First mod! Pelican M3

[yowzer]

My first quality, 'real' light was a Pelican M3 LED that I picked up in 2007 or 2008. 3 CR123, regulated, side clicky, with a Luxeon 3 putting out a whopping 60 lumens of very floody light. At the time, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Since then, of course, I've found this place and my standards have gone up a bit, and the light hasn't seen much use lately. Which is a shame, because I like the beam shape and host.

Then I discovered it was really easy to take apart and gain access to the star-mount LED. So, I picked up a 3000K high CRI SSC P4 star, borrowed a soldering iron, crossed my fingers, and went to work. Surprisingly, I didn't burn the garage down, or a finger off. Did get thermal compound everywhere. And it worked!

Now it's my first warm white (I have lots of NW tints, but never got around to finding any WW models/dropins before now) light, I'm guessing at around 80-100 lumens. I was going for tint and CRI over output in the mod, so brighter is a bonus.

I can see why people get into this side of things! Now to find some more easy to modify lights...

 

[yowzer]

Had a SAR callout tonight, so I was able to play with the new light in actual dark woods, not just a room with the lights off and curtains drawn in the middle of the day... Lot more throw than I figured it would have based on the old LED and the large diffuse hotspot I'm getting with the new one, and lovely lovely tint. Next step, getting some 17500's to power it.

I'll try to get some pictures posted tomorrow.

 

[^Gurthang]

Yowser,

Glad to read that your mod works well, any chance of some pics? You might consider the high CRI XPG-Q2 from Illumination Supply stocks if you mod another M3.