kz1000s1
Enlightened
Until now I've been reading and studying the lessons of ElektroLumens, lambda, Lightspeed, and others, while speaking very little on this forum. However, now it is time to show what I have learned. Here is my version of the 2D/3C Mag-lite Luxeon Star conversion. The LS (a white w/o that I purchased from ARC) is mounted on a 1/16 inch copper heatsink that is bolted to the lip on the inside of the head. A small hole was drilled in the copper piece for a bolt and nut and it was then ground to fit the head on a grinding machine at work. Before mounting to the head, I chucked the heatsink into my electric drill, put an abrasive substance on the backside and spun it slowly against the lip in the head to lap it and match their contours.
Arctic Silver compound was used under the LS and the heatsink. I addition, the anodizing was also removed where the head and barrel meet. The head is tightened against the barrel for maximum heat transfer between them.
The bulb was modified for the wiring connections per the instructions on lambda's Website except that I built up a bump in the center with epoxy to keep the wires from contacting the bottom of the heatsink. Male and female bullet connectors were placed in the middle of the positive wire (20ga.) to plug in a resistor module I made. That way I can change the resistance at any time without having to cut or solder, or I can plug the wire section to each other for direct drive.
Initial testing was done with 2 D cells and no resistor. The brightness was similar to my blue Inova X5, perhaps slightly brighter. There was no noticeable warming of the LED at this level. After this I was going to install the three c cells and a 2-ohm resistor module. Before I did this I gave in to my curiosity and connecting it to direct drive for a second. Wow!!! That looked great, so I then checked the power draw and it was only pulling 570mA with fresh Duracells. This seems a bit low to me from what I have read, maybe I didn't test it correctly, the connectors in the positive wire have some resistance, or more likely it's because haven't located a proper short battery spring yet, so I temporarily used a wad of aluminum foil in the tailcap.
Regardless of this, after 10 minutes of use, there is hardly any noticeable warming of the head and even less of the LED and heatsink. The lens was left off for testing and the reflector is not being used at all.
This light works great! It makes 3D Mag with Xenon bulb look terrible and is even better than my Craftsman 4AA tool light with an overdriven 3 cell Xenon! Almost as bright, bigger spot, and much whiter!
Arctic Silver compound was used under the LS and the heatsink. I addition, the anodizing was also removed where the head and barrel meet. The head is tightened against the barrel for maximum heat transfer between them.
The bulb was modified for the wiring connections per the instructions on lambda's Website except that I built up a bump in the center with epoxy to keep the wires from contacting the bottom of the heatsink. Male and female bullet connectors were placed in the middle of the positive wire (20ga.) to plug in a resistor module I made. That way I can change the resistance at any time without having to cut or solder, or I can plug the wire section to each other for direct drive.
Initial testing was done with 2 D cells and no resistor. The brightness was similar to my blue Inova X5, perhaps slightly brighter. There was no noticeable warming of the LED at this level. After this I was going to install the three c cells and a 2-ohm resistor module. Before I did this I gave in to my curiosity and connecting it to direct drive for a second. Wow!!! That looked great, so I then checked the power draw and it was only pulling 570mA with fresh Duracells. This seems a bit low to me from what I have read, maybe I didn't test it correctly, the connectors in the positive wire have some resistance, or more likely it's because haven't located a proper short battery spring yet, so I temporarily used a wad of aluminum foil in the tailcap.
Regardless of this, after 10 minutes of use, there is hardly any noticeable warming of the head and even less of the LED and heatsink. The lens was left off for testing and the reflector is not being used at all.
This light works great! It makes 3D Mag with Xenon bulb look terrible and is even better than my Craftsman 4AA tool light with an overdriven 3 cell Xenon! Almost as bright, bigger spot, and much whiter!