Modding the Endurable

picked one of these up at Sear's a while back and just got another on sale today. my primary love of them is the pr based led "bulb" they come with. i like to overdrive it in a 4 AA config with NIMH cells. i recently replaced the stock emitter with a T bin and to my surprise it is no brighter compared to the stock one i just got. my question is if it is worth it to put a U bin in it that i purchased for just this purpose? maybe that T was just an underperformer? i have an S bin Lux 1 as well, would it be better suited for this task? thanks for your input.

just a post-update bump.

I've got one of these (the 4 AA version), and find the 5mm LEDs to be more useful. The Luxeon gets focused into a very tight spot with a dim spill, and I can't seem to remove the reflector to sputter it, or apply some sort of diffuser film to the inside of the lens.

The Luxeon PR bulb has a resistor inside - I can't recall the value ATM, but a bit of probing with a multimeter should answer that.
To see a real increase in lumens, the S-bin may be a better choice, if the Vf is low, but changing the resistor to something a bit smaller would make the biggest difference.

The only problem then is the lack of heatsinking. The bulb assembly is pretty small, and doesn't feel heavy enough to contain much metal. It's also buried inside a lot of plastic.

So, I'd go with the S-bin first, then maybe try the resistor mod, but I wouldn't push the current much over 500 mA or so.
Serious overdrives need better heatsinking than the PR base can provide.

hey thanks for the input. it does run pretty hot but the light i'm using it in has a metal reflector assembly which (i believe) is helping absorb some of that heat. going to look into the resistor.

I checked my 3AAA the other day and it only showed 3 volts at the led. That means that the current would be very low for higher binned LEDs.

was that with NIMH or alkaline?