Building a small custom E-series lego flashlight...

[Tana]

Hello everybody...

It's been a while since I posted anything on CPF... the reason is that I quit overseas deployment and been spending last four months trying to make up for three years of absence from home and loved ones... which is impossible...

But while I was over there, I was active with reading and also buying lego Surefire and clone items for my collection that I have now... It really helped me with keeping my mind busy and forgetting harsh surroundings I worked in... so...

Out of all that I started even making my own custom P60 pills... Thanks to lot of documentation on the net and especially CPF but also few awesome CPF members I succeeded in making few items that I loved and still use... The last thing soldered "overseas" was mod to LumensFactory E series black head and their proprietary pill and changing XPG with poor tint to Nichia 219 emitter... the same one was used by me in the last 5 months as EDC on my belt and I LOVED it... BUT...

My main idea was to make one super small flashlight to be my EDC/backup light that will be with me all the time... the body of choice was Vital Gear FB1-BK as it was cool looking, short, clipped and able to tailstand... the mentioned LF E-series head modded with Nicha-219 was mounted as light engine... well, until few days ago... as I succeeded turning my plan into reality after few months of not dealing with flashlights at all (except for using them when needed at dark fall nights)...

It all started as a scheme... some measuring, planning, thinking has turned into this scheme...

Basically all needed coordinates and measurements... the idea was to use complete incan E-series head that will be bored out to 20mm wide and 15.75mm depth to accommodate custom pill that will have mounted Triple-XPG (Triple-219) LED's with optics... However, the pill could have been made in few different ways... I tried avoiding making part that would protrude into body once head is screwed as for thickness of the pill... driver, being 17mm wide would be about the same width as the body so the edge of the pill would be VERY thin and still some grinding would needed to be done... so I just decided to make simple pill without parts entering the body but the (+) spring...

In order to do so I needed more room above pill in order to have at least 3mm heatsink as part of the pill... enter MiniMag bezel part with Lighthound MiniMag mineral glass... this solution gave me about 2mm of extra room for LED star to be mounted... it does look a little phoney at first but I went the common sense way for "prototype" - practicality way... So the whole light was supposed to look like this:

This thing is TINY... I just loved it the first time I put it together as empty shell w/o LED's and electronics... and it sit on my shelf for months waiting patiently to be put together... As for majority of people, even if I had have found the time, I didn't have a lathe to do what needed to be done to the head and to make the pill out of brass... so finally few days ago I went to my "distant friend" (as I know the guy but not my real friend) who has gun repair shop and has all these cool tools/toys to play with... so we created this "pact" where I would help him with his regular job fixing few hunting rifles and he would help me machine the head and pill as per schematics... so about 6 hours of helping him and about 15-20 mins of him following my instructions the following items were ready...

The parts were fresh from the workshop so no sanding of rough edges was done at the time of taking pics...

So the "most difficult" part was done for majority of us amateurs... now we need Triple-LED star and optics... IlluminationSupply was the shop of choice for teflon wire, optics and Triple-XPG R4 5000K star (gotta love neutral beam AND didn't go with Nichia-219 right away as this was prototype with no firm results but high expectations)... bought few months ago in 4-5 each part quantity to be used "once I'm retired"... The driver used was from Solarforce 0.8-4.2V XPG 3-Mode drop-in... it's cheap, it's good quality and rather good driver for exactly what I need... the possibility to run 1xCR123, 1xLiIon, 1xAA, 2xAA is just great in my eyes even if some people will find faults in this driver (i'm speculating here that they will but who knows)... I bought a digital soldering station (that in the end proved to be HORRIBLE and will be replaced ASAP - RadioShack one but one has ToolCraft as brand on it - couldn't keep the tip of the chisel hot enough to melt solder even on max setting)...

So after some rough cursing on my end but also "the nerves of steel" I succeeded making a whole pill with LED and driver in place... I believe few joints are cold-solder but I was just happy when I connected AA battery and saw it shining...

The pill is removable and it's easy to slide out once MiniMag bezel ring is removed so it can be interchangeable with any future pill/heads I make (hopefully... few parts of mm during lathe job and fitting might be not possible but I can always use this head in parts to give to my friend to get exact measurement for any future head I make - and I plan 2 or 3 more with different LED's/drivers)... So the complete light with comparison to E1E and my already former EDC light (this light is great... great throw, great battery life, great modes, some buzzing on low and medium and no mode switching once left too long on high but just LOVE the mode changing with short memory inbetween off/on that allows mode change making me sure that I ALWAYS start the flashlight on low mode as I left it before)...

My new EDC/backup is FLOODY with short throw as you would expect... it's not pushed hard at all, current draw of the driver with CR123 battery being 60mA/240mA/680mA... so about 2hrs on high from one primary, forever on low mode...

However... the same head installed on FiveMega E-18650 custom body with AW 3100mAh battery is a completely different beast pulling flat 2 Amps from the cell on high - delivering around 650-700mA to each LED... I believe it gives at least 500 OTF floody lumens at start-up but gets warm rather quick... 20-30 seconds and already warm on touch... in close future will have to do more thorough tests to see how hot it gets in what time... also have to try using IMR cell that will give even more amps to each LED on high... but this light is mainly going to be used with primary cell and just enough lumens for my eyes on low or high... it will only be used with big setup to impress people for few seconds and that's it...

Hope you enjoyed the read and hopefully I will have more projects with more pics and steps described...

 

[shrike2222]

It's nice work!

 

[Quest4fire]

Nice edc Tana. I'm sure everyone is surprised at the light that little guy puts out! I wish I knew someone willing to barter machine work. Like many others, I have to use a dremel, drill press, etc. to make my custom heatsinks. It's worth it though, when the finished product turns out as expected. I just built a flashlight using that same 3-up board and a solarforce host and a Fivemega P60 finned bezel (Not the beefy bezel, an earlier one).

The first soldering station I ever owned was from Radio Shack. Total junk! The problem was the tip corroded almost immediately (Cheap tip that got too hot), and solder would not adhere/flow onto the tip/work. I have one of these as a back-up to my Hakko soldering station, but it is able to get hotter than the soldering station iron so it gets used quite a bit to do heavier work (Springs, pills). The beauty of it is, the inexpensive adjustable iron uses the same interchangeable tip system as the soldering station, and there are many different kinds of tips for most any soldering job. Plus, I quit using a damp sponge and switched to one of these instead. Flux is now my friend as well. Trust me, a bad iron will make you question your skills as well as your sanity. You can get the iron and an assorted pack of 10 tips for less than $25.00 on ebay.

Sorry for going on about solderig irons! Welcome Home Tana. Happy modding!

 

[Tana]

I used to be quicker and more confident working with $40 Weller 40W orange soldering station than this Toolcraft ST-50D... but it's already decided, I've found some used Weller Pro series 50W, analog for decent price, that I'm going to buy on our local "ebay"... that is one thing I gotta do before I attempt to put together three more of these little heads... Next one will be with linear 3A driver from KD (customized per my wish) with 6500K R5 XPG's... after that XPG 5000K R4's with Deerelight 1.5A 3-mode driver, high-volt (I think 3.6-9V, to be used with E2E body) and finally another with Solarforce driver but with Nichia 219 star... so collection is going to look SHINY in a while...

As for other stuff, I'm already using that "gold" thingy instead of wet sponge (aoyue brand) and tips really shine, I love it... but that backup iron that you have has suspiciously same type of tip mount as my ST-50D... the whole thing looks so cheap, I have no idea why I settled with this one after the store clerk told me that Weller will be restocked in 30 or so days and this one was the only one available from digital line of soldering stations...

 

[tattoosteve99]

Was the mini mag bezel a direct fit or did you have to do anything to it? That's a superb collection of "mini" lights. Thanks for the pics :D

 

[Tana]

MiniMag bezel is direct fit in most cases... however, the threads are not the same but it does "bite" at the end and makes tight and good fit... The only thing needed for it to make it watertight would be any thread-lock liquid...

