learning to mod

[Bodach]

Hi if someone without experience in modding lights wanted to learn what would you recommend, are there basic books on circuitry or the terms you all use like edc. I have looked through alot of the information you have here but there is just so much is there a thread on basic how to's. Any ideas or pointers as to where to get information would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Sgt. LED]

I read a lot of posts here on CPF.
I took things apart I already owned to see how they worked.
I bought custom lights from other members so I could see how they work too.
I bit the bullet and bought some emitters, Arctic alumina, Arctic Silver 5, a soldering iron, and some other odds and ends then I got to work.
I killed stuff left and right but I took the time to learn from those mistakes.
I am not a custom maker or a big time modder but I can do a lot now and the fear of ruining something is greatly reduced.

Learn as much as you can from reading CPF then jump in and start really learning from trying is the best advice I can give you.
Good luck and happy soldering!

 

[old4570]

Yep - Lots of reading on CPF

Then find something in your collection that might = a easy mod , and take it from there . Often than not , the difficulty is in your own mind . The actual mod tends to be some what simple in execution .

 

[AndrewZorn]

i also thought EDC was something technical, but it's actually the same as for pistols... every-day-carry. i just didn't think people carried flashlight(s) with them every day, until here...

 

[Bodach]

Thanks for the advice so far I have been reading a lot of threads on here and started a folder in my bookmarks to keep the ones that seem to be helpful. I thought I would stary with a couple of mini mag lights I have had for years I have been looking for some kind of a drop in for them. Again thanks for the help I will keep looking around here but it would be very nice if there were some basic how to start modding threads.

 

[Justin Case]

i also thought EDC was something technical, but it's actually the same as for pistols... every-day-carry. i just didn't think people carried flashlight(s) with them every day, until here...

Why not? It is dark at least 50% of the day. Even indoors, there are many low light situations. If you carry a pistol, you need to be able to ID things in low light.

IMO, it is best to learn the fundamental building blocks. With those building blocks, you can put them together to do mod'ing. Crawl, walk, run.

I would go to the library and find some basic books on electricity and circuits and read them. Understand the basics like voltage, current, Ohm's Law, Kirchoff's Law, resistance, capacitance, inductance, and series and parallel circuits. I'd read about LEDs, mechanical switches, LDO regulators, transistors, FETs, diodes, resistors, capacitors, and inductors. I'd learn how to solder. I'd also do a Google search to understand how DC-DC converters (e.g., boost, buck, boost-buck) work. Download and read the LED datasheets from Cree, Seoul, and Luxeon.

Buy a cheap SureFire 6P ("P60") drop-in from DX and take it apart to understand how the components all work together. Get a SureFire 6P or clone host flashlight to do some experiments.

Connect your book learning with the real-world flashlight parts (e.g., the DX drop-in and SureFire 6P host). Begin to understand how the LED and driver work together and how the driver specs relate to the LED's specs.

Get a digital multimeter and start to make some measurements of battery current draw, LED Vf, and LED drive current to further understand how the specs relate to each other. See this post for some pointers on using a DMM for flashlight-related measurements.

Get a lux meter and start making lux measurements to understand how different specs result in different light output. Build your own milk carton light box for a homemade, poor man's integrating sphere.

If the driver board for the drop-in specifies some operating voltage range, hook up different battery combinations to see what happens. How does lux change with voltage? How does the battery current draw change with voltage?

Start to do some simple mod'ing that mostly requires mechanical skills like soldering, wiring, sanding, etc. Examples might include swapping driver boards in a DX drop-in, upgrading the LED in a DX drop-in, and building a Maglite mod.

Move up to an intermediate text like Horowitz and Hill's The Art of Electronics. Examine a DX driver board more carefully. Backlight the board and trace the circuitry. Look up all of the components by reading the markings on the various devices and finding their datasheets on the web. Try to understand how the board works.

If you've made it this far, then maybe the next step is to take some machine shop classes and start to make your own stuff.

 

[Justin Case]

Thanks for the advice so far I have been reading a lot of threads on here and started a folder in my bookmarks to keep the ones that seem to be helpful. I thought I would stary with a couple of mini mag lights I have had for years I have been looking for some kind of a drop in for them. Again thanks for the help I will keep looking around here but it would be very nice if there were some basic how to start modding threads.

If all you want to do is mod, you can follow the recipe shown in threads like this one for a direct drive Maglite mod. But if you don't really understand the principles behind the mod, then all you are doing is following a recipe and any monkey can do that. You end up not knowing what to do every time one little variable changes. What if you want to use a driver instead of going direct drive? How do you select the right driver? How do you wire it up? What battery configurations can you use to run the driver in regulation? Etc etc.

 

[Meganoggin]

Great advice above - my contribution, have a play with some lamp modules and batteries, see what works and what happens. Then buy a soldering iron and do a big order of cheap components from KD or DX and play. Once you get the hang of the basics you can be more confident with the pricier kit.

Have fun - hope thie helps :thumbsup:

 

[Chrontius]

thousand-lumen Mag hotwires are some of the cheapest, most satisfying mods you can make. My favorite is the ROP, the Roar of the Pelican, for its flexibility and performance.

For LED stuff, they're selling build-your-own P60 module kits. You'll need a soldering iron and a meter to put one together, and you'll need to ask questions about which components to put into it, but... it's a good place to start.

 

[Bodach]

Thank you all for the information. this will at least get me started in the right direction. I worked as a machinist for the last 3 years but broke my arm at work last summer and ended up with 3 plates and 18 screws and after returning back to work for 6 months got laid off. I am going to go to school for Network Technology I hope that some of what I learn there will also apply to modding as this fits in very nicely with my other hobby catfishing. thanks again for the advice.

 

[kramer5150]

if you want to get into LED mods stick with P60 drop ins. You can get the parts cheap from DX, and you can easily undo it if you mess up. I prefer to buy my LEDs from Shiningbeam, just in case I get a bum emitter thats defective or damaged in shipping, a shiningbeam RMA is much less headache than a DX one.

Get a Surefire 6P, 40W weller soldering iron and soldering supplies and hop to it. Get some thermal adhesive and youre good to go. Solder braid is handy to de-solder whenever you put too much.

I like these drivers from DX...sku.1886. Theyre cheap so if you mess one up it won't break the bank. You can de-pop one or two of the 7135 drivers and instantly have a 1000 or 700 mah driver to preserve run times. I mod them by wire jumping the diodes. This alleviates the Vdrop through the diodes and allows the 7135 ICs to see "all" the Vin from the cell, thereby keeping the circuit in regulation longer. I just have to be extra careful not to install the 18650 backwards. Alternately DX sku.26109 is the same thing but already without the diodes... just a bunch of 7135 drivers in parallel.

My brightest DIY builds measured 205L OTF cold / 175L OTF hot on Garys sphere, with a cheap $15 host and old laptop 18650 cell. So for $15 in parts and a cheap host you should be able to land close to ~200 OTF.
Someone... I think old4570 has a pretty good tutorial here on CPF.

 

[DM51]

I'm moving this to the Homemade & Modified section. Have a look at some of the other threads there, such as this one that was started recently:

How To Mod a Maglite P7 - 38 PICS

There are many other "how-to" threads there too.