Sure-Fire E2 Lamp to LED conversion

Well, I couldn't wait for my lamp to burn out so I made my own drop-in LED replacement for my E2. I made it out of a bic pen barrel, coax cable with the guts pulled out,two washers and lots of hot glue. Sorry I don't have the digital camera anymore. Maybe I can take some shots at work. First I took a round white barrel Bic pen and cut it exactly the length of the regular lamp from the metal washer to the contact end. Leaving me with a small white plastic tube. I then cut a piece of thick contractor grade coax cable the same length. I pulled the guts out leaving me with a hollow tube. I stuck this tube into the Bic pen tube. The cheap coax won't be big enough. You have to get the good thick stuff. You can do without the coax tube if you have to. It's just to make it a better fit. Take a white 5600mcd LED and cut the positive lead short. About a quarter inch or a little less. Take a 33ohm resistor and cut the lead of one end leaving a quarter inch of wire. Solder the resistor short leg to the short leg of the LED. Cut down the positive lead to a quarter inch and solder a piece of resistor wire to it. Just cut off the resistor and keep the wire. The lead isn't flexible enough. Find a metal washer the same diameter as the metal washer in the original lamp. The one I found had a center hole exactly the right size for the white pen barrel to fit tightly in. I stuck the white barrel in it so it was flush with the other side of the washer and hot glued the back side of the washer to the white pen barrel. Stick the LED leads including the resistor through the flush end of the washer down into the pen barrel. There should be a quarter inch gap between the very bottem of the LED and the flush side of the metal washer. It has to stick up this far to be able to extend all the way into the head of the flashlight. Hot glue all around the underside of the LED to the washer. Cut away any excess after it dries. The glue can't be wider than the LED if it is to fit into the head of the light. Cut a slit in the pen barrel almost all the way to the washer. File a notch in the washer edge by the slit. Pull the negative lead (the one without the resistor) down into the slit in the pen barrel and down the side and over the washer into the notch. Bend the lead over so it sits flat on the LED side of the washer. Now take a small thin washer a little bigger than the pen barrel and notch the outer edge on one side and make another notch on the opposite outer edge. Make a small slit in the pen barrel for the positive lead to bend over the edge of the pen barrel and stick out. Hot glue the small washer onto the center of the pen barrel lining up the notch on one side with the slit in the pen barrel and the positive lead. After it dries bend the positive lead over the notch and across the washer and down into the other notch. Then bend the lead under the washer and around the pen barrel just to keep it out of the way. You can glue it to the side of the pen barrel if you want. Just don't let it touch the negative lead that's there. I know it's hard to picture with just written instructions. I'll try and get some pictures of it from different angles so you can see what I'm talking about.

What's nice about this conversion is that I didn't have to modify the flashlight in any way.
I take my regular lamp out and drop the LED lamp in and I've got at least 26 hours of nice LED light. The reflector on the E2 is great for LED. It makes a nice bright smooth and round circle of light. It's plenty bright. Several times brighter then my white Photon. The circle of light is about 10 times bigger too. After doing all this I still think it would be easier to just take a burned out E2 lamp and replace the bulb with an LED. You might want to just wait till your lamp burns out instead of messing with all the glue and washers and stuff. But if you can't wait, give this project a try. It was a fun one. I'm still planning on getting the high output lamp too. Then I can switch between low (LED) medium and high depending on the situation.
I reworked the project 4 times until I got the brightness level I was looking for.
Here are the resistor values I tried and the mA output of the light. At least peeling off the glue was easy with the hot glue. Resoldering the resistors was kind of a pain though.

10 ohms 110mA
22 ohms 75mA
33 ohms 50mA
47 ohms 35mA

I finally settled on the 33 ohm resistor with a nice steady 50mA output.
Nice and bright and I don't have to worry about the LED blowing out and leaving me in the dark.
I really like the push button on the end for a quick burst of light and the twist on end cap works really smooth. This is my new favorite carry everywhere flashlight.


Brad

Brad,

It was with great interest that I read your modification of the E2. But unfortunately I'm not familiar with the E2 at all. I know very little about the world of incandescent flashlights beyond the well known brands and models carried at my local Walmart and Home Depot. Do you have a link to a description or to the manufacturer's homepage? I want to know more!

Mark

Here is the link.

Sure-Fire E2

Hi

Just curious to know how is the light output of your modification to E2 compare with the Streamlight Batonlite with 3 leds.

Regards

I don't have the batonlight so I don't know. It's pretty bright though for a single LED flashlight.

