Thanksgiving mod :)

My brother and his girlfriend came over for Thanksgiving dinner. He had his KL4 on a Vital Gear FB2 with him. Being the newbie modder that I am, I offered my services in exchange for more experience with modding lights. I slapped a Wiz2 (750mA) with a Luxeon III UX1L in the KL4 in less than an hour (slow newbie, for sure) and my brother is a happy camper. I guess that makes the mod my Christmas gift to him, too. I gained more modding experience, plus a Luxeon V emitter in the process. All in all, a successful modding night. I really wish the emitters had their bin codes marked on them somehow, like on the stars.

How did you open the KL4?

Vortex said:

How did you open the KL4?

Click to expand...

Vortex, some KL4s are easier to open than others. Here's one way to do it:

1) Wrap two wide rubber bands on the separate sections of the bezel as seen here and twist to open:


2) If the bezel sections don't budge, you'll have to break down the Loctite bond by enclosing the KL4 in a ziploc bag or cling wrap (opening secured with a rubber band) and immersing it in boiling water for 5 minutes. Retry step #1.

3) Once you have the bezel open, it'll look like this:


4) Lift the section holding the converter to expose two screws that secure the LED to the reflector:

*The above picture shows the Wiz2 converter in place. Not the neatest mod job around, but it works.

Thanks for the info and the pics. I'm gonna try and swap in a W bin lux V.

grnamin,

Do you know if the newest gen KL1's open up in the same or similar way?

sidespill said:

grnamin,

Do you know if the newest gen KL1's open up in the same or similar way?

Click to expand...

Sidespill, the newest gen KL1 is designed differently from the KL4. You'll need a spanner tool in order to remove the assembly that holds the converter board and LED. Check out this post:
http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=96757&highlight=kl1
I ended up destroying the KL1 in an attempt to mod it.

I have a KL4 that has a hole in its beam and I want to swap the Lux V out for a better bin Lux V . My question is do you know what the stock converter runs at ? and what bin Lux V would be the best for this light ?
All the mods I have done so far were Lux III´s . Never looked into the Lux V´s to see what was good and whats not .
Thanks

Kenny

Kenny, I don't know what the stock converter runs at, only that it burns out Luxeon IIIs after a few minutes of use. If you can get an X-bin Lux V and put it in the KL4, that would probably be a significant improvement. I don't now if the donut would disappear. The donut might be caused not by the LED itself, but its position in relation to the reflector. Shimming the LED might fix the donut.

Thanks Greg ,

I took the body apart (I had to heat it up with a heat gun a little) and got every thing ready to go , just need to find an X-Bin Lux V
and I will change it out . Can hardly wait to see what happends .
Hope I get rid of the donut .

Kenny

Good luck, Kenny!