Surefire 9N converted to LED

[PCC]

The Surefire 9N that my cousin gave to me is in great working order but the B90 batteries gave up the ghost. Instead of buying new batteries I had some other ideas about this light. I came up with the idea that a 9N-2-M adapter would probably work and had someone local make it for me. What you see here is the end results of that effort.

The head is a TLS TX3 head that I had bought about a year ago. The adapter is a piece of aluminum that was turned on a lathe and threaded to fit both the 9N body without any modifications done to it as well as an M head.

A Delrin sleeve was made so that the 18650 batteries don't rattle around inside of the flashlight body.

Everything fits like it was designed this way.

The TX3 head is a two-mode head that starts off in high mode but turning it off and then back on again turns it on in low mode. If I want low mode I tap the tail button then twist the tailcap tight and I get it. Down the road I plan on changing the driver board with something better and I might change the Q5 LED for an R2 or something.

 

[DUQ]

Very cool mod.

 

[wquiles]

Very cool mod.

+1

I like it. Nice job!

 

[Kestrel]

I like it as well. The TH and the body look like they were made for each other. :thumbsup:

Down the road I plan on changing the driver board with something better and I might change the Q5 LED for an R2 or something.

How about the new XP-G for that head? Justin Case has had excellent results with the XP-G in the SF turboheads - he has gotten very high lux numbers with his build, better than the P4 or the much larger MC-E in the same unit. I'm not sure where to find his post on that but if you PM him I think he would be happy to supply his lux figures.

 

[yellow]

absolutley right, XP-G instead of XR-E.
One wont notice any difference between Q5 and R2, only the tint will make something.
Not worth the hasse to do that.

another plus is, that the XP-G has a much wider opening angle, so a higher % of the light goes into the reflector.

 

[Justin Case]

The TX3 should be mod'able for an XP-G. I don't have one to verify (or maybe I do -- this KD light, which KD no longer carries, might use the same head and the pill definitely is removable), but it is my understanding that the pill is removable and you should be able to do the usual emitter swap.

This link and this one contain some of my lux measurements, comparing various LED towers in various THs.

 

[Justin Case]

another plus is, that the XP-G has a much wider opening angle, so a higher % of the light goes into the reflector.

Here is jtr1962's data on various LED beam angles:

XP-G R5

XP-E R2

MC-E K4A

XR-E Q5

XR-E R2

 

[PCC]

Thanks, guys! I had considered the XP-G but kind of wanted to keep the throw aspect of this as I don't have too many throwers in my collection. Well, I do have a few D-cell Mags but those hardly count

I had thought that the R2 wouldn't be much of an improvement over a Q5 but I do want to change the driver board as I think this one is only pushing 700mA to the LED. Compared to the Dereelight 1SD drop-in I have in my SolarForce, it's not putting out as much light (ceiling bounce) and that 1SD is getting 1A to the Q5 LED. Still, it was a fun project that still has a few tweaks to be done before I'm completely happy with it. I thought about buying a Dereelight 3SM module for it but they changed to the XP-G LED and I don't know what that'll do to the beam pattern. I guess I'll just have to do it and see what happens. I could always swap the emitters with the 1SD and get the beam back if it doesn't work out. I've confirmed that the 1SD has the same threads as the TLS reflector so the 3SM should work.

The other night I did find a small problem with it. I had it on low and placed it on a pile of laundry in the bathroom. It slipped off of the laundry, tail-first, and switched itself to high when it landed on the floor. Now, the tailcap on the 9N is the traditional twist-on or momentary so the only way I figured that it switched to high was because the battery stack bounced and momentarily lost contact with the spring on the pill. Looks like I need to get protected 18650s in there as they're slightly longer, which should compress the springs a bit more to prevent this sort of thing happening in the future. I might put a bit of silicone tubing inside of the tailcap spring to stiffen it as well.

 

[PCC]

I like it as well. The TH and the body look like they were made for each other. :thumbsup:

Yeah, that was part of the reason that I had gone with that particular head. Kind of reminds me of a light saber. Yeah, I'm a Star Wars fan

 

[GarageBoy]

That is one CLEAN vintage flashlight

 

[PCC]

Just an update to this thread. I bought the ThruNite 1.5A multi-mode module and swapped the pills. The resulting beam was pretty bad with a small hotspot but a huge corona around it and tons of spill. I then played a bit with the placement of the pill relative to the reflector (threaded it out from fully tight and testing it in increments) and this improved the beam so I cut out some business cards to use as shims and shimmed the pill. It now has a nice, not so tight, beam. The corona is still there but it is a lot smaller and the spill has not changed. On high this thing is a monster! I'm really happy with this light, now. I just need to buy a pair of AW protected 18650s and I'm done with it.

 

[Kestrel]

[...] a small hotspot but a huge areola around it and tons of spill. [...]

Um, do you mean 'corona' or 'aureola'? "Areola" has a somewhat different definition...

 

[PCC]

Oops, my bad. I was thinking corona but drew a blank when posting that so I posted the next thing that came to mind Yeah, I need to get my mind out of the gutter I'll edit that.

 

[Turboman7]

Hey PCC,

Where did you get that 9N-2-M adapter? I have a couple of old 9Ns and I would love to "update" one of them.

 

[PCC]

I had it made by a fellow CPF'er who wishes to remain anonymous and doesn't want to make any more of them. I have a drawing of the part that will give most dimensions to a machinist who can then make one for you but I think the machinist will probably just want the M head and the 9N head to take measurements off of. The threading on the end of the 9N body and the M head are both 20TPI, as is used by SureFire on a lot of their lights. The only critical thing is that the machinist needs to know that the adapter needs to bottom out on the end of it, not on the shoulder since the end of the 9N tube is anodized and won't conduct.