So, after many many months I finally got off my butt and decided to do my pistol light that has been sitting around for ever. Initially I was just going to replace the LED and call it a day. In fact i did do this to another light. Gives it more oompf and better light quality than stock, but it still seemed lacking to me. So I decided to go full bore and make a new drop in unit to replace the old one. A bit ambitious as I really still don't know how/fell comfortable threading. But with some free time over the past few weeks I was able to get turning.
The donor light was a cheap CDNN special. Set me back a whopping $28 and is branded under several other names (NC Star and the like). It started life as a meager 35lm light that was not even acceptable IMO. Beam was ok, but very purple on the edges and nice and yellow in the middle. I don't even think i would have play airsoft with it. as for the additions, its getting a SSC P4 from DX, an IMS 18mm reflector, 18mm glass lens (came with a poly carb pos), and a buck boost board from KD.
OK so on to the fun/not so fun stuff. Just so you know, and it might become obvious to some, I did not in anyway do any kind of design work on this. I pretty much mimicked the old design to a point and just kinda fudged and fitted things along so that they would work with the components that I wanted to use. First thing was to make the outer housing. This is a fairly simple and strait forward type thing. Only tricky part was the 1.0mm threads that connect it to the main body of the light. I gave myself plenty of space as I new I would F it up somewhere along the way.
As you can see, I gave myself plenty of room
Faced off a bit and we are golden
I then cleaned up the OD, did a little work to the ID to set a proper shoulder for the circuit board to rest on, then I flipped it around. At this point I did the rest of the ID turning and then cut a short section of 32tpi threads (a ton easier than do the metric threads). After that I took out a bit more material behind the threads so that the bezel wouldn't bottom out there but rather on the face of the light body (which didn't quite come out right, more on that later).
I missed pics on a few steps, but most of that was boring stuff. There were also quite a few fit tests throughout as I was pretty uncertain about my abilities to thread. Plus since i was not using anything really standard for sizing (mixed in with my lack of being able to correctly read the data in the Machinery's Handbook) . I just took my ID and rolled with it. I think i got it to work ok. Next, though, was the Bezel. nothing fancy, just simple strait forward design, arbitrary angles Just trying to make it look good.
The it was test fit time, this time with pics
Somewhat satisfied I took it back to the lathe and machined off a bit more of the material to try to make it look a little less bulky. I also didn't really think about it as the design was ever shifting and morphing in my head, but I knocked the OD of the bezel down a bit more than I should have, but at this point I could care less. The bezel threaded into the light body and thats all that mattered. Some day i might make a new one but for now we are bizness.
Then it was just a matter of adding the guts, doing a bit of soldering and testing. All that is left is to get some sort of black coating/krylon on it and we are good to go.
Here is a beam shot. This was taken with a point and shoot, so I have no clue what the setting were. But it is more to show the beam pattern. The hot spot almost lines up perfectly with the sites at 6-10ft and it will illuminate a 10x10 room pretty darn well for a pistol light. Doubt it will be good past 20-40yds, but if i have to shoot that far at night I don't want to be shooting my pistol.
The only thing that I do not like about this light is that the circuit that I got with it has that stupid hi/med/lo/strobe/SOS setting. So if you shut the light off and the turn it back on with in 1-2sec it will go to the next mode. Really annoying. I will be looking for a good replacement as soon as I can find one. Until then its function check, then put away.
-Dave
The donor light was a cheap CDNN special. Set me back a whopping $28 and is branded under several other names (NC Star and the like). It started life as a meager 35lm light that was not even acceptable IMO. Beam was ok, but very purple on the edges and nice and yellow in the middle. I don't even think i would have play airsoft with it. as for the additions, its getting a SSC P4 from DX, an IMS 18mm reflector, 18mm glass lens (came with a poly carb pos), and a buck boost board from KD.
OK so on to the fun/not so fun stuff. Just so you know, and it might become obvious to some, I did not in anyway do any kind of design work on this. I pretty much mimicked the old design to a point and just kinda fudged and fitted things along so that they would work with the components that I wanted to use. First thing was to make the outer housing. This is a fairly simple and strait forward type thing. Only tricky part was the 1.0mm threads that connect it to the main body of the light. I gave myself plenty of space as I new I would F it up somewhere along the way.
As you can see, I gave myself plenty of room
Faced off a bit and we are golden
I then cleaned up the OD, did a little work to the ID to set a proper shoulder for the circuit board to rest on, then I flipped it around. At this point I did the rest of the ID turning and then cut a short section of 32tpi threads (a ton easier than do the metric threads). After that I took out a bit more material behind the threads so that the bezel wouldn't bottom out there but rather on the face of the light body (which didn't quite come out right, more on that later).
I missed pics on a few steps, but most of that was boring stuff. There were also quite a few fit tests throughout as I was pretty uncertain about my abilities to thread. Plus since i was not using anything really standard for sizing (mixed in with my lack of being able to correctly read the data in the Machinery's Handbook) . I just took my ID and rolled with it. I think i got it to work ok. Next, though, was the Bezel. nothing fancy, just simple strait forward design, arbitrary angles Just trying to make it look good.
The it was test fit time, this time with pics
Somewhat satisfied I took it back to the lathe and machined off a bit more of the material to try to make it look a little less bulky. I also didn't really think about it as the design was ever shifting and morphing in my head, but I knocked the OD of the bezel down a bit more than I should have, but at this point I could care less. The bezel threaded into the light body and thats all that mattered. Some day i might make a new one but for now we are bizness.
Then it was just a matter of adding the guts, doing a bit of soldering and testing. All that is left is to get some sort of black coating/krylon on it and we are good to go.
Here is a beam shot. This was taken with a point and shoot, so I have no clue what the setting were. But it is more to show the beam pattern. The hot spot almost lines up perfectly with the sites at 6-10ft and it will illuminate a 10x10 room pretty darn well for a pistol light. Doubt it will be good past 20-40yds, but if i have to shoot that far at night I don't want to be shooting my pistol.
The only thing that I do not like about this light is that the circuit that I got with it has that stupid hi/med/lo/strobe/SOS setting. So if you shut the light off and the turn it back on with in 1-2sec it will go to the next mode. Really annoying. I will be looking for a good replacement as soon as I can find one. Until then its function check, then put away.
-Dave
