After reading about some amazing mods like these:naughty:: ( http://messerforum.net/showthread.php?t=70329 ) I made the mistake of trying a mod myself. I love my Surefires, especially with TIR optics, but my E1L had a green tint :sick2: and I had an idea..... I had a single level mini-maglite XPG upgrade dropin: ( http://www.led4more.de/cms/index.php?cat=KAT08&lang=DEU&product=P000007 ) which has a very nice tint indeed. It produces about 180 lumen with 2 AA batteries and is a very well made unit.
Step one was the disassembly of the E1L head. Despite finding a lot of information online on how to do this, I ended up grabbing the head by the threads with a pair of pliers :eek: when I couldn't get the LED assembly out:ohgeez:.:oops: (I got the bottom half off after boiling the head, but the top part (with the TIR and LED) remained stuck) With personality traits like mine these type of mods should NOT be attempted:sigh:
Luckily the threads still worked and I ended up drilling a hole through the driver board for the dropin after taking out the LED. Obviously I didn't need the driver anymore as the dropin has its own driver. I soldered the bottom of the dropin with a little wire to the bottom of the original head and reassembled the head. To my amazement the threads still worked and the head closed up nicely. From the outside the head looks exactly like the original, with an XPG LED.:naughty:
Compared to my 110 lumen E1B, it is significantly brighter with a lot more spill and slightly less throw. I have run it on LiFePO4 cell with 40 minutes runtime on high (same as E1B) with nice flashing warning when batteries reach about 2.1V.
I'd love to post some pics, but haven't managed. I have the pics here: https://public.me.com/seppiepanzer Maybe somebody could post them in this thread?:sssh:The beamshot is with my 110 lumen E1B left and the xpg-modded E1L right.
So now my E1L is a single level pocket-rocket of close to 200 lumen with a lot for flood than before. Luckily the botched threads still worked and are invisible with the head assembled. I gained a lot of respect for the quality of the surefire when I disassembled it and ordered another E1L: this one I wont mod.:whistle:
Step one was the disassembly of the E1L head. Despite finding a lot of information online on how to do this, I ended up grabbing the head by the threads with a pair of pliers :eek: when I couldn't get the LED assembly out:ohgeez:.:oops: (I got the bottom half off after boiling the head, but the top part (with the TIR and LED) remained stuck) With personality traits like mine these type of mods should NOT be attempted:sigh:
Luckily the threads still worked and I ended up drilling a hole through the driver board for the dropin after taking out the LED. Obviously I didn't need the driver anymore as the dropin has its own driver. I soldered the bottom of the dropin with a little wire to the bottom of the original head and reassembled the head. To my amazement the threads still worked and the head closed up nicely. From the outside the head looks exactly like the original, with an XPG LED.:naughty:
Compared to my 110 lumen E1B, it is significantly brighter with a lot more spill and slightly less throw. I have run it on LiFePO4 cell with 40 minutes runtime on high (same as E1B) with nice flashing warning when batteries reach about 2.1V.
I'd love to post some pics, but haven't managed. I have the pics here: https://public.me.com/seppiepanzer Maybe somebody could post them in this thread?:sssh:The beamshot is with my 110 lumen E1B left and the xpg-modded E1L right.
So now my E1L is a single level pocket-rocket of close to 200 lumen with a lot for flood than before. Luckily the botched threads still worked and are invisible with the head assembled. I gained a lot of respect for the quality of the surefire when I disassembled it and ordered another E1L: this one I wont mod.:whistle:
