Imworking
Newly Enlightened
Sometime in the middle of January I purchased Lambda's Super Regulated flashlight from Roy. I was going through the BST listings when I saw a post about a light that not only got 4 1/2 to 6 1/2 hours from a set of AA batteries but also got brighter the longer it ran. Granted the output was only 170 foot candles but that was enough for what I need a light for.
After sending PM and a going to PayPal, the light was finally in my grubby hands, and boy did I have plans for it. The first change was a new host. The light came in a Brinkmann host, and while they are good lights, the switch leaves something to be desired. I took the pill out of the light and went do drop it in my purple mini m@g, surprise! It didn't fit. Apparently the diameter of a brinkman light is a little bigger than that of the m@g. Did I give up, hell no! I managed to shoe horn the pill into a black mini m@g with a little bit of coaxing. Damn! The diameter of the top of the pill was too big to fit through the opening in the m@g light. Out comes the pill. Out comes the drill. After a few minutes the opening is set. In goes the pill. Success.
Some batteries, a Ram tail cap and viola, its on! Now the pill came with a low dome luxeon, which is OK, who am I kidding, they suck. A light came on in my head, after a few minutes on the Led Supply website and a couple of days, I've got a couple of Q3K HD's just looking for a home. One went into a Dorcy AA attached to a modified m@g reflector and the second...... You guessed it, it was earmarked for my super regulated pill. Getting the old emitter off was a beaach! Not so much desoldering the wires from the leads but removing the actual emitter from the aluminum pill. It finally came off and the new emitter was superglued into place. Here's where the spam hit the fan.
To understand why this process became such a pain in the tucas, you need to know what this pill looked like. It was built like Fort Knox. Imagine the bottom two sections of wedding cake with printed circuit board on the bottom. On the top was the emitter, two tiny tiny holes with red and blue wires coming out and on the side was piece of gold foil which was connected to a negative terminal on the emitter to provide sufficient grounding.
Now at this point you're probably thinking I've got it made. All I have to do is solder the wires to the new emitter and I'm is business. That's what I thought too. It was a Friday sometime in January which meant that my girlfriend made dinner.......reservations! We get back from dinner and we're bickering about something. Its hard to solder and bicker. I get the red wire on the emitter. Now all I have to do is solder the blue wire to the negative terminal and the piece of grounding foil. I solder the red wire to the emitter and the pill, Doh! Now the red wire is grounded out by a little bridge of solder that connects it to the negative pill. No problem. I'll just touch it with the soldering iron and melt the solder away and be back in business. Oh sh#t, during the process the red wire breaks off below the surface of the pill! Ding dangaly bling blang shoot!!!!! A frantic PM to Lambda. A ray of hope. He says he might have another one lying around that already has a high dome on it. Woohoo! Guess he was busy cause he never PMed me back, oh well.
The pill sits. And sits and sits. Fast forward two months. I just moved into my new place and I'm unpacking crap and I find my "Pill of Shame". I was partially liquored up so I get out my fake dremmel tool and start hacking at the PC board on the bottom of the pill to see if I can get the guts out of it. No such luck. Now I have this pill with a broken red wire stuck inside of it and a hacked up PC board on the bottom. Fast forward another week. I look at the pill and I see that red wire is just below the surface of the top of the pill. I carefully take my fake dremmel tool and cut the side of the pill on both sides of the red wire and remove the section. I fold the red wire down and now I have a piece of wire big enough to solder another piece of wire to. This is not as easy as it sounds because we have to remember that the surface of the pill itself is the negative connector.
As a matter of convenience, it decide to solder the negative side first. What I have to do is solder the blue wire and the negative emitter terminal to the a spot on the pill that is connected to the gold grounding foil. Sh#t! The negative terminal of the emitter broke off right at the side of the emitter. Not even a little stub to work with. Let just try dropping a big blob of solder from the tab to the left of the lead (I guess its the indicator that tells us its the negative terminal) all the way to the foil on the pill and the blue wire. After it cools, I load it into the light and connect a wire from the little piece of red wire I have exposed to the positive terminal indicator (did I mention that the positive terminal of the emitter also broke off!). It lights!!!!!!!
Now the tricky part. I need to connect a wire to the positive terminal indicator, run it around the emitter and ledge of the pill to the point where the red wire sticks out and solder the red wire to the coiled wire while making sure that no exposed wire touched the negatively grounded pill. Long story short, after about and hour, frankenpill is born. Its ugly but it works. It is firmly glued in place. There is tape protecting positive wires from touching the pill. I has dremmel hack marks in it but it works. Add a precision ground reflector and I have a light that is brighter than my Arc LSH that maintains constant, and I do mean constant brightness (it actually gets brighter) for 4 1/2 to 6 1/2 hours on a set of AA batteries. If you buy bulk batteries that's an operating cost of 8 to 12 cents an hour! One of a kind and mine all mine!
