Arc AAA LE modded w/ XR-E & 10440 Li-Ion

[yclo]

Who likes flood lights? I know I do.

I purchased an AAA sized 10440 Li-ion and charger with the intention of upgrading my Arc AAA to something better than the Nichia 5mm that was once bright enough for any flashaholic.

I used a XR-E emitter since the dome is tougher than SSC P4's gummy bear dome.



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Running at ~700mA with 2 x AMC7135 chips, the results are so amazing that I'm impressed everytime I turn it on. Here are some beamshots, the blue photon clone is actually brighter than the unmodded Arc AAA Limited Edition.

But, this mod wasn't done without sacrifice. An Arc AAA head was ruined in the process.

I had made up a can to fit the emitter/AMC7135's, but the blue arrow points to where the trouble started.


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As far as I knew, the Cree XR-E emitter only had contact pads on the ceramic board. And the board can only be shaved so small with bits of the contact pad still showing so wires could be soldered on.

Once I got to the smallest possible diameter, I started opening up the cavity in the Arc AAA head to fit the can. But I found out that the area where the o-ring goes can get really thin, this was after it broke into two pieces. See blue arrows below.


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So I made the second Arc AAA head cavity tighter, and all is good.

Are there contact points on the XR-E emitter that I could have used other than on the ceramic pad to avoid this in the future?

-YC

 

[bombelman]

cool, very cool !!

 

[lukus]

Wow! Very nice beam, I prefer floody on the small pocket lights and that looks perfect.

How did you get the led and driver out of the Arc head? I've tried on two of mine and stopped at the point where I was sure I was about to destroy them.

Also, how close does the XRE come the front of the head? Looking at the unassembled picture looks like the XRE would be almost flush to the front.

 

[Clickie]

If anyone is thinking of attempting this mod I suggest contacting Chimo! He is simplpy the man! He made me mine which still works great and I'll bet he'd be willing to help 'ya w/any questions you might have:twothumbs

 

[yclo]

Thanks George. :wave:

.....How did you get the led and driver out of the Arc head? I've tried on two of mine and stopped at the point where I was sure I was about to destroy them.

Also, how close does the XRE come the front of the head? Looking at the unassembled picture looks like the XRE would be almost flush to the front.

I tried to heat up the head to extract the led/driver, but they're stuck in there good. So I drilled them out on the lathe, turned the led/driver into scrap... The XR-E dome is around 2~3mm in from the front.

-YC