Right the too new MC-E's have arrived, are fitted and alls looking good so far. So heres the how to and pics.
The mod is a simply straight swap of the 2 Luxeon V leds for 2 Cree MC-E's. The MC-E's are wired 2S2P so that each one draws 700ma and (approx) 7.4V. This means they can drop in the place off the Lux V's with no changes to the driver.
My MC-E's are the M-Bin 430lmn @ 350ma variety. I forget the exact colour tint, WG I think. In the 2S2P configuration each led element gets 3.6V and 350ma.
Removing the old bits
Front off with one LED removed.
Removing the driver board
Inside the case
Driver board
Blank stars, these are not mc-e specific. If you look closly you cna see where I cut a line inthe middle of the two pads. This means that when the MC-E is solder on you have two sets of 2 parrellel elements.
Old LED's, new LEDs and the heatsink plate. The 2 sets of parrallel elemts are wired in series here. This is a photo of the LEDs that got killed later on by crushing. These were soldered on only bythe contacts with artic silver under the cores. For the second set I solders the whole LED on. I used my solder iron shaft like a reflow plate to heat the whole star and melt the solder on the 4 contact pads and the center heat pad and then kept the star hot till I was happy the LED was central. If I had the option I think next tiem I would buy two pre mount parrellel leds and wire them in series to get the same effect.
Side shot of the LED's, this shows the height difference between the old and new. With my rather naff plastic vernier caliper this measured at 2mm, more on this later.
Testing the led, my multi meter provided enough current tolight up the individual elements. This was very useful to prove they all worked.
Done, LEDs mounted back in the case. Again this is the first attempt when I used artic silver behind each star. Unfortunately the stars lifted onteh middle edge and I couldn't think of a good way to hold them down (apart from trying to drill a hole between the two and adding an extra screw). For the second attempt I used thermal tape (the overclocker in me cries with shame!).
Now back to the height differences. Witht he stars not staying flat and knowing I had 2mm extra height to accomodate I thought it would be a good idea to use the optics to hold the stars down. Wrong, it ripped the dome off both LED's. Expensive mistake! The domes took some wiring with them meanign the LEDs are now dead (annoyingly if you poke in the right place each element still lights up, its just too small to re solder)
On the second attempt I found two bolts in my small parts box that were 2mm thick. I put these onto the back of the bolts holding the face plate on and bolted it all up. Pefect, the optics now sit in the right place (no photos of this yet)
Now for the beam shots. I've got an another unmodified LED was was able to take two sets of shots at the same time. Unfortunately it was cold and late so in my hast I didn't set the camera up that well. Yu still get an idea from the shots of the improvement. I did a shot at low,medium and high for each light. These are grouped together, the unmodifed is first followed my the modified.
LOW
MEDIUM
HIGH
The unmodified is using the stock 6deg lenses, these look like carclo lenses to me. Modified in this shot has carclo 10196 frosted wide (35deg) in both sides. I since changed one side to carclo 10195 frosted medium (19deg) which gives better penetration. Next time I orde parts I'll be getting another frosted medium and 2 frosted narrow (12 deg) and I think there is pleanty of spill around the edges. The stock plain optics were nasty, you could see the division between the elements.
The mod is a simply straight swap of the 2 Luxeon V leds for 2 Cree MC-E's. The MC-E's are wired 2S2P so that each one draws 700ma and (approx) 7.4V. This means they can drop in the place off the Lux V's with no changes to the driver.
My MC-E's are the M-Bin 430lmn @ 350ma variety. I forget the exact colour tint, WG I think. In the 2S2P configuration each led element gets 3.6V and 350ma.
Removing the old bits
Front off with one LED removed.
Removing the driver board
Inside the case
Driver board
Blank stars, these are not mc-e specific. If you look closly you cna see where I cut a line inthe middle of the two pads. This means that when the MC-E is solder on you have two sets of 2 parrellel elements.
Old LED's, new LEDs and the heatsink plate. The 2 sets of parrallel elemts are wired in series here. This is a photo of the LEDs that got killed later on by crushing. These were soldered on only bythe contacts with artic silver under the cores. For the second set I solders the whole LED on. I used my solder iron shaft like a reflow plate to heat the whole star and melt the solder on the 4 contact pads and the center heat pad and then kept the star hot till I was happy the LED was central. If I had the option I think next tiem I would buy two pre mount parrellel leds and wire them in series to get the same effect.
Side shot of the LED's, this shows the height difference between the old and new. With my rather naff plastic vernier caliper this measured at 2mm, more on this later.
Testing the led, my multi meter provided enough current tolight up the individual elements. This was very useful to prove they all worked.
Done, LEDs mounted back in the case. Again this is the first attempt when I used artic silver behind each star. Unfortunately the stars lifted onteh middle edge and I couldn't think of a good way to hold them down (apart from trying to drill a hole between the two and adding an extra screw). For the second attempt I used thermal tape (the overclocker in me cries with shame!).
Now back to the height differences. Witht he stars not staying flat and knowing I had 2mm extra height to accomodate I thought it would be a good idea to use the optics to hold the stars down. Wrong, it ripped the dome off both LED's. Expensive mistake! The domes took some wiring with them meanign the LEDs are now dead (annoyingly if you poke in the right place each element still lights up, its just too small to re solder)
On the second attempt I found two bolts in my small parts box that were 2mm thick. I put these onto the back of the bolts holding the face plate on and bolted it all up. Pefect, the optics now sit in the right place (no photos of this yet)
Now for the beam shots. I've got an another unmodified LED was was able to take two sets of shots at the same time. Unfortunately it was cold and late so in my hast I didn't set the camera up that well. Yu still get an idea from the shots of the improvement. I did a shot at low,medium and high for each light. These are grouped together, the unmodifed is first followed my the modified.
LOW
MEDIUM
HIGH
The unmodified is using the stock 6deg lenses, these look like carclo lenses to me. Modified in this shot has carclo 10196 frosted wide (35deg) in both sides. I since changed one side to carclo 10195 frosted medium (19deg) which gives better penetration. Next time I orde parts I'll be getting another frosted medium and 2 frosted narrow (12 deg) and I think there is pleanty of spill around the edges. The stock plain optics were nasty, you could see the division between the elements.
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