How did you start modifying your lights?

[rocketsurgeon01]

Hi everyone. I was thinking about this because the LED in my G5 is off-center. 4Sevens viewed the photos of the LED and claimed it was within specs. Now I'm trying to get a hold of D.Chow just to let him know that his staff is not living up to his "perfectly centered LED everytime" philosophy. So, if nobody at 4Sevens is willing to help me, is it possible to realign the LED myself? What kind of tools would I need? When it comes to modifying lights, is more time spent on the electronics than anything else?

 

[Tiresius]

Hi everyone. I was thinking about this because the LED in my G5 is off-center. 4Sevens viewed the photos of the LED and claimed it was within specs. Now I'm trying to get a hold of D.Chow just to let him know that his staff is not living up to his "perfectly centered LED everytime" philosophy. So, if nobody at 4Sevens is willing to help me, is it possible to realign the LED myself? What kind of tools would I need? When it comes to modifying lights, is more time spent on the electronics than anything else?

There's some debate about slightly off-center LED's and it not affecting the beam quality. Then again, there's always that kink that we cannot get off our back because it's there and annoying. That's how I feel about centering LED's.

I never had to center an LED's because I've placed every one of them in a small reamed hole in a pill...That allowed the LED to be centered--most of the time. 1/4 of the time, they're off center but still produce a perfect beam pattern.

 

[rocketsurgeon01]

There's some debate about slightly off-center LED's and it not affecting the beam quality. Then again, there's always that kink that we cannot get off our back because it's there and annoying. That's how I feel about centering LED's.

I never had to center an LED's because I've placed every one of them in a small reamed hole in a pill...That allowed the LED to be centered--most of the time. 1/4 of the time, they're off center but still produce a perfect beam pattern.

When you say "I've placed every one of them in a small reamed hole in a pill", you mean you actually build these things? How do you do that? What's the anatomy of a flashlight? Pill? What is that? How do you know if you don't have a perfect beam pattern?

 

[AnAppleSnail]

Wait, when you say "I've placed every one of them in a small reamed hole in a pill", you mean you build these things? How do you do that? What's the anatomy of light? Pill? What is that? How do you know if you don't have a perfect beam pattern?

Optic bone connected to the LED bone.
LED connected to the pill bone.
Pill bone takes heat to the body bone.
Pill bone connected to the driver bone.
Driver bone connected to the battery bone.
battery bone connected to the switch bone,
Dem bones gonna shine around !

LEDs.can be quite off-center without greatly affecting beam pattern, especially in a reflector. ” imperfect” beam is subjective. I would gripe about a weakened spot or holes in spot at a distance. Nothing much else matters outside super throw lights... Except if it hurts your feelings. You would see dark places in the spot if you're badly affected by off-center. If the focus of the parabola has LED in it, it will project correctly. The reflector focuses a point, and doesn't care where that point is on the LED.

Dozens of manufacturers use centering jigs like FourSevens does. I don't know who thought it up first. It's like LED tint. Ten years ago it was much worse, but now we are very vocal about it.

 

[Tiresius]

Wait, when you say "I've placed every one of them in a small reamed hole in a pill", you mean you build these things? How do you do that? What's the anatomy of light? Pill? What is that? How do you know if you don't have a perfect beam pattern?

I forgot to mention that the LED's are already on an mpcb board. The pill is reamed/bored to fit that mpcb board perfectly. I did it with a lathe. I did the same with the driver and the whole pill becomes a slug. I like making my own pills and replacing the factory ones because you can machine it precisely to mate with the light and get a good heat management out of it.

For the "perfect" beam, I consider that a no artifact in the hot-spot and no corona rings. Odd enough, you can still produce corona rings with an XM-L if the LED is off-center and pushed too high or too low in the reflector.