modding a Dorcy 3D w/ 3 watt

i'm thinking about modding my dorcy 3D super 1 watt with a 3watt luxeon.

could i just take the old 1 watt off and replace it with a 3 watt TWOJ star?

if not, what would i need?

sorry if these are dumb questions, this is my first experience modding a light.

Yes, you can just replace the original star with you TWOJ. You may not notice much increase in brightness (I didin't when I modded mine) but it will probably be whiter. All depends on what was in there already. If you take the head completely apart there is a resistor in there that you could take out to make it even brighter, but it will drive your 3W very hard on fresh D cells.

Sean said:

Yes, you can just replace the original star with you TWOJ. You may not notice much increase in brightness (I didin't when I modded mine) but it will probably be whiter. All depends on what was in there already. If you take the head completely apart there is a resistor in there that you could take out to make it even brighter, but it will drive your 3W very hard on fresh D cells.

Click to expand...

thanks for your answer sean.

i got unlucky and got a q-bin 1 watt. it's fairly bright but not as bright as i thought-at least compared to my ledbeam. i guess what i want is ledbeam-type of brightness but with d-cells. any suggestions?

I bought a couple of the 3D Super 1Ws... modded one with a TY0K (or maybe it was a TYAK) but left the resistor. It was about 10% or 20% brighter at the most, but both of mine were R-bins. I swapped the Lux I back in.

If I had an Q-bin, I might go ahead and swap the star out. If you remove the resistor, I'd recommend an L Vf... or maybe even an M. The TW0M is pretty cheap these days.

I've put TV1Ks direct drive off 3D cells, but with resistance in the lights the emitters are only seeing about an amp with brand new alkaline cells.

I'd just swap stars-(TWOJ has so much potential) thermal epoxy that thing down, and then get new batteries---turn it on for just a little while to check current. I don't know how much resistance that host has, but with the stock resistor, it probably won't be too impressive. Then, bypass the resistor and check current again.

With these two current measurements in mind, you can calculate what resistor you will actually want to run in your light normally. It's going to be a great light. Keep us posted.