I did that just yesterday, waited until today and submerged the little thing in the water... I added NeoGel at the O-ring on the bezel, added blue loctite threadlock carefully on threads of E-series and MiniMag bezel and also added thread-lock on the switch/body threads of VitalGear body with the help of tiny O-ring instead of original that comes with it... tried it on low in around body temp water with CR123 and it was there for about 30 minutes... then started moving it around just for fun and at the end, after completely dried from the outside checked inside of it - completely dry... experiment succeeded... :-)

The little thingy is really bright with one IMR16340 cell... not much runtime in this setup even on low (around 4 hrs) but bright... another story with primary cell... on high has more than 2hrs of runtime, about 24hrs on low...

 

[tattoosteve99]

What is that black teardrop head on the pic? Thats super nice

 

[foxtrot824]

I love it! I can't see/make/have enough e-series triples. Great mod. If you do one again you might try the illumination supply board, it's wired in parallel and only has two contacts to solder to.

 

[Tana]

What is that black teardrop head on the pic? Thats super nice

This is regular E-series head from Lumens Factory... rather decent LED upgrade for E-series... not perfect but good, maybe a little on steep price ($30 for head/bezel and $30 for small replaceable module inside)... It's not completely waterproof as front glass don't have a great contact with o-ring and it usually buzzes on low and medium modes... but I opened mine and replaced XPG inside with Nichia 219 and am very satisfied with results... medium thrower, beautiful tint and rather bright on IMR16340... great also with one CR123 primary which gives better run-times with reduced brightness...

This is my EDC trio... so I carry each few days then swap... just for fun...

Smallest one is my newest Triple-219 with Solarforce 3-mode 0.8-4.2V driver (just love this driver for it's versatility and modes)... but this time I did much better job than the first Triple XPG I did... soldering is spot on now (after I spent some time watching YouTube and finding a great soldering wire)... the middle sized is mentioned Lumens factory with upgraded 219 emitter... and "longest" is with E1B 110 lumen head... so one flooder, one thrower and one in between... :-)

 

[Tana]

I love it! I can't see/make/have enough e-series triples. Great mod. If you do one again you might try the illumination supply board, it's wired in parallel and only has two contacts to solder to.

foxtrot824,

You actually had the biggest influence in my desire to do this complete mod by myself... basically learn basics in machining to cut reflector in E-series head, make a pill from brass and then upgrade my soldering skills to put it all together the way that I'm confident it will work almost forever... so - thanks, dude... as for IlluminationSupply, I used to order a lot from Craig while I was deployed but all the ones I got at that time were either this Nichia 219 with no connections at all on the star or LEDSupply stars connected in series... but as I'm also plastic model kit builder, I'm rather patient with small stuff so soldering all six wires to the star is almost the same as two... :-) I have maybe 4 more XPE and XPG stars for future builds, all wired in series that I'll fix... no problem... but I did see those new stars and they are spot on... much easier for more clumsier people to deal with (and pull thru small holes in heatsink)...

So in the meantime I machined OD head and moved the first pill I made into it and paired with VG FB3 body to use with 2xAA alkalines... rather slim factor... then I did one I really love - that's E2E with Triple XPE 5000K and Lumens Factory 3-mode buck driver 3.6-13V... great driver with great modes with no humming noises on low and medium... delivering constant 1.5A to all three LEDs it has beautiful tint and beam with quite the punch and on safe side to use with primaries until batteries depleted even on high... I just LOVE it... lately it's going with me as primary light during night walks instead of my old trusty C2 with XML...

And finally I made this small Triple 219, again with Solarforce driver... dare to say perfect soldering job this time... reliable as it can be... using CR123 as I want great runtimes (24hrs on low) instead of punch (I always carry bigger ones to deal 500+ lumens job out there)...

So here are some pics...

I have two more builds planned for Triple LED + E-series head (and MiniMag bezel) planned... one will be the shortest E series I can think of - Malkoff-Valiant Little Twisty Flat with E-series head (need modified pill for this one to get contact and not crush battery) and my brightest to be - Triple XPG that will use FM 18650 E-series body and probably KDv2 linear driver that will have 12 instead of 8 AMC chips to pull all 4.5A to the LEDs... two mode, one with as many lumens possible, second with 10% (modded driver)...

That's all... :-)

 

[foxtrot824]

I'm thrilled to hear I have inspired triple making :-) Looking at all of the skill and creativity here I am inspired so it's great to hear that I've contributed to that as well.
I too use the Teflon wire from Illumination Supply because it's the perfect size for these little light engines.