Lambda and Arc Mania have a great little item in this pill. I don't understand why they did not mass produce them. For those of us who want a nice little bright light, not super bright (I'm not trying to compensate for anything), but definitely bright, with great run time, this pill fits the bill. It was a real pain but I finally got it working.
After sending PM and a going to PayPal, the light was finally in my grubby hands, and boy did I have plans for it. The first change was a new host. The light came in a Brinkmann host, and while they are good lights, the switch leaves something to be desired. I took the pill out of the light and went do drop it in my purple mini m@g, surprise! It didn't fit. Apparently the diameter of a brinkman light is a little bigger than that of the m@g. Did I give up, hell no! I managed to shoe horn the pill into a black mini m@g with a little bit of coaxing. Damn! The diameter of the top of the pill was too big to fit through the opening in the m@g light. Out comes the pill. Out comes the drill. After a few minutes the opening is set. In goes the pill. Success.
Some batteries, a Ram tail cap and viola, its on! Now the pill came with a low dome luxeon, which is OK, who am I kidding, they suck. A light came on in my head, after a few minutes on the Led Supply website and a couple of days, I've got a couple of Q3K HD's just looking for a home. One went into a Dorcy AA attached to a modified m@g reflector and the second...... You guessed it, it was earmarked for my super regulated pill. Getting the old emitter off was a beaach! Not so much desoldering the wires from the leads but removing the actual emitter from the aluminum pill. It finally came off and the new emitter was superglued into place. Here's where the spam hit the fan.
To understand why this process became such a pain in the tucas, you need to know what this pill looked like. It was built like Fort Knox. Imagine the bottom two sections of wedding cake with printed circuit board on the bottom. On the top was the emitter, two tiny tiny holes with red and blue wires coming out and on the side was piece of gold foil which was connected to a negative terminal on the emitter to provide sufficient grounding.
Now at this point you're probably thinking I've got it made. All I have to do is solder the wires to the new emitter and I'm is business. That's what I thought too. It was a Friday sometime in January which meant that my girlfriend made dinner.......reservations! We get back from dinner and we're bickering about something. Its hard to solder and bicker. I get the red wire on the emitter. Now all I have to do is solder the blue wire to the negative terminal and the piece of grounding foil. I solder the red wire to the emitter and the pill, Doh! Now the red wire is grounded out by a little bridge of solder that connects it to the negative pill. No problem. I'll just touch it with the soldering iron and melt the solder away and be back in business. Oh sh#t, during the process the red wire breaks off below the surface of the pill! Ding dangaly bling blang shoot!!!!! A frantic PM to Lambda. A ray of hope. He says he might have another one lying around that already has a high dome on it. Woohoo! Guess he was busy cause he never PMed me back, oh well.
The pill sits. And sits and sits. Fast forward two months. I just moved into my new place and I'm unpacking crap and I find my "Pill of Shame". I was partially liquored up so I get out my fake dremmel tool and start hacking at the PC board on the bottom of the pill to see if I can get the guts out of it. No such luck. Now I have this pill with a broken red wire stuck inside of it and a hacked up PC board on the bottom. Fast forward another week. I look at the pill and I see that red wire is just below the surface of the top of the pill. I carefully take my fake dremmel tool and cut the side of the pill on both sides of the red wire and remove the section. I fold the red wire down and now I have a piece of wire big enough to solder another piece of wire to. This is not as easy as it sounds because we have to remember that the surface of the pill itself is the negative connector.
As a matter of convenience, it decide to solder the negative side first. What I have to do is solder the blue wire and the negative emitter terminal to the a spot on the pill that is connected to the gold grounding foil. Sh#t! The negative terminal of the emitter broke off right at the side of the emitter. Not even a little stub to work with. Let just try dropping a big blob of solder from the tab to the left of the lead (I guess its the indicator that tells us its the negative terminal) all the way to the foil on the pill and the blue wire. After it cools, I load it into the light and connect a wire from the little piece of red wire I have exposed to the positive terminal indicator (did I mention that the positive terminal of the emitter also broke off!). It lights!!!!!!!
Now the tricky part. I need to connect a wire to the positive terminal indicator, run it around the emitter and ledge of the pill to the point where the red wire sticks out and solder the red wire to the coiled wire while making sure that no exposed wire touched the negatively grounded pill. Long story short, after about and hour, frankenpill is born. Its ugly but it works. It is firmly glued in place. There is tape protecting positive wires from touching the pill. I has dremmel hack marks in it but it works. Add a precision ground reflector and I have a light that is brighter than my Arc LSH that maintains constant, and I do mean constant brightness (it actually gets brighter) for 4 1/2 to 6 1/2 hours on a set of AA batteries. If you buy bulk batteries that's an operating cost of 8 to 12 cents an hour! One of a kind and mine all mine!
Lambda and Arc Mania have a great little item in this pill. I don't understand why they did not mass produce them. For those of us who want a nice little bright light, not super bright (I'm not trying to compensate for anything), but definitely bright, with great run time, this pill fits the bill. It was a real pain but I finally got it working.
