My take on the the $3.99 craftsman-The Creeminator-

[vinsanity286]

After seeing this mod http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=148709&highlight=cree+special I went to sears to get this light, but the rack had a sticker saying it was on order

Well I went back and forth for 2 weeks and finaly picked one up. The are very nicely made and the rear clicky switch is momentary on

But the output was pathetic at best. Hmm what to do..
Throw a cree in it of course(that seems to be the forum motto these days).
Well I put the cree in mounted to a brass slug that I had machined last year in school for a project. It was a perfect fit for the tube! What are the odds.
After doing this mod I ordered some 10440's from Dealextreme but in the meantime I am using 3 1/3 aaa's to power the light. They start off driving it at around 450mah and provide about 15 minutes of bright light and about 10 minutes of dim light after that.
I first tried using the reflector but I didnt like it. So I put a dorcy aaa lens in the head. The diameter was perfect, i just had to hack away untill the lens was flat and could go all the way into the head. So now the lens just touches the dome of the cree when the head is screwed down and provides a nice flood. But the best part of this mod is the focusability. Screw the head out and hang on! Its a thrower. I love these lenses. They provide perfectly even light throught the entire beam, just perfect.
The beam shots do not show the light powered from the 1/3 aaa's but insead running direct drive off of a cell phone battery with a switch, drawing about 1 amp. I ran wires from the phone to an adapter i made for inside the light. So i just use the phone to charge the battery and use it as a battery carrier when using it. I did this so I could use the light for mountainbiking and helmet mount the whole set up.
On to the pictures. Forgive me but i can never make the picture show up in the post so you will have to click on links. The light for comparison is the dorcy 3d 1 watt on pretty new batteries. I used it as it is my best thrower.

The light with pocket clip in edc form.
http://download-v5.streamload.com/RQnNJg0O~5omO~MlMA~OxsJ~GmUV7an2Frg8/vinsanity286/FileManager/creeminator/PICT0008.JPG?action=embed

The business end
http://download-v5.streamload.com/f-eu8APb~8WKY~yxMn~0OU9~Ywu9LDqemYTv/vinsanity286/FileManager/creeminator/PICT0009.JPG?action=embed

Cree mounted nice and sloppy

http://download-v5.streamload.com/sde7wf3c~5PZ_~OZQ5~Sj2d~W7MGrnoADVRX/vinsanity286/FileManager/creeminator/PICT0010.JPG?action=embed

The phone and switch(just roughly mocked up for testing)
http://download-v5.streamload.com/DlZz-2f0~MaI0~F2AU~O8oY~lAtQeEsrNDCf/vinsanity286/FileManager/creeminator/PICT0011.JPG?action=embed

the adapter
http://download-v5.streamload.com/xY4MzJJ0~63-q~TNPH~ZSMB~HOr-Wzio37nO/vinsanity286/FileManager/creeminator/PICT0022.JPG?action=embed


Control shot for flood mode
http://download-v5.streamload.com/Qo3eYchs~aBDW~McPh~0J_3~uxsbwW-lAE4M/vinsanity286/FileManager/creeminator/PICT0014.JPG?action=embed

Creeminator in flood mode

Dorcy (shed is about 120ft away)

THE CREEMINATOR!!!

Dorcy (target about 150ft)
http://download-v5.streamload.com/z7E0WH0n~v-wQ~4VAD~xItK~qQ3r2I9t8tZS/vinsanity286/FileManager/creeminator/PICT0020.JPG?action=embed

creeminator, which was more impressive in person for this shot
http://download-v5.streamload.com/I03rVYoQ~b0Qb~QR1t~0OLI~M6Z0rJHilzXz/vinsanity286/FileManager/creeminator/PICT0019.JPG?action=embed

sorry for the long post

I get a little carried away sometimes. Enjoy. Vinny

 

[Clickie]

Sweet mod! They also sell this same light at Kmart for those who dont have a Sears close by.

 

[vinsanity286]

Thanks clickie. I can't wait to try it on the trail. I am really amazed by these crees. This one light lights up the entire road for at least 60 feet in flood mode.
Unfortunately when focused for throw it does lose a bit of light(as seen in a ceiling bouce test) but it still remains very bright. Also I hope that the cell phone battery holds up to the 1 amp discharge, I will uptdate with runtime once I heat sink it better. It stayed cool outside last night(20 degrees farenheit and lots of wind) but inside I stopped the light when the emitter got up to 180 degrees.
I hope that creeminator was not used in another mod, I should have searched first.

Wow! I just looked at my pictures on my school computer and the beamshots are GREATLY underexposed. If the picture of the creeminator on the shed does not look impressive then the picture is not right. O well, you can still get a comparison between it and the dorcy. Manual settings on camera.

 

[vinsanity286]

Feels like I am talking to a brick wall here but i feel like typing so no complaining:thumbsup:

The cell phone lithium was not give enough runtime so it scrapped that idea. So now I have the light mounted to the head of a princeton tec yukon. It is held on by a stainless hose clamp. I ran the wires back into the 3aa carrier with the switch mounted on the headband. The switch has about .5 ohms of resistance and on hot off the charger duracell 2650's it pulls 1.3 amps with a voltage under load of 3.9 or so. Yikes!! Moving around outside it only gets warm but when stationary indoors it gets quite hot. For some reason the brass slug is not transfering heat that well into the aluminum body. Is brass not that good of a heatsink? But the heat is much more managable once the batteries have rested and dropped in voltage a bit.
Suffice to say it completely blows away the stock zenon bulb. Also it is nice to have the 3 x 5mm low mode for long runtime and very close work. I think that all i will put on my bike handlebars is a cree with no optic or reflector for close in flood although I could easily ride with just the headlamp.