mosport
Enlightened
Spent some time messing around with P2 bin XRE's trying to figure out the focus and came up with this budget mod using the stock reflector. The only previous mod needed is an upgraded heatsink with platform. Either the machined copper/aluminum ones, homemade $1.02 plumbing copper type or soldered pennies on stock aluminum ring will work fine as long as there's an platform to attach the emitter. If the heatsink has been upgraded, then your light has been dismantled before and you'll already be familliarized for these following steps.
To enlarge the opening for the XRE to pass through, the reflector was removed from the bezel and filed down in a bench vise until the step was almost flush, then deburred to remove any aluminum shavings. I stopped filing as soon as the hole was large enough for the XRE to fit inside, but might try removing more material to experiment with the focal point.
With the Q3's reflector threaded into the top bezel piece, it doesn't need to touch or rest on the emitter. This allows for up/down adjustment of the emitter - reflector focal point
Next step was to make a foam donut for the heatsink underside, punched these out of furniture pads from a dollar store (3/4" OD) and attached. With this piece acting as a simple spring between the driver board and heatsink, the retaining ring can control the emitter to reflector height for tuning focus. The purpose of the foam donut is to also add height since it was originally made for use with a Luxeon star (also great because I'm lazy and don't feel like making another heatsink that's taller
). I epoxied the XRE directly to the copper this time around (underside contacts isolated with a paint pen). Also had to make another insulator from a thin piece of plastic to rest between the metal ring and the grounded metal reflector to avoid shorting out the +ve emitter wire.
Here's the results using a FLuPIC on burst mode @ +1A current, beamshot taken approx 2m from wall with white balance locked. There's a small crescent shaped shadow barely visable at 5 o'clock where the hotspot blends into the corona, hopefully this can be tuned out by playing with the emitter position. Throw is improved over the previous U-bin setup and spill is much stronger than before, making this a nice pocket rocket (sorry for the subjective descriptions, wish I had a luxmeter for comparisons!). This one will mostly be used as a bike headlight mounted with a TwoFish Lockblock.
Hope this mod is useful to all the Q3 owners out there, should work equally well with 2 stage switch setups on the original driver and 123 primaries.
-----------
Added Info:
Disassembled again to add more Arctic Silver and measured the height for my beam setting.
Total height from driver board to emitter platform is 11.45mm inclusive. The FLuPIC accounts for 1.30mm, please adjust add/subtract according to your driver board's thickness. If using a star or round base, that will need to be subtracted as well.
Also installed is a 22.2 x 1.5mm mineral lens with o-ring. The original plastic lens is the same thickness, but I think the new o-ring might be slightly taller. Minor adjustments may be required for your setup.
-----------
Happy modding :rock:
Derek
To enlarge the opening for the XRE to pass through, the reflector was removed from the bezel and filed down in a bench vise until the step was almost flush, then deburred to remove any aluminum shavings. I stopped filing as soon as the hole was large enough for the XRE to fit inside, but might try removing more material to experiment with the focal point.
With the Q3's reflector threaded into the top bezel piece, it doesn't need to touch or rest on the emitter. This allows for up/down adjustment of the emitter - reflector focal point
Next step was to make a foam donut for the heatsink underside, punched these out of furniture pads from a dollar store (3/4" OD) and attached. With this piece acting as a simple spring between the driver board and heatsink, the retaining ring can control the emitter to reflector height for tuning focus. The purpose of the foam donut is to also add height since it was originally made for use with a Luxeon star (also great because I'm lazy and don't feel like making another heatsink that's taller
). I epoxied the XRE directly to the copper this time around (underside contacts isolated with a paint pen). Also had to make another insulator from a thin piece of plastic to rest between the metal ring and the grounded metal reflector to avoid shorting out the +ve emitter wire.
Here's the results using a FLuPIC on burst mode @ +1A current, beamshot taken approx 2m from wall with white balance locked. There's a small crescent shaped shadow barely visable at 5 o'clock where the hotspot blends into the corona, hopefully this can be tuned out by playing with the emitter position. Throw is improved over the previous U-bin setup and spill is much stronger than before, making this a nice pocket rocket (sorry for the subjective descriptions, wish I had a luxmeter for comparisons!). This one will mostly be used as a bike headlight mounted with a TwoFish Lockblock.
Hope this mod is useful to all the Q3 owners out there, should work equally well with 2 stage switch setups on the original driver and 123 primaries.
-----------
Added Info:
Disassembled again to add more Arctic Silver and measured the height for my beam setting.
Total height from driver board to emitter platform is 11.45mm inclusive. The FLuPIC accounts for 1.30mm, please adjust add/subtract according to your driver board's thickness. If using a star or round base, that will need to be subtracted as well.
Also installed is a 22.2 x 1.5mm mineral lens with o-ring. The original plastic lens is the same thickness, but I think the new o-ring might be slightly taller. Minor adjustments may be required for your setup.
-----------
Happy modding :rock:
Derek
Last edited:
