1765 Lumen P60 Quad XPG Silver Plated Copper Heatsink Direct Drop-in, in developement

[VanIsleDSM]

So I had the idea to do this a while ago, I wanted to try and cram as much light as I could into the P60 format, with heat buildup being the limiting factor I knew multiple CREE XPGs would be the best choice to keep efficiency up.

I used a 1" diameter 4 LED optic and modified it to accept a 5th led in the center that has no optic, to add some flood.

5 mode boost driver from DX,

High 800mA±20mA; Mid 450mA±20mA, Low 210mA±10mA; Fast Strobe 400mA±20mA; SOS:800mA±20mA

As soon as I received the P60 host I bought to build this thing, I knew I'd have to modify it. It was an unfortunate realization, but it's not really a big deal to do, and not only for the size of the driver was it necessary, but also because the P60 format was obviously never optimized for heat transfer, looks like it was originally designed for incan style.

Running 5 XPGs @ 800mA making for ~12.8W of output power, I wanted direct heatsink contact with the body of the flashlight.

How do all of these P60 modules cope? with the new MC-E and SST versions? They don't even directly touch the body of the light, huge amounts of light will be lost to heat, which will lower the efficiency and create more heat upon heat, your hand may even get as hot as if the light were getting proper heatsinking, but inside it'll be burning up, and losing serious performance.

At any rate, I had to slightly bore out the inside of the threads on the tube, and scrape a little off the inside part of the o-ring groove for the lens. There's a bit of gap as it won't close all the way, but the o-ring on this host is hugely thick, and therefore the groove is deep, I couldn't bore past it, or it would have easily fit. I have ordered a few different cheapo hosts to see how this module fits in each.

On a pair of fresh 16340s the draw is 1.8A. A little high, especially as the voltage drops, and current goes up further. I did a couple runtime tests though. With the blue "1000mAh" ultrafires that are hugely oversized I only got 13min on high. With the newer black trustfire "880mah" I got 17min on high. As voltage drops to 6V, current is up to 2.2A, from there it takes about 10 seconds to creep up to about 2.7A and then the protection kicks in shutting off current. I know this is too much for Li-Co, I just wanted to see what was happening through the full range, I won't be doing this regularly, going to order up some IMR16340s for this guy.

Pics to come soon.. I promise.. I'll still having fun testing and toying with this mini-beast at the moment. Holy $%#& is it bright!

 

[VanIsleDSM]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Ok, took some pics, and ordered some IMR16340s.

Before modification: The red in the first picture shows where the host had to be bored out slightly to accept the drop-in. The second picture is of the head with the lens and o-ring removed. The black is where the o-ring sits, and the red marks where about 0.75mm had to be removed from the inside of the lip that holds the o-ring.

The other pics are after modification and the drop-in itself. The grey goo is arctic silver 5 that I had already smeared on the threads as well as between the heatsink and body.

I'll try to get some actual beam shots tonight.. I can't believe how bright this thing is.



Pics were sucking up all my bandwidth.

 

[skyfire]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

beamshots!!!

 

[shortstack]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

NICE!!!!

 

[don.gwapo]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Nice mod and as always, beamshots please.

 

[Kestrel]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Very nice. You know, if you wanted to build these & sell them, you could pretty much name your price - $150 each would be a good starting point. These types of units are in extremely high demand, especially if it contained a three-mode driver. From what I read, there will be only ~30 Moddoo / ElectronGuru XP-G triples (at about that price), and there is a huge waiting list that may not be fulfilled for the foreseable future.

I understand that the hosts would need to be modified, that probably wouldn't be that much of an issue for many folks - these 'drop-ins' would be far more valuable than many of the hosts that folks here have.

Again, that looks to be a fantastic unit. :thumbsup:

K

 

[Kevin1322]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Sweet!!!:twothumbs

 

[VanIsleDSM]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Thanks for the compliments! I'll try to get some beamshots tomorrow night, I was busy tonight installing some green LED footwell lighting in a friend's car.

As for making these units available for sale, I would like to do that. I wasn't sure demand was that high though, I ordered parts to build a few more, with the new R4 neutral white XPGs

I suppose I should order parts to build some more? I was planning to offer just a 4 LED unit as well, which would most likely allow the use of regular Li-Ion batteries instead of the IMRs, and price would be less, as the 5th LED is quite a bit more customization to add.

Just encase anybody is worried like I was.. I didn't mount the 5th LED to just aluminum with epoxy, since it's sitting up on a pedestal and the heat has longer to travel to to get out along a skinnier path as opposed to being mounted on a flat plain, I decided to solder it directly to solid piece of copper that links up to the heatsink. I don't have any numbers to say so, but I imagine that helps equal out the thermal resistance, as the other 4 LEDs on the MCPCB have to get through the dielectric layer.

As for the modification, I haven't seen a lot of hosts to see how possible it is on all of them. but I don't think it should be too tough, it's not very much material to be removed. Around the o-ring on the head, it could easily be done with a dremel by hand, and may not even need to be done on some hosts, it's just so the optic can fit through there. On the body, it's just a quick, shallow bore. You could most likely convince a guy at your local machine shop to stay 5min after work and do it for a case of beer. I could also offer it as a cheap service if the host was shipped to me, I just don't know for sure how capable they all are of being modified.

Any other feedback about building some of these for the CPF community would be great. I'm not entirely sure how to collect orders. Make a list and then get the parts and build? I wouldn't want to just buy a bunch of parts and get stuck with them.. but I suppose if the interest is really there it wouldn't be an issue.

 

[PolarBearX]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

very nice looking...what's the runtime and how hot does it get...would it come with an oven mitt :thumbsup: ....oh yea and beamshots

PBX

 

[Kestrel]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

As for making these units available for sale, I would like to do that. I wasn't sure demand was that high though, I ordered parts to build a few more, with the new R4 neutral white XPGs.

Probably the sale thread most comparable is:
Moddoo Direct Drive Triple XP-G R5 P60 Drop-in: in limited production
with the extensive reservation list compiled from this (very long) thread:
Moddoo Drop-ins: Triple CREE XP-E

There is a lot of reading in the above threads if you haven't read them yet, but what you might find to be the most interest is in the particular requests and comments by posters providing input as to what they wanted to see as the XP-G product was progressing in the XP-E thread above.

There definitely should be some interest in a sellable product, my only suggestion would be the driver - IMO the primary market for this type of unit would be a high-quality 3-mode driver (you may want to PM Justin Case on this, he really knows his stuff on drivers & is very helpful), also possibly a single-mode driver as well. Anyway, just my opinions, I'm no expert, just a potential customer.

I suppose I should order parts to build some more? I was planning to offer just a 4 LED unit as well, which would most likely allow the use of regular Li-Ion batteries instead of the IMRs, and price would be less, as the 5th LED is quite a bit more customization to add.

IMO a 4-LED unit would be much better - LiCo compatiblity is a huge plus instead of IMR-only. Also, with regards to customization time, although by now probably over 100 people have posted interest-to-buy for the Moddoo XP-G triples (which are $144), the last info from Moddoo / ElectronGuru on these is that there will only 30 of them due to them being too time consuming to make. So it sounds like your additional time required for the 5th LED would be pretty counter-productive in the big picture. 4 LED's would be just fine, especially if you can maximize the heat sinking - Moddoo used copper in his triple XP-G modules, and from what I can see of his pics, they are exceedingly well-designed - it sounds like those emitters can be driven very hard due to that design.

BTW for any aluminum components that you do use, to optimize thermal transfer it would be best to make it out of C.P. (commercially pure - ideal) or 1000-series aluminum (not quite as good, but it would be stronger for doing threads, etc). The harder alloys (2xxx, 6xxx, 7xxx, etc) really take a significant hit when it comes to thermal conductivity.

As for the modification, I haven't seen a lot of hosts to see how possible it is on all of them. but I don't think it should be too tough, it's not very much material to be removed. Around the o-ring on the head, it could easily be done with a dremel by hand, and may not even need to be done on some hosts, it's just so the optic can fit through there. On the body, it's just a quick, shallow bore.

I think one key issue here is whether a modified host will be able to go back to containing a regular 'spring' drop-in and/or a Malkoff M60-series drop-in and still function adequately. If your larger 'well' in the head becomes to wide and/or deep, I would suggest offering an additional 'slug' turned from a piece of aluminum tubing that would re-occupy the volume that you are removing from the host. That would probably provide backward compatibility for when a user would want to put a 'normal' drop-in back into the modified host. This would be a very simple part to make and I think folks would like to have them if they had their hosts modified - I know I would want one of those for sure.

Any other feedback about building some of these for the CPF community would be great. I'm not entirely sure how to collect orders. Make a list and then get the parts and build? I wouldn't want to just buy a bunch of parts and get stuck with them.. but I suppose if the interest is really there it wouldn't be an issue.

Sorry but I don't have any helpful advice here - I've never done anything like this. As I said, I'm just a potential customer. :huh:


Oh, and BTW, I think your pics in post #1 are a little too wide - IIRC the maximum width is 800 pixels.

 

[VanIsleDSM]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

I haven't read through the Moddoo thread yet, but I did take a look at it yesterday after you mentioned the unit. Very nicely made, every extreme has been taken with that thing. I have built a few projects as well soldering directly to copper. Works quite well and saves about 1-2 C/W. With the XPG that'll mean about an extra 2-3% light output. The only thing I'm not crazy about with that unit is the parallel driving of the LEDs at high current. There could be some pretty serious current mismatch due to Vf variation, these aren't matched up like a multi die emitter, I've tested about 10 and they are all over the map for voltage.

As for the drivers, I know the strobe and the SOS are annoying, but unfortunately these drivers come like that. I'll go probing around on the next board I get. I don't have a PIC programmer, but I have programmed many chips on a serial connection. I could perhaps just remove the PIC and replace it with my own. All of the markings on the chips have been scraped off the top, which makes diagnosis a little tougher, no datasheets to read, but I may be able to figure it out, maybe with some of this Justin_Case fellow's help if he's willing.

Originally when I was going to make this unit, I was planning to build my own driver, using 5 buck/boost drivers all together based on the TPS63000, would have been a bad *** ~93 efficient buck/boost driver that would have driver 5 LEDs to 1000mA from a single 18650 instead of 2 16340s. But.. it would have been about $50 each in electronics to make each driver.. so when I saw this 5 LED boost driver from DX, I had to get it, cut down on my build time significantly. This driver is pretty good too, it's quite efficient. Eprom has done some tests on it in the LED driver thread.

Right now I'm working on a different driver for the 4 LED unit. Instead of a boost driver this one is a linear driver, to be used with a single 18650. The major difference with this linear driver is that each LED will have it's own output. No current mismatching. 1050mA each. Driver modes will be user configurable. Select from 5 mode, hi-low-strobe, hi-med-low, or hi-low. Single mode operation would be possible too, but that would have to be done before everything was put together and it would stay like that. The other mode groups can change from 5 to 3 to 2 mode yourself after you have the unit.

Meanwhile I will still try to figure out the boost driver to get down to 3 modes for those who would prefer to have the CC boost through the whole Li-Ion range from slightly less energy (2x16340) compared to a linear driver that will start to dim when it's bellow LED Vf, but packs energy overall from a single 18650 and has configurable modes.

I forgot about the archaic 800pixel thing, cropping my pics right now

 

[Kestrel]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

I like it. :thumbsup:


BTW a two-mode module (just hi & low) using 1x18650 would be just awesome - I love single LiIon setups. :twothumbs

I currently have a 18-mm bored SF 6P which is empty when my only Malkoff is in my C3 - I've been waiting for the latest & greatest XP-G P60 drop-in for a while now. It's ironic that my 18mm 6P can contain more watt-hours than my 18mm C3.

 

[VanIsleDSM]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

I've been taking some more measurements and sketched a couple things up with CAD, and I think I may actually be able to make the 4 XPG unit straight drop-in with some modification of the the optic. Using a single 18650 driver that is mode configurable as previously mentioned. I need the other hosts I've ordered to get here though.

My only concern with the straight drop-in is the heat transfer. The drop-in that came with the host I bought and converted to the 5 XPG didn't fit snug into the body at all. The drop-in is 22mm, while the host had a 22.6mm bore. That's way too much space to move around. How much does the bore on P60 hosts vary? I'd like to make the drop-in fit as snug as possible, but without being so big it won't fit into some.

 

[dirtech]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Ok this is awesome and I bet there is a market here for these. I think moddo was contemplating a quad inside a M2 head but you got 5 in there! I would be interested in one, but would have to sell off some stuff first or wait until next years flashlight budget.

 

[Kestrel]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

The drop-in is 22mm, while the host had a 22.6mm bore. That's way too much space to move around. How much does the bore on P60 hosts vary? I'd like to make the drop-in fit as snug as possible, but without being so big it won't fit into some.

