awesome piece of information, thank you. that makes sense. trying to figure all of this out in my limited amount of available time before the race is very challenging.
We toss around all kinds of TLAs (Three Letter Abbreviations) that can get overwhelming. "A P60 L2P is a great host to replace your WF501B XP-G R5 OP Reflector, unless you need a D26-compatible WolfEyes host." What?
The trouble with your project will be identifying what has gone bad, or replacing the whole thing. Many reflectors screw on interchangeably. But if they don't, getting good optical aim will be TOUGH.
If you can match the LED and the reflector type, you will get pretty close to your picked beam pattern. If you post a focused picture of the LED (Which is 'probably' a Cree XP-G, R4 brightness bin) we can be sure for you. Same for the reflector's inner surface (Tough photo to get).
in the pictures of the light i have, it appears the driver is seperate. so maybe he did not buy a drop in, and instead bought the driver separate for some reason. does that seem like a reasonable statement?
It sure is. The driver is some group of circuits - If the battery input is not VERY close to 3.6v, it will need some chips and bits, inductors and resistors and capacitors, to work. Wherever you see those, that's your driver.
so if i buy a 'drop in' it already contains the driver? modes will not be good for me. so it seems the drop in will dictate if there are modes. basically, the drop in is everything you need for the flashlight, sans the power source?
It does already contain the dropin. What you usually get is a sandwich. From the outside, it looks like a cylinder with a reflector on one end and a metal body on the other, about 3cm long (And about 2.54cm wide, incidentally).
From the inside it looks like this:
[|DC
[ is the metal base the whole thing sits in. This usually slides into the front of the P60 host. The whole dropin is held in by the screw-on 'head' of the flashlight. It can be a shallow pan, or a big heat-transferring metal body.
| is the driver board. It has chips and things on it. It has a center contact point for the (+) of the battery, and a ring contact area around the perimeter for the (-). These touch the front contact spring (+) and the body of the light (-). You can solder to these board pads.
D is the LED board. There are two wires coming from the Driver output. You can usually switch out the LED board pretty easily; most P60 dropins have a 20mm LED 'star' you can pretty easily move. Use thermal goo to give good thermal transfer.
C is the reflector. It sits over the LED, held centered somehow. It often screws on, and you may have to slightly unscrew it for perfect focus. "Perfect Focus" means the beam looks great and reaches fully without dark holes in the center hot spot. You will also see that the whole reflector looks 'yellow' with the LED off and the light far away from your eyes and pointed straight at you. The reflectors with matched attaching methods (Screw-on to screw-on) are interchangeable.
the reflector i have now was chosen specifically by an electrical engineer who is also an ultramarathon paddler who competes in this race, so i think he's chosen the right tool for the job. i just wish i knew the specifics of the reflector. it's smooth, and it's a compromise between a narrow beam and just enough to see what's on your left and right in the river at night.
That sounds like a "Light Orange Peel" or a "Smooth" reflector. An XP-G in a smooth reflector gives a PRETTY beam.
so if purchase an ultrafire case, i will have to purchase a drop-in light module, pop off the screw thing, find the pieces that thread into the bottom for the 2pin connector, and solder some wires in there. i guess once I have all the parts I can post and ask what gets soldered where.
Probably so. I am reluctant to guess without having tested to see what broke. Can you check for continuity, voltage, and current where those things belong, to isolate what's broken?
Lighthound.com has a lot of these things, as do illuminationsupply.com.
