Little Green Giant

Hi All,

Time for another Bogus Mod. I've gone as far as I can with the Hotwires by making my Mad Mag Hotwire Hotrod Mod. Here, I give you my Mad Mag Luxeon mod. I could probably take this further with the Cree's at a later date.

Got some LuxI SX0H and reflectors from AW, a Mag3C and some help from my local lathe shop and here's what we got....

The "Little Green Giant"


My custom made heatsink. The bottom has a threaded bit to fit into the Mag head


Testing for fit


And here it is! Body cut down to under 2C size to take 2x18650s.


Breakdown


The heatsink and LuxI's assembled


The bottom battery PCB fitted (used a 0.5 Ohm 2W resistor for DD)


Head assembled


Modified forward clicky tail cap


Another look at the tail cap


The tail cap diassembled


Showing how the switch fits inside the first Ring and the second retaining ring screws in into the tail cap. Used heatshrink on the spring to prevent it shorting against the threaded ring.


The beam shots!!
Left is LGG. Right is SLPP LuxI - for comparision since I guess most people will have a SLPP LuxI


OK, so that wasn't quite fair... how about the Microfire 10W HID? Again LGG on the left, distance to door about 8 inches.


Another one, distance about 2 foot


Ceiling bounce - Microfire 10W HID


Ceiling bounce - LGG


If the Microfire 10W is 450Lumens I guess the "Little Green Giant" is a little less than that - maybe 400Lumens?

In reality the Microfire 10W has an immence throw. The LGG can't really match it but if talk about overall light then it's pretty close to the Microfire.

The LuxIs are are in 2S2P running off the 2xLi-Ion18650s, through a 0.5 Ohm 2W resistor. Current draw is 1.7A. So each Lux is getting about 850mA. Someone please tell me if this is safe or are the Lux's going to fry? After 10 mins running the head is warm, not that hot really, so I guess the heatsink is doing a good job.

So I've done my Hotwire. I've done my Luxeon. Stay tuned for my HID!

Thanks for looking.

Bogus.

Nice Job!

I like the the tailcap switch.:goodjob:

Awesome setup! That does seem like quite a bit of current to be feeding a Lux1 however. You might want to contact one of the modding pros so make sure, but I would think that maybe giving them 500ma each would be a little safer, and give much better runtime.
Very impressive mod!

Great Job!

The Lux 1's sold from from Fred with the LDO driver where driven at 900ma. If you have proper heatsinking and things are not getting hot you should be fine.

The McClicky tailswitches work in the "C" tailcaps. I just recently completed a purple unit with 3X Lux 1's driven at 500ma with the fatman driver.


Mac

Very impressive. That may be a Bogus mod but it's not bogus!

Very nice work! Depending on how much heatsinking you have, your SX0H emitters may be O.K. I've put a SX0H emitter on a DHS heatsink in a 2D Mag powered with a 18650 cell, direct drive, no resistor. Hot from the charger, I measure 1.7 amps. When the cell is at it's nominal voltage of 3.7 volts, the current is 1.0 amp. I've run the light for 15 minutes straight from the charger where it gets quite warm, but seems to be fine. And talk about throw, it's by far the best of any LED light I have.

Thanks for the replies.

Mac, it was your comments about AW's SX0H Lux I's that made me decide on them. Equalled the UW0K:twothumbs

I did try to run DD with no resistor but I got over 3 amps with the 18650 cells I was using - that's over 1.5A each Lux! :duck: Luckily everything survived.

After doing the beam shots for about 15mins last night I just measured the current and it's still up at 1.5A - that's 750mA per Lux.

Can't wait to use this for our next Hong Kong Flashaholics night hike!

Bogus.

I'd reccomend taking the luxeons off the stars, and somehow putting them directly to metal. Like remove them from the stars, and put them on aluminum the same thickness as the star. Reason being is unlike the lux3/lux5 stars, the luxeon1 slug is not in direct contact with the aluminum star. It has a pcb between it. I have killed a lux1 driving it at 900ma right on the star before. A luxeon3 which was at the same current was on the same heatsink, but it was a bare emitter and it survived.

If you get the slug right to metal, then you'll be fine. I'd caution though with the stock stars and not push much past 400ma.

Awesome mod btw! really nice form!!

is it just me from being tired or is the math incorrect? 1.7 amps total would mean 450 milliamps to each star. i see 4 in the picture

morelightnow said:

is it just me from being tired or is the math incorrect? 1.7 amps total would mean 450 milliamps to each star. i see 4 in the picture

Click to expand...

There wired in series / parallel

Mac

IsaacHayes said:

I'd reccomend taking the luxeons off the stars, and somehow putting them directly to metal. Like remove them from the stars, and put them on aluminum the same thickness as the star. Reason being is unlike the lux3/lux5 stars, the luxeon1 slug is not in direct contact with the aluminum star. It has a pcb between it. I have killed a lux1 driving it at 900ma right on the star before. A luxeon3 which was at the same current was on the same heatsink, but it was a bare emitter and it survived.

If you get the slug right to metal, then you'll be fine. I'd caution though with the stock stars and not push much past 400ma.

Awesome mod btw! really nice form!!

Click to expand...

Good point Isaac, same issue with these new Cree's. To drive them hard Toss the PCB Mounting.

Mac

Thanks for the tip regarding the Star base. Unfortunately I do not have any heatsink adhesive to stick the Emitters down. Has anyone tried mixing heatsink paste with Superglue?

Bogus said:

Thanks for the tip regarding the Star base. Unfortunately I do not have any heatsink adhesive to stick the Emitters down. Has anyone tried mixing heatsink paste with Superglue?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't mix them, as I suspect the superglue wouldn't set properly. For the SX0H mod I did above, I used both. I placed a very small amount of thermal compund in the center of the emitter. I then applied the superglue around the circumference of the emitter.

By the way, the mod I did above was an update to a similar one done three years ago. I used a Lux III TWAK emitter on a Hotlips D sized heatsink. Although it was pretty impressive at the time, the TWAK's forward voltage was jusk about equal to that of the 18650 cell, so the current was only 700ma. By todays standards, the TWAK is far outpaced in brightness and whiteness by the SX0H.

For the earlier mod, I used only Superglue to afix the emitter. As I no longer had any use for it, I tried to remove the TWAK from the heatsink just to see how good the bond was. I had to destroy the emitter in the process - it was stuck that well. You may be well off just to use Superglue. Remember, thermal compound is only good for transferring heat between the air pockets of the two mating surfaces. If both surfaces are smooth and flat to begin with, chances are only one or two percent of the mating surface can utilize it.

Bogus,

Great! Saw that on HKFF, and posting here again.

I'd suggest using the artic alumina grease instead of gluing all the stars down, if you would like to reuse the heatsink for more powerful stars/emitters in the future.

And by all means, show us the light in out next gathering. :goodjob:

Looks like some more work to be done! I'll have to find some way to raise the Lux Emitters to the previous "star" level. It's back to the lathe shop again!

The weekend is time with the family so I'll give you guys an update next week.

Bogus.