Anto recently did a polling-type thread here to find out the variance with the particular ID that you are most interested in for SureFire 6P hosts - after reading your post I thought that this info would be right up your alley. Sounds like 22.17 - 22.18 mm from a quick skim of a few posts in there.

(It looks like you are using an UltraFire 6P-type host, I have one SolarForce host which may be comparable & a touch wider than my SureFire P-type hosts. I left my calipers at work or else I could supply sample measurements from my modest collection at least.)

I would be interested in one, but would have to sell off some stuff first or wait until next years flashlight budget.

Heck, I haven't bought any lights for myself since the middle of last year, waiting for the new XP-G P60 drop-ins.
I have PayPal ready and can even mortgage the cat to get my hands on a triple or a quad.

 

[BigHonu]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Nice job VanIsleDSM!

I think Kestrel covered the main points to target to make this drop in a hit if you were to consider going into production.

The only other thing that I can come up with that would make this drop-in even better is to find some good throwy optics designed for the XP-G. Seems like that is an itch that hasn't quite been scratched yet.

My selfish wish list:
2x123 primaries and 1x18650 compatible. If the driver performs like Gene's in his M60/M60L where you get full power from the primaries and an 18650 would give slightly less output but wicked long runtime (with diminishing output), then I would be a happy camper. I guess that would be your 'linear' driver that you describe.

I like a single mode (as long as the driver behaves as described above), but understand that multi-mode is more attactive to others. If you are going to do something with a memory function, have the memory set based upon how long the light has been OFF. A second is plenty of time. That way you can quickly blip through the levels to find the one you want, and having the light off for a second will set it there. Much better than having to hold the level in the 'on' position for X seconds to set the memory.

Narrow optics (8 degrees or less) would be good because I'm thinking that with 4 emitters, there will be a ton of flood/spill no matter how narrow you go. Might as well put some light as far downrange as possible at the same time!

Just my $.02

BTW, I'd definitely buy one, especially if you can get a nice long reaching beam out of it!

Awaiting the beamshots!

Forgot to add that host modification would make this slightly less attactive. I like to play Lego with my lights, and having a specialized host makes the Lego part a little harder.

 

[ptolemy]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

I have a FM d26, 26650 host, i'd like 4 or 5 die...it will run off 4000mah, imr which can take 10amps, so i think it might be perfect match for both

whenever you are ready, I would love high/low or high/med/low

pm me for quickest reply

 

[VanIsleDSM]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Been busy working on getting these 4 and 5 XPG units to drop right into a P60 with no modification. Looks like I've got it figured. With the new linear single 18650 driver the max current is 1050mA per LED with the modes configurable as described above. Medium is 350mA, and low is 30mA. So the 5 LED unit will be even brighter, according to jtr1962's awesome white LED lumen tests, this would mean about 1815 Lumen.

I took a couple quick beamshots. First pic is a CREE XRE R2 @1050mA, second, the 5 XPG R5 @800mA per LED. Both pics were taken on manual with the same shutter, aperture, and iso. I'll get some white wall shots as soon as I can.. Waiting for a few parts and I should have the new prototype straight drop-in 4 and 5 units built and ready to make multiples of.



Pics sucking up all my bandwidth




I still need a bit of help though, to determine the best diameter for the drop-in. According to the Anto polling thread, the diamter of the bore is 22.17-22.18. Quite a bit smaller than the host I have, which was 22.6mm. I suppose that would explain why the drop-in is only 22mm, which would probably fit pretty well in the 22.17mm bore.

So what type of lights are most people putting drop-ins into? genuine surefire lights that all have a 22.17mm bore? Do the stock 22mm drop-ins fit snugly in the 22.17mm bore?

Thanks guys, should have these done before the end of the week if all goes well.

 

[icaruz]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Wow, that's a lot of light. Hopefully you can start a sales thread soon. BTW why P60/D26 format? we have a few member dealing with this size but not multiple XP-G on bigger P90/D36 form factor? But still i will be interested to have this in my hands and compare it with my Moddoo triple XP-G.

 

[BigHonu]

Re: 5X XPG P60 "sort of" drop-in. ~1475 Lumen @115lm/W!

Impressive!

Regarding hosts, I believe that if it can fit in a Surefire it will fit into most other hosts.

I see that Solarforce is another popular host.

Let us know when you have the prototypes ready.