Poor man's tri-lux

I recently purchased this chinese light
http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/amart_41led.htm

3 of the LEDs are dead after 20 minute use. When I opened the Bezel, there seems to be a lot of room for modding.

I'm totally new to modifying flashlight, how hard is it to turn this into a tri-lux? It has a 4aaa battery holder similar to electrolumen's upcoming "Little friend" that puts out 200+ lumens. I'm thinking of getting 3 luxeon clones (cost issues, of couse) and resistor it and drive it below spec for longer run-time, better l/w.


Is this too ambitious for someone who doesn't know much about electronics? Is it hard to find the right parts? I know I need to find reflectors or optics & probably a heatsink to mount these emitters
:help:

Hrmm... I don't know about using that particular light, but for a Mag mod, the perfect tri-sink (the heatsink and star holder) and three IMS reflectors are available at The Shoppe. You'd really ideally want three identical stars or else one or two are likely to overpower the other(s).

Were you wanting to attempt to make a heatsink from scratch or something? I think unless you were really just wanting to challenge yourself, buying one will be radically easier and cheaper when you factor in your own labor.

I found the heatsink for tri-star however I don't see the reflectors in the list.

Heatsinks

Reflectors

Looks like they are out of the 20mm IMS reflectors but they are like $5.25 or $5.50.

Will 2 CR123A 3 volt primary cells fit into it?
A pair will just barely fit into the 28 led model.

What about building a brighter narrow flood type flashlight by replacing the crummy original leds with 41 of the not so expensive 5mm 40Kmillicandle leds?

Assuming you weren't using Lithium cells, if you got it from advancedmart, let him know and he'll make it right and get a replacement out to you. I have no idea how large diameter that light is or if the perfect tri sink will fit... Either way, it sounds like it will be a lot of work and even if it fits together perfectly, heat may VERY well be an issue.

I bought it in a street market. The Leds are directly driven with 4 NimH's.
The led's run so hot that part of the reflector is melted (no surprises that few are dead).

I'm not sure how to replace individual leds as they are soldered directly to the PCB (the greenish plate?)


I really like this body. The construction, button switch, threads of this light is above average of other chinese lights. And it can supply up to 6V.

Replacing the leds isn't difficult, just time consuming.
You need something to firmly clamp the round green circuit board so that the leds are hanging upside down, a pencil style soldering iron, and some solder wick.

Where it gets interesting is when you go to put the new ones in place. You have to make sure you don't mix up the positive with the negative and accidentally solder a new led in backwards. Again, not difficult, just time consuming.

When you buy new leds you will find that the positive lead is longer than the negative lead and that helps cut down on the confusion factor when you install them into a circuit board.