Finally opened up an X1 and questions

Well, after a year of avoiding it, I finally opened up an Inova X1 today. Wasn't nearly as scary as I had feared. Did the freeze pop thing three times and it pulled apart.

Eventually, I'd like to use at least a Lux I or Lux III but for now, I popped in a B0-bin Nichia CS. It looks at least three times as bright and whiter except around the very edge of the beam where it still turns distinctly blu-ish. Someone (I think it was LED_ASAP) mentioned positioning the LED further forward instead of right at the PCB (by leaving the leads a bit longer) in order to widen the beam, of course, that would leave it a bit less intense. I think I'd have to sand down the flare at the bottom of the LED a bit in order to fit it through the little brass thingy that needs to make contact.

Has anyone done this with a Nichia CS or other 5mm LED?

Also, how much current is sent to the LED itself? I measured 170ma at the tailcap with a fresh alkaline and 210ma with a fresh Energizer Lithium. Is it just a really ineffecient regulator or is it really sending close to 100ma to the LED?

Also, it no longer works with a 'cooled down' NiMH cell at all. I had an Energizer 2500 mAh that measured 1.35v on a DMM and it wouldn't even light the LED up at all.

Here are before and after shots. Both were with an alkaline cell. Distance is 15 feet, camera settings are full manual, f2.8, 1 second and 28mm equiv.

...... how about a super MJLED ??

Well, I guess it would be do-able, but I'd have to ask lambda about the voltage. The X1 sends about 3.7V to the LED and Lambda cautions us not to use brand spanking new fresh Lithiums which are about 1.7V each... so that would be 3.4V... Not sure how long it would last in the X1. There is another 100ma white LED that I got from somewhere... can't remember where but it's a different design than the MJLED or the LED in the 0.5W Nuwais. I might try it if I can find an answer to how much current the X1 sends to the LED.

I think I read somewhere here that it is limited to 20ma.

Hrmm... shame it's not closer to about 60.

Hopefully Inova will use the CS in a future version of the X1 and up the current.

For some reason NiMH would not work in the light either. I used Alkalines and it fired up. Did you use NiMH before? Perhaps something in the freeze pop method moves say the tail cap differenlty where certain shaped NiMH won't make contact... ?

Yeah... I used NiMHs pretty much exclusively before modding it. Weird thing is, even a crappy no-name brand alkaline that measured 1.18V worked, but an NiMH measuring well over 1.2V didn't.

I think I kept playing around and tried a hot off the charger NiMH and it worked in the CS B0, but I just swapped the CS B0 for one of the green LSDiodes.com THC3 LEDs and even the uber fresh didn't work on NiMH.

The THC3 was disappointing. VERY disappointing actually. I'm going to try a few various red LEDs I have laying around in hopes that the combination of higher V out but lower current the board provides might work well with one. If a few crappy reds work, I still have two red THC3s to try but again, I'm not holding my breath. I'd like to find something that gets really good brightness that will work in the X1... No wonder LED_ASAP modded or replaced the board with his mods.

Red would be nice. I think they originally spec'd red x1s, but were never sold.

Wahoo! I finally have an X1 Greenlight doesn't have!

I tried the green THC3... not very bright.

Blue THC3... not impressive.

Red THC3... BINGO!

Not sure how long it will last, but it's in and working and impressively bright. THe THC3 is intended for 2.4V up to 100ma and I guess the 3.7-3.8V at 20ma the X1 regulator provides is close enough... I do believe it would be brighter at 2.4V at 80-100ma, but this seems brighter than a red Infinity Ultra though I no longer have one to compare... and since the beams are so different, it would be hard to compare anyway.

Either way, it's pretty cool and though I've been swapping LEDs in and out, I think I'll be leaving this light with the RED. Again, no idea how long it will last, but I've probably used it for 3 hours so far and it seems just as bright as it was initially and when I killed the red THC3 directly on 2 alkalines, it died in about three seconds.

Another thing that's kind of odd is that as you tighten the tailcap to make constant contact, it starts off dimmer, then gets brighter then finally gets to max brightness. I thought that since the X1 had constant current regulation, it was just all or nothing, but this visibly gets brighter as the tailcap is tightened, which is pretty cool.

