Upgrading an Arc AA?

[Peter Atwood]

OK, I have one of the nifty old Arc AA lights. Bought it years ago and recently found it while going through a drawer. Love the design and the sweet knurling on it but the nichia 5mm LED output is relatively feeble and a very angry blue. My question is:

Can this light be upgraded with a higher output LED with better color? And if so, who could do the job?

 

[greenLED]

Yes, it can be upgraded, either to a newer rank LED, or to a Lux.

I'm pretty sure darkzero could pull this off for you.

 

[Marduke]

I would recommend upgrading it to a Nichia DS. On paper, the Nichia GS is brighter, but it has a worse tint and beam pattern, and a much shorter life. The actual brightness increase is minimal.

The Nichia DS should be a direct swap for the 5mm which is in there right now.

 

[TONY M]

You may consider just getting you're self a Fenix E01 with better regulation and runtime than the ARC.
Sorry for sounding a bit "pushy" for this suggestion but someone was going to bring it up anyway.

 

[Tesla]

That may be a little like "modding" a vintage amp. If you need a modern amp, buy a modern amp (or flashlight).

 

[greenLED]

The build quality (anodizing) of Arc wins hands down over Fenix, though.

 

[BIGIRON]

Yep, the old ARC's, particularly the AA, are pretty much in the classic/collectible category now. You might keep it original and buy a modern light to use. Sounds silly, but.....

 

[PhotonBoy]

I fully understand the nostalgia surrounding the classic Arc AA lights, but wouldn't upgrading to a NiteCore D10 be a better route?

Its knurling is very good, and the output is fully adjustable between 130 lumens and 3-5 lumens. An added advantage is that it has lots of throw. Just saying....

 

[Peter Atwood]

Oh you guys don't get it... I already have dozens and dozens of the latest modern lights from the past five years. My goal here is to simply bring this light up to code so to speak. I know all kinds of people have modded the Arc AAA lights so that's why I'm asking.

And I do own virtually all the Fenix lights, Nitecorp, JetBeam, Lumapower, Gerber, Tiablo, Inova, and many others as well as dozens of customs such as McGizmos, Modamag, Mac, Bitz, D Speck, Photon Fanatic, TNC etc. While I enjoy many of the features and increased performance of the latest lights I still have a soft spot for a single stage AA platform light with a moderate output beam and long runtime. Plus, the ARC AA host has such a classic design with great anodizing and beautiful knurling. The reflector is also simple and fairly large and the beam is good sized but it falls short of what we are now so used to in terms of tint and brightness. I'm just trying to find out what I could do if anything to increase brightness, provide a better tint to the pale blue beam. Runtime is lower priority.

 

[greenLED]

Yup, ship it off to darkzero.

 

[Kanelight]

Millermods has done some nice work with Arc AA.

I've got a Millermod Arc AA with a SWOH Lux1 and 2-stage board. The high is about 250ma and the low is 50ma. The low is amazingly bright- enough to walk a woods trail on a dark night. The mod is cosmetically perfect.

 

[Peter Atwood]

Cool, thanks guys. I happen to have just had some dealings with Dark Zero so I emailed him and will see what he says. If he doesn't want to do something I'll try Millermods.

 

[notamchris]

Hey Peter, I would love to hear what you discover as to modding the Arc AA. I posted a while back about modding mine and didn't get any responses, so I am still looking...

I also love the Arc AA, but do agree that it needs a little upgrade.

 

[shuter]

I would aalso like to know what the performance options and costs are for upgrading old Arc AA & AAA and old Peak AA & AAA lights. Please let us know what you find out.

 

[gswitter]

What are you wanting to get out of this mod? Brighter? Longer runtime? Both?

Might be worth contacting ARCmania as well. He was hinting at doing a run of modded Arc AAA's using a new miniature DC/DC converter he came across. The run never happened, but I recently bought one he modded. He indicated he could use the mini converter for both high and low current builds, and if the mod works for the Arc AAA, I assume it could be done to the AA as well.

 

[shuter]

gswitter - For myself, brighter mostly.

 

[Peter Atwood]

Looks like Millermods doesn't want to deal with them anymore because they are a pain to uncrimp and take apart, then they need to be repotted in epoxy. Maybe Dark Zero is a better bet. It looks like running a 14500 with a luxeon and a flupic is the way to go so I'm trying to find out what an adventure like that would cost me and see if it's worth it. Honestly, maybe not....