Here are some pictures I took after work today. Hopefully this will make the instructions easier to understand. Sorry some of the pictures are not real clear. I had to get very close to get the shot and the camera doesn't do that well under two feet. The comparison shots are of my Photon white on the left and E2 on the right. Both lights have about an hour runtime each on the batteries so they are pretty fresh.
Be carefull with the glue. A small bit must have fallen off when I removed the LED lamp. I then ran the regular lamp for about 10 minutes and the glue melted onto the inside of the lense. I got it off OK with a Q-Tip and hot water though. Took a while.
Sorry if this is too many pictures. They are small and should load fast though.

Do you think you could fit a little coil in there? I might be interested in converting an E1.

Wow! Great project Brad ! Maybe you could change the metal tail cap to fit it in so you can have a led backup, I don´t know if it would fit but you sure scored an A+ with that one.

Congrats

AlexGT

Your converted Surefire looks like it's kicking the Photon's @$$. Are you sure that's a single LED and not five or six?

The only thing missing is the forgotten bottle of cat **** remover that doesn't quite get out of the shot.

So how does your conversion compare in brightness to multiple-LED flashlights (like the Batonlite), or have you tried putting any side-by-side yet?

http://ledmuseum.home.att.net

Jimminy crickets...are you sure you didn`t leave the incandesent bulb in there when you took the pic? I am surprised at how much nicer the beam is. Looks like it is not a narrow beam either. Jeeese, maybe the photon has defective batteries?
Very, very nice. I want one!

Has to be the reflector. Right?
I do have an extra lamp I could screw with but; after the rotating blackouts in CA yesterday, it came in mighty handy last night!

Brad, you are the man when it comes to LED conversions.

What can you compare this too (brightness-wise) or is it you brightess conversion yet>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Guy Guyer:
Do you think you could fit a little coil in there? I might be interested in converting an E1.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There is a little room left over in the white round part. Since you wouldn't need a resistor for the E1 maybe you could fit the coil in it instead.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by telephony:
So how does your conversion compare in brightness to multiple-LED flashlights (like the Batonlite), or have you tried putting any side-by-side yet?

http://ledmuseum.home.att.net<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My 4 LED light that uses two 123 batteries and runs at 240mA is still way brighter. But for a single LED running at only 50mA it sure puts out some nice light. It's got to be the reflector.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by axolotls:
Has to be the reflector. Right?

What can you compare this too (brightness-wise) or is it you brightess conversion yet><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This thing really has a nice reflector. This isn't my brightest LED flashlight but it's my favorite. I was looking for a high quality light to convert that runs on lithium 123 batteries. The E2 is perfect. Plus the ability to put in the bright lamp is a real plus. I still hope they come out with the dimmer 3 hour bulb I heard about. I had the 65 lumen bulb on for 15 minutes the other night and man was it getting hot.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Brad:
This thing really has a nice reflector. <snip> The E2 is perfect. Plus the ability to put in the bright lamp is a real plus. I still hope they come out with the dimmer 3 hour bulb I heard about. I had the 65 lumen bulb on for 15 minutes the other night and man was it getting hot.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think I'll wait till this bulb runs out on me. I have an extra. I used mine during the Calif. blackouts last night. The red eveready flashlight crowd had to put their heads down. Then I showed them the size of it and imagine the expression. I was using the momentary switch for a few minutes before it started heating up. I wonder how long we can keep it on before thermal shutdown.

You have a great idea going here, especially since the batteries run down in an hour or so, pop the led in and i am sure it can go for quite sometime before you dropped in another set of 123's

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Brock:
So how much are you going to charge for them? I want one, they look great!
Brock<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wouldn't even know what to charge for one.
The first one took a few hours to make but that was mostly trying different parts from my junk box until I found the right size parts to fit the flashlight head. Trying all the different resistors took a while too. Now that I know what parts to use it wouldn't take as long. Would anyone be interested in trading some 5600mcd white LEDs for one? I can always use more of those.


Brad

Well, I don`t have an E-2 but I may get one now. How about charging say...$15 and a couple bucks for shipping. When I get one I would be more than happy to be able to convert it as that would allow me to actually use it as opposed to just looking at it (batt cost).

So how much are you going to charge for them? I want one, they look great!

Brock

Hmm...no response. Well how about $23 deliverd?

KenB,

Is there some reason you couldn't just buy a lamp assy from Surefire and put the LED in it?
No disrespect to Brad, that was a very cool construction project.

Surefire Lamp Assembly

(Edited 3/21/01)