I'll try to put up beamshots when it gets dark.

Good job. Keep that light on to see if the LED burns out later.

Yeah, since you seemed to want a red one so bad, I was going to offer it for sale to you after I determine that it isn't going to burn out in short order. But again, my experience is that over-voltaged (is that a word?) red LEDs usually die in a few seconds so the fact that this one has been going for multiple hours is a good sign. Well see once it's gone through a couple cells worth of use.

Went all the way through an alkaline with intermittant use and on a fresh cell, it still looks as bright as when I first put the red LED in.

A good sign!

The tail cap can get resistance and corrosion around it. That's why it gets brighter the tighter you twist. Try cleaning the end of the battery tube (perhaps light sandpaper to get the oxidation off) and the inside of the tail cap. Also after the freeze-pop there will be rust/oxidation because there is so many different metals inside making electrical contact.

You got brass, aluminum, steel, and nickel? plated steel. Oh and the gold contacts on the PCB board too. Lots of contact points to build up resistnace. I cleaned all the corrosion off of greenlight's x1's. I even put a new + battery nipple in as the old one was rusted and I didn't feel like cleaning it, so I put in a nice new one from a mag light switch piston that operated the stock PR base bulb focusing thing.

I thought the Red would be ok. I wonder about a 20ma regular red now.. Hmmmm. It may even be brighter than the 100ma and yet still last who knows...

Yeah, a brighter red would be nice but in all honesty, the THC3 is about perfect... plenty bright to walk around even a semi dangerous indoor area. Matter of fact, this Saturday night, I locked myself in the new expansion area of my father in law's cabin with no lights (while I was testing some lights throw ability in the attic) and mostly used the red Inova to move around. There is drywall and stacks of cedar and oak and tools and generally just a relatively dangerous area yet the Inova provided plenty of light to navigate safely.

What I'd really like to find is the brightest 20ma green or cyan LED. The green THC3 just isn't nearly as impressive as I had hoped for...

I love this site. Here I was looking to figure out how to mod my X1, and here are the experts!


I hope you are still reading this thread as I have questions, as a relative newbie.

I read about the freezer thingy to get the X1 apart. I am wondering about replacing the LED.

I really like and need the nice tight beam. I am also limited to using regular AA alkies, as I run through them pretty quickly and can get them easily for free at work.

That being said, I would like a whiter even slightly warm beam that is brighter. I am wondering what LED to look for that would be easy to install without having to drill out anything. I was wondering about a Snow 29 but read that their shape is different and was concerned that I might be out of luck fitting it in.

What about other LEDs? Any recommendations? Again, brighter than stock and whiter, or even slightly warmer than white.

Along with this questions comes another: where does one buy a single or a minimal number of LEDs? I don't imagine I would need any more than a few. I can see some places selling boxes of 100s, but that won't help me at all. Unless, I buy 99 more X1s? Hmmm...

Also, is the mod just as simple as pulling out the old LED and soldering on a new one? Any recommendations to getting this done for a first time mod-er without frying the circuits?

Thanks in advance.

Nichia CS work great

Justin, I replied to your PM. You should be able to do it like a pro now. Like I said in the PM and as nemul says, Nichia CS is nice. The C0 tint will be what you'd like best.

Yeah, so far, I've swapped in a Nichia CS BO, one of KevinL's 35Ks, and the green THC3 and red THC3. They are all pretty easy. I mean, relatively easy... hardest part is getting access to the LED itself.

As you can see from the beamshots, even the CS B0 LED is less blue than the stock LED was in my X1. Between the CS B0 and the CS C0, the C0 is warmer. Generally, it looks sort of bluish in the middle, and greenish or yellowish around the spillbeam but if you are wanting a bit warmer color, the C0 is probably the way to go. The Snow 29 LED is slightly larger than pretty much any other 5mm LED and would need to be sanded down to fit in the little brass LED 'centerer' or whatever it's called.

Don't forget your glow mod!!