Raidfire Spear necessary upgrade, Please Help

[mvyrmnd]

Hi all,

My Spear :poof:'ed on me today... seems the driver gave up and the magic smoke got out.

So now I have an empty Spear body, and would like to upgrade the emitter and driver for a bit more ooomph.

What would be your reccommendations? Could a P7, SST-50 or MC-E go in there? If so, which driver for a single 18650?

Please help!

 

[Linger]

mvyrmnd,
first off, can you do a bit of forensic analysis and figure why the magic smoke came today? Was it weevils spreading from the emitter? :P
Seriously, it may be important to prevent it happeneing again after you've made repairs.

If you want a well blended hot-spot with some nice flood, it should be easy with the quad die's. If you want a super thrower, more of a challenge. Now the mc-e can be a great emitter with the right reflector. It should be a drop-in replacement for the previous emitter. The spear may be a bit small for it though. The p7 can make nice throwers but you'll probably need to open up the reflector a bit and depending on how much room you have to adjust the focus you may not achive the beam you desire.

Tonight I am boosting an MG Rx-1 with a 'top bin' luminus sst-50. Its single die give the advantage of uniform surface brightness over the dark hollow's between the quad die of the mc-e / p7.

While sst-50 can certianly stand direct drive from an 18650 (i've paired the evaluation bin with an IMR for kicks) it makes it hard to use the light when you've got to keep ~20feet of space in front of the emitter to prevent the backsplash from making your eyes hurt. Multi-mode is an excellent feature and IMHO you should drop low / high or three mode in there.
3mode 8xamc7135 driver is a very efficient way of extending the run-time you get from a single 18650. CPF Download and webstore Shiningbeam sell this driver. PM me if you have difficulty; it is my favourite driver and I stock up but could part with one of them.

 

[kwarwick]

Hi all,

My Spear :poof:'ed on me today... seems the driver gave up and the magic smoke got out.

So now I have an empty Spear body, and would like to upgrade the emitter and driver for a bit more ooomph.

What would be your reccommendations? Could a P7, SST-50 or MC-E go in there? If so, which driver for a single 18650?

Please help!

I'm in the process of modding my Kaidomain Spear clone (pretty much identical to the real Spear) to get a little more oomph. I thought about SST-50 and P7, but I only had these on 20mm boards and the LED pill is really designed for a 16mm or smaller diameter board. After a little experimenting I decided to go with a Cree XP-G R5 on a 14mm board. As I type this I'm waiting for the thermal adhesive to set before continuing the build. I've also modded the stock 2 mode 3x7135 based driver (added a 4th 7135) to boost high from 1050ma to 1400ma. I figure this should give me well over 400 lumens out the front while maintaining the throwing characteristics of the Spear design.

I'll let you know how it worked out in a few days.

Karl

 

[dudu84]

PM sent :)

My guess is that the reflector shorted the connection if the head is tightened too far and/or damaged the LED insulator.

 

[Linger]

so kwarwick I know from using that combo emitter+light enging that it is a thin unit. Likely a few mm thinner than stock set-up. How have you accounted for the variation to focus the reflector?

Which also leads back to mvyrmnd's question: which emitter to use? Which-ever one you can focus into the most desired beam, so any results you can obtain before final installation will be quite valuable.

I do wish I had one of these, the appearance calls me. If you'd trade for a fully functional mg rx-1 (warm tint mc-e), pm me :)

 

[Linger]

re: Dude - OP wrote driver failed and s/he wanted to upgrade emitter, your thesis is that led was damaged.
Question: when reflector grounds out across the LED, the unit doesn't light but no damage... is your experience different?

 

[dudu84]

re: Dude - OP wrote driver failed and s/he wanted to upgrade emitter, your thesis is that led was damaged.
Question: when reflector grounds out across the LED, the unit doesn't light but no damage... is your experience different?

Nope, I didn't mean the LED, I meant the insulator on the LED which has direct contact with both the reflector on one side and the solder points on the other.

 

[mvyrmnd]

It's dead, mostly to my ignorance/inexperience. Dudu84 sold me the light, and was just curious if it was his mod that caused the fault. No harm done.

Either way, I'd love to give this thing a sting in its tail. I'd like to see Karl's results before maybe going down the road of an SST-50...

:candle:

 

[old4570]

http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=1845

Nice Driver

http://www.shiningbeam.com/servlet/the-132/3-dsh-Mode-Regulated-Circuit-Board/Detail Just ordered one myself

 

[mvyrmnd]

Just as a side question... Is there anyone around that can build the light engine for me? If I could ship the pill off and have it built for me, it would be better than any result I could achieve myself...

 

[kwarwick]

so kwarwick I know from using that combo emitter+light enging that it is a thin unit. Likely a few mm thinner than stock set-up. How have you accounted for the variation to focus the reflector?

You are correct, the XP-G LED board and LED is definitely thinner than the stock XR-E, but fortunately there is nothing stopping one from screwing the head with reflector down further than it would be with the stock LED. In stock form the XR-E dome protruded slightly into the reflector and the back of the reflector sat on the LED substrate and put pressure on the whole assembly to hold it in place... the design actually depended on this as there was only thermal grease behind the LED board and required the reflector pressure to maintain contact.

Unfortunately with the shape of the back of the reflector, it would ground out on the solder points of the XP-G board so using reflector pressure to hold the LED didn't seem wise, hence the use of thermal adhesive to attach the LED.

Anyways to answer your question... in testing it seemed that with reflector screwed down to make only slight contact with my LED board (insulated to ensure no shorts) that the beam came into pretty nice focus. I'm sure an XP-G specific reflector would provide even better focus, but I don't imagine such exists so this seems like a reasonable compromise.

I would of loved to try the SST-50, but like I said I don't have one on the correct sized star. Anyone know of a source for SST-50 on 16mm stars?

Karl

 

[waddup]

after my spear clone died i put a bare p7 in it.

direct drive.

one of my favorite lights now,

before it was a great thrower but throwers are only so useful

now with the p7 its still a good thrower but also a wall of light.

had to buy epoxy and teflon wire etc etc, and ream the reflector out a little,

and it was tricky to do.

but im glad i did.

probably any of the modders here can do it for you for $50 in labour + parts.

i would offer, but i think i got lucky doing mine, i wont be doing any teeny tiny soldering again in a hurry :)

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=246792

 

[kwarwick]

OK, I finally got the light assembled this evening and although I don't have any outdoor beam shots, I'd estimate the light to be easily twice as bright as stock. Like stock the beam is a bit ringy up close, but less noticeable when projected further away. The hot spot is very well defined and the throw is at least as good if not better than stock.

I'll do some more tests in the days to come and see if I can find a good spot for some outdoor comparison beam shots.

Karl

 

[dudu84]

Just as a side question... Is there anyone around that can build the light engine for me? If I could ship the pill off and have it built for me, it would be better than any result I could achieve myself...

I would like to help but then, I can't do a better job than you on this anyway, as I'm inexperienced myself :grin2:. The thought that I screw up someone's money makes me feel terrible :sigh:

 

[mvyrmnd]

Thanks for the offer dudu84, but nailbender has agreed to take the light and turn it into a sst-50 beast!

I'll have to post shots once I get it back...

 

[waddup]

Thanks for the offer dudu84, but naiulbender has agreed to take the light and turn it into a sst-50 beast!

I'll have to post shots once I get it back...

have him make it a 3 mode if you can (low-med-high) a single mode 600+ lumen flashlight is almost completely useless in real life unless you want to land planes :)

an sst spear will be lots of fun :party: