wquiles
Flashaholic
Thanks to a couple of forum members we now have access to the excellent Nichia 219 4500 (92 CRI) LED's. These have the same exact footprint as the Cree XP-G, this the boards from the XP-G work with these Nichia LED's - I don't know about you , but that makes them great for modding/LED swaps
There is now a special edition V11R with a high CRI warm LED, but the specs are not nearly as good as what you can get from this Nichia LED, so I recently got my Sunwayman V10R Ti+, which comes with the XM-L LED, with the intention of modding it for one of these Nichia LED's.
Here is the Nichia LED with blank 10mm round boards for the XP-G:
But before I got to the LED swap, I had to dissasemble the light, and discover some things along the way - it was not a trivial swap! (more on that later)
In order not to damage the finish on the light, I machined a custom Delrin sleeve:
Front bezel comes off easily enough:
For the middle section, I used my restored Wilton vise, with the custom Aluminum soft jaws, and the custom Delrin sleeve to tightly grab the lower section right below the selector ring:
I then used a piece of the Delrin sleeve to go around the top:
And after applying a good grip with special pipe pliers, I got the two parts to come off without any damage/scars:
The magnetic ring comes off (that lightweight transparent grease is what gives the selector that fluid feeling):
Then go to the opposite side and start removing the positive cover to access the driver/electronics:
The factory scratched off the part number on the micro-controller:
Then you can carefully de-solder the wires:
And carefully pull out the LED and wires. Note the LED is "not" glued down, but has thermal paste in there (way too much!):
A very interesting piece is the white spacer. It is not just a spacer to set the focus, but it is the "only" thing that keeps the LED centered in the body - it is critical:
The other critical data point is that the factory board is much thinner than normal metal core PCB's:
Here I am re-flowing the Nichia into the XP-G 10mm boards:
Focus is not perfect, but more than adequate BUT the bezel does "not" screw down all of the way!:
Since the Nichia is smaller than the XM-L, I needed a custom spacer to center the LED, to try to achieve focus, and thin enough to enable closing the bezel down as much as possible. So I started by making various custom spacers to try out:
Photo to compare the new spacer (black Delrin) vs. the OEM white spacer (which only works with the XM-L):
Once I had a spacer that worked, I had to make some cuts on the bottom to allow for the soldered wires to fit - then I was able to start the re-assembly process:
I put a "little" thermal paste, and then moved the LED down several times to spread it and end up with a very thin layer:
The reflector and bezel create some extra rings (there also in the XM-L), but it looks very good: not too floody, not too throwy. First photo is at a higher output level and in focus, the second photo is at a lower output level but unfortunately out of focus:
Not counting making the Delrin sleeve (which is reusable of course), dis-assembly, de-soldering, making the custom Delrin spacer for the Nichia, soldering, putting everything back together, etc. is about 2 hours to do. Not "easy" but doable, and the results are outstanding - the Nichia LED has a perfect tint - looks great!
Will
There is now a special edition V11R with a high CRI warm LED, but the specs are not nearly as good as what you can get from this Nichia LED, so I recently got my Sunwayman V10R Ti+, which comes with the XM-L LED, with the intention of modding it for one of these Nichia LED's.
Here is the Nichia LED with blank 10mm round boards for the XP-G:
But before I got to the LED swap, I had to dissasemble the light, and discover some things along the way - it was not a trivial swap! (more on that later)
In order not to damage the finish on the light, I machined a custom Delrin sleeve:
Front bezel comes off easily enough:
For the middle section, I used my restored Wilton vise, with the custom Aluminum soft jaws, and the custom Delrin sleeve to tightly grab the lower section right below the selector ring:
I then used a piece of the Delrin sleeve to go around the top:
And after applying a good grip with special pipe pliers, I got the two parts to come off without any damage/scars:
The magnetic ring comes off (that lightweight transparent grease is what gives the selector that fluid feeling):
Then go to the opposite side and start removing the positive cover to access the driver/electronics:
The factory scratched off the part number on the micro-controller:
Then you can carefully de-solder the wires:
And carefully pull out the LED and wires. Note the LED is "not" glued down, but has thermal paste in there (way too much!):
A very interesting piece is the white spacer. It is not just a spacer to set the focus, but it is the "only" thing that keeps the LED centered in the body - it is critical:
The other critical data point is that the factory board is much thinner than normal metal core PCB's:
Here I am re-flowing the Nichia into the XP-G 10mm boards:
Focus is not perfect, but more than adequate BUT the bezel does "not" screw down all of the way!:
Since the Nichia is smaller than the XM-L, I needed a custom spacer to center the LED, to try to achieve focus, and thin enough to enable closing the bezel down as much as possible. So I started by making various custom spacers to try out:
Photo to compare the new spacer (black Delrin) vs. the OEM white spacer (which only works with the XM-L):
Once I had a spacer that worked, I had to make some cuts on the bottom to allow for the soldered wires to fit - then I was able to start the re-assembly process:
I put a "little" thermal paste, and then moved the LED down several times to spread it and end up with a very thin layer:
The reflector and bezel create some extra rings (there also in the XM-L), but it looks very good: not too floody, not too throwy. First photo is at a higher output level and in focus, the second photo is at a lower output level but unfortunately out of focus:
Not counting making the Delrin sleeve (which is reusable of course), dis-assembly, de-soldering, making the custom Delrin spacer for the Nichia, soldering, putting everything back together, etc. is about 2 hours to do. Not "easy" but doable, and the results are outstanding - the Nichia LED has a perfect tint - looks great!
Will