. After snipping some of the split ring off, it now moves more-or-less freely up and down at the attachment point, and doesn't seem to lose all that much strength... certainly not enough to cause it to fail under the small amount of weight of this particular flashlight!
The upshot of all this is a nice little light that can stand upright, attach to a lanyard, run for 2 hours at high brightness and STILL provide many hours of emergency light, and provide two levels of output: I measured the low output at 83 lux at one meter, and the high level output at 593 lux at one meter. That works well for me! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
The point is, many mods are possible with this light. IMHO it's a great platform for modders! Yippee!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/party.gif
Introducing... my pimped-out Nuwai Quantum-III! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif
Okay, well it looks pretty much the same as the UNMODDED Q-III. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
In the interest of offering one example of what can be done with these things, here's a quick rundown of what I did, and why...
1. Replaced the stock LuxIII star with an SY0J binned star, which runs at lower voltage than stock and comes closer to a pure white color. (The original star had a distinctly blue tint.)
2. Replaced the stock boost circuit with a modified board pulled from a Dorcy 1AAA LED light, available for $5.94 at any WalMart. I've been using these boards quite a bit lately, both because of the low price and the easy availability. It does entail a little more labor to prep the board for use, though. Anyway, the board performs more-or-less like a MadMax, or perhaps MMLite and greatly increases the runtime of my Q-III over the stock board, plus fails MUCH more gracefully than the stock board did, with hours upon hours of lingering light that's bright enough to navigate around my house and find stuff in drawers. That's after 120 minutes of basically flat output, followed by 30 minutes of gradual dimming to the low output mode. Here's a runtime chart I did for my MilkMite mod, which uses the same circuit...
3. Removed the switch from inside the tailcap, and inserted an O-ring to recess the rubber boot just enough for the light to stand upright.
4. While the tailswitch was opened, I replaced the switch board itself with a dual brightness one from another Nuwai light, and replaced the resistance for the low beam with a 10 ohm resistor.
5. Added a stainless steel split ring from Berkeley Point, to facilitate easy lanyard carry. If you look closely at the photo, you'll notice something unusual about the split ring: one of the turns is missing around roughly half the circumference of the split ring. I snipped it off! This was because the stock split ring was a little too thick for the attachment point on the clip. After snipping some of the split ring off, it now moves more-or-less freely up and down at the attachment point, and doesn't seem to lose all that much strength... certainly not enough to cause it to fail under the small amount of weight of this particular flashlight!
The upshot of all this is a nice little light that can stand upright, attach to a lanyard, run for 2 hours at high brightness and STILL provide many hours of emergency light, and provide two levels of output: I measured the low output at 83 lux at one meter, and the high level output at 593 lux at one meter. That works well for me! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
The point is, many mods are possible with this light. IMHO it's a great platform for modders! Yippee!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/party.gif