Lil' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Unhappy with the beam shapes from the standard optics used with the colored LED's I decided to take a different tack with a mod that has been on the back burner for a few months now. I'm really glad I finally got around to it.



I found that mating the heat sink face to the backside of the reflector bulkhead in the E1e head puts the HD LED in an ideal focal plane with the E1e reflector. The resultant beam with this red HD is flawless from about 18" on out and Dang bright!!!!!



On the left is a KL1 and on the right is the lil' red devil.

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I would be very curious to see how a white HD would fair with the same reflector set up.

I got to try to keep up with Charlie and I wanted to pick a name before he has used them all up

- Don

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Great mod as always Don. you never stop amazing me...

Lil' Red Devil
I think it's a great name for this light...

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e



That pretty much sums it up.



-YC

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

I thought that A red (or is this red/org would run strait direct drive off of 3v lithium is this not correct?

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

I think you've won the E1 "light density" battle so far. Something about keeping the stock bezel (vs the longer KL1) that I like. And there's something that I REALLY like about tossing the optics in favor of a reflector that WORKS!

Smokin'!

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Thanks guys!

Bushman,

I didn't check the Vf on the LED but when I set the current level, I believe my Vin was around 2.9 and as I recall the driver was pulling a noticibly larger current than that going through the LED. Hence, I assume a Vf above 2.9 V. I have a couple more of these LED's and can check the Vf. It wouldn't surprise me that since the red LED's are so bright that you could get significant light even with direct and underdriven!

Darell,

Thanks for the nice words but Lambda has already made some very nice E1 CP's (I am the proud owner of one) so I think he won before I even started I'll have to check but perhaps the Lambda CP will work with the stock reflector, hummmm........ It may be that the HD is better suited. Dang, so many projects and so little time.

- Don

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Don, as you know another CP user here. I also wondered about the use of the low dome with the SF E1e reflector. But I also agree that a high dome would probably be more suitable. I think that i will hit Lambda up for a CP in red... or are you using red/org? Mike

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Mike,

The LED's I have are red, I bought 4 of them 3 or four months ago and forgot about them for a while I don't know what to make of this but the Orange /Red HD Arc SLS that I have is about the same red color as these reds??? I also noticed that with the strip of 4 HD's I have, on two of them the die is obviously off center! I had heard that this happened but this is the first I've seen. Of course with the whites, the phosphor hides the die placement until you fire the LED up.

I have a great colored cyan Luxeon Star in 1 W low dome and I think I'll cut the star down to a 3/4" OD and try placing it in the E1e head and see what kind of a beam I can get. I recall trying a low dome white some time ago in a funky E1 bezel and I wasn't impressed. It may be that the combination of the HD and the very bright red LED makes this work in the E1e reflector wheras others may not be so hot.

In reviewing Kevin's CP, if he were to use the existing reflector, he actually would have more room to work with as the LED should be raised from it's current position. His Pill is an ideal solution here as the only thing that needs to be done to the Ele head is carefully pass a 13/32" drill through the back end. This size bit removes all of the existing lamp standoff. I ran a vacuum to suck up the dust and drill chips and the reflector is fine. No need to break into the front end at all!

Again, until some more tests are made with other emitters or stars, this is all speculation. One thing for sure, with all the KL1's out there, there are likely some E1e heads sitting in drawers now...............

- Don

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Originally posted by McGizmo:
Lambda has already made some very nice E1 CP's (I am the proud owner of one) so I think he won before I even started

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Oops. Oh yeah. Sorry Kevin! I guess maybe it's the fact that I don't have one that allowed that fact to slip through the normaly steel-trap-like mind of mine.

there are likely some E1e heads sitting in drawers now

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Well look at that. There just happens to be a couple of them RIGHT HERE!

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Well a Low Dome Cyan Luxeon Star was tried and the stock E1 reflector was NOT effective. I saw the same results I tried with a low dome white, some time ago. It seems that the High Dome is required. I have a couple of cyan High domes on order and will test my theory in a couple of weeks. With these bat wings, I can't find a good focal point and there is a nice black hole in the beam pattern where one would expect the focal plane to be. No Good.

- Don

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

I can't help but think that this info is VERY important to flashlight mfgs. Peter? PK? You guys listening?

Optics suck

Reflectors are where its at. I Think far too many photons are lost within the plastic optics. Not enough of those little buggers are redirected where they need to go. I would love to see more mfgs (any?) follow this path of using a real reflector for the high-powered LEDs.

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

How do you thinmk the E series reflector compare with the turbo heads?

-YC

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Yeah,
A reflector matched to a good LED sure makes a difference! After the dismal failure with the cyan low dome, I pulled out the red HD in the E1e and I just can't get over how effective it is!! I turned it on and walked away from it and turned back around and looked at the light from off anqle a bit and it was still blinding! I bet if you were driving down the road and pulled this little E1e out of your pocket and held it on your dash and shined it into the rear window of a car in front of you, they would pull over thinking you were a LEO! Yeah, really a bright idea, Duh! But I'm amazed at the little sucker's power!

- Don

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Originally posted by McGizmo:
two of them the die is obviously off center! I had heard that this happened but this is the first I've seen

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I just recently built a Red/Orange in a Brinkmann Legend 2AA and my die was off center too..

It teed me off because I'm so careful to get the emitter on perfectly centered. I had to goof with the collimator and wound up having to set the optic (visibly) off-center to correct the beam. While functionality is not compromised, it IS a cosmetic irritant

I do think it's funny how you guys like to give mods a name like "lil Red Devil".. If I had to name my Red/Orange mod, I'd call it "Holy Sh*t", because those are the first two words out of anyones mouth who gets to see it..

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Oops,

YC slipped in there while I was posting. The turbo is much better at handling the LED's than the E1. I don't know the first thing about designing a lens but I know a parabola has a focal point and all light emenating from the focal point will leave the reflector in a parallel path. However a lamp assembly occupies space and the parabolic mirror must account for the fact that you don't have all of the light originating from a single point. I assumed that the key would be to find a good reflector that was designed for a bulb that has an element of roughtly the same size and diameter of the Luxeons. That's why I chose the turbo.

If you look at the diameter of the envelope of an Ex bulb you can see that it is much smaller than the Luxeon. I believe the HD works OK because the light eminating from the dome may be closer in duplicating the light source of the stock LA. The hot spot of the red HD is larger in diameter than the stock E1 bulb but it is still effective.

I would guess that the reflector in the M3 would be a good choice for a Luxeon but it still may need to be a HD. I sure would like to get my hands on a white 1 W HD and check it out! It will be a wider beam with the E1 reflector than the with the collimator but I think the beam quality and overall light fill will be superior.

Anybody have any 1 W HD white emitters for sale?

- Don

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Originally posted by Slick:

I do think it's funny how you guys like to give mods a name like "lil Red Devil".. If I had to name my Red/Orange mod, I'd call it "Holy Sh*t", because those are the first two words out of anyones mouth who gets to see it..

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Slick,
Blame Charlie and Elecktrolumens for the naming business I had been identifying my mods with the numbers and names of the components used but I realized after getting totally confused by the Arc LS1 Rev2 Subchapter 6b that a goofy name was easier on the brain synapses. Holy S**t is a good name I think I'll call my next mod Doris.

- Don

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Hay Don I am glad you found a way to line up the light emission point with the optimal focal plane of the reflector. Building pedestals is hell, at least for lathe-less Lil' Ol' Me.

And Lil' Red Devil is perfect. Even makes for a nice comfortable acronym (LRD). Now if only we could convince SF to anodize them E1's in red...

You got one of Wayne's boards in there or is that DD on 3V? If DD, then Slick was right -- those reds are far brighter than I would have imagined.

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

Originally posted by MR Bulk:

You got one of Wayne's boards in there or is that DD on 3V? If DD, then Slick was right -- those reds are far brighter than I would have imagined.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I saw in McGizmo's link write-up he said it was a Dat2zip 400mA circuit. Of course this got me to wondering, so I fired up "Holy Sh*t" and checked her current comsumption. It climbed to 476mA on fairly fresh (lithium AA) batteries before tapering down to the 420's to settle.

The Red/Orange is rated to be even brighter than the Red. The solid red "dot" you see McGizmo's light make is very similar to the way mine looks.

Re: Lil\' Red Devil - 1 Watt Red High Dome in an E1e

So per slicks post I guess that you could run this E1 direct drive except that you would have less run time b/c of the mAh difference in 1 123 vs 2 aa lithiums...