Uk Vizion headlamp upgrade??

[anthonytsi]

Have there been any attempts at upgrading the emitter in the UK Vizion headlamp?
I love mine but wish it were a little brighter.
It looks like one that would be easy to modify but I am a newbie so this is why I ask.
Thanks

 

[half-watt]

How old is your Vizion? I have an older one, but recently purchased a new one with supposedly more output (29lm v. 51lm). Haven't compared them side-by-side, nor measured light output. Brightguy.com sells them both if you are interested in comparing specs. It's still a 3xAAA light, so I would question the wisdom of attempting to get more output than the 51lm unless a much shorter burntime is not objectionable. Generally, a HL's burntimes are intended to be a bit different than most handheld lights.

 

[anthonytsi]

If you do a comparison between the two you have, please let me know if you think the newer version is bright enough to warrant buying the new one.
Thanks in advance.

 

[regulator]

Hi half-watt. I would be interested in you impression of the new revised UK compared to the old model. I almost bought one when they first came out but held off.

It has been a while since I bought my first headlamp (a PT fuel 15 lumen). There have been some nice improvements since then. Even the new Fuel is interesting at 43 lumens (now with 4 LED's)! PT and Petzl have some nice improved models as well. Higher output is nice but I like that you can dial output down to get longer runtime and still have decent output.

 

[Marko]

I have an older one, but recently purchased a new one with supposedly more output (29lm v. 51lm). Haven't compared them side-by-side, nor measured light output.

Beamshots, please!

I'm interested of updating my old UK Vizion, and this is all I could find about the older verion's LED. Hope it would be easy to update, like Myo XP? :thinking:

 

[tnuckels]

SSC-P9 measures 5x3.9mm while the SSC-P4 is 8x5.08mm (see the Spec. PDFs down the respective pages, on the right). Guestimating from the picture, the Vizion's holder only looks to be about 7.5mm across, though there may be other ways to mount the LED. At least there's no reflector to mess with, just an optic.

Are current production P9s more powerful than the one in the original Vizion HL?

Wonder if half-watt could peak into his more recent, more powerful version of the Vizion and see what LED is being used.

Spec sheets say 28lm for P9 run at 150mA and 100lm for a current (U-bin) P4 run at 350mA. Don't know if it works like this, but my simple mind says a P4 run at 150mA should give 43lm or about a 50% increase.

The old lamp lists 29lm for 120hrs, while the newer, 2 level lamp says 51lm for 5hrs and 24lm for 12hrs. Guess that might also be part of the price of admission … brighter = dramatically reduced runtime. Engineer types might want to jump in here to confirm or refute this shade-tree analysis.

 

[Woods Walker]

Somehow I got the the feeling they are running the old LED harder and have not done any upgrade but don't know. If they ever upgrade the LED and it is getting a bit silly as to why not they would get a sale from me.

 

[Marko]

Has anybody upgraded their UK Vizion yet? :thinking:

I like the Uk Vizion, since it has very large push button switch, so its easy to use with gloves on (we need gloves this time of year here in Finland )

 

[Woods Walker]

I checked the web site.

http://www.uwkinetics.com/product/109

It says 42 lumens high for 5 hours and 19 lumens low for 12. I still don't know what to make of this. Maybe I will contact the company. I kinda want one for the yak but would like to know if there was an update.

 

[anthonytsi]

UK VIZION upgrade mod has been completed. I just needed to get the balls up to risk screwing it up cause there is no "how to" on the net.
I took the old led from my PT EOS, unsoldered it from the star and put it in the VIZION. The lens fits a little tight when screwed down (and you cant screw it all the way down) against the dome of the led but seems to work great and holds the led in place. The wires pull right out of the old led and then you must trim a little off the wires and bend the led tabs up 90 degrees to keep it all from touching the frame of the light. Just look at it as you go and all should make sense, especially if your a flashaholic.
It's as bright as my EOS now and has the waterproof qualities of the VIZION.
Keep in mind I have both the old eos and vizion. I would imagine the mod could be done on the new vizion with an even brighter led.
I have only run it for lumens comparisons, not running time or reliability.

 

[anthonytsi]

I am testing this mod for reliability right now. Do not attempt until I give my results.

 

[anthonytsi]

The build seems to work well. I can't tell an increase in runtime, however the brightness has increased by almost double.