milkyspit
Flashlight Enthusiast
At the risk of getting flamed for (gasp) defacing one of the uber-rare PK signature L6 Porcupine flashlights, thought some photos might be in order! This is a little project for fellow CPFer tanasit that's taken me way too long to complete. Thanks for the faith and the patience, tanasit! In the process of transmilkification, his light has logged quite a few frequent flyer miles, too, traveling from PA to NJ to TX to NJ, up the road a bit in NJ, back down the road a bit, and finally back to PA. That's a lot of travel to be unaccompanied by an adult! 
oo:
The original goal was simple enough... tanasit saw this photo on CPF and wanted something similar...
PK L6 Porcupine Converted to X300-KL6
Then the Great Cree Madness broke, and though tanasit stayed strong for a while, eventually he succumbed to the Cree side. (Insert Darth Vader breathing noises here.) So midstream, the design spec changed: 3x Cree P4-WH here we come!
Took a little last-minute machining by a helpful friend with said machine shop 1/2 mile up the road (and kudos to him for taking time out of his busy machine schedule), but in the end, 3x McR17xr reflectors with their accompanying Cree P4-WH warm white emitters slipped into place nicely.
For most of us, this (at time of this writing) is the final work day of 2006. With that in mind, gear up for the holiday weekend and enjoy the photos!
The X428xr, A Real Standup Guy.
Custom Milky Dogtag For the Light!
Profile.
Size Relative to This Modder's Scraped, Wrinkled, Cut, Bludgeoned,
Bruised, Stained, Burnt, Smoked, Steamed, Clawed, and Girlishly Small Hands.
Although not easy to see in the photos, pieces of black felt back the reflectors to set them off with a "jewelbox" look. Kiessling's M180 was the original jewelbox build, and though I'd done a few more I also swore off them as the labor in placing the felt is tremendous! Turns out felt was never designed to cut into precise little strips, then secure onto pieces of flat metal without getting the slightest trace of lint on emitters, reflectors, or lens. Then again, maybe tanasit's build got the jewelbox treatment because he didn't ask for it! Sort of a holiday surprise.
:santa:
A Look Into the Bezel.
Bezel Straight-On.
In the end, after devoting 2-3 times the time I'd intended to the project, I was finally satisfied that it looked acceptable... though only barely.
But how does it perform?
X428xr Beam Profile.
IMHO the beam is nice! Of particular note is how quickly the beams converge into a single virtual hotspot. The infamous Cree raccoon eyes aren't evident in the beam, either... a definite plus.
X428xr Hotspot, Regular (left) and Posterized (right).
How's the brightness? Well, as I don't have an integrating sphere I instead compared the beam to the Milky Labs' ambient lighting, plus did a little shootout vs. a nice SureFire L5 (the "Gene Genie" FWIW). Suffice to say, performance is good.
Ambient Light (left), Stock L5 (middle), X428xr (right).
Runtime on 3x123 primaries estimated around 71 minutes, rechargeables probably a little longer, with good regulation for most of that time and diminishing but still very useful light for probably another 90 minutes afterward.
All in all, thought this one turned out okay! Hope tanasit likes it. :sweat:
Thanks for reading! :bow:
oo:The original goal was simple enough... tanasit saw this photo on CPF and wanted something similar...
PK L6 Porcupine Converted to X300-KL6
Then the Great Cree Madness broke,
and though tanasit stayed strong for a while, eventually he succumbed to the Cree side. (Insert Darth Vader breathing noises here.) So midstream, the design spec changed: 3x Cree P4-WH here we come! Took a little last-minute machining by a helpful friend with said machine shop 1/2 mile up the road (and kudos to him for taking time out of his busy machine schedule), but in the end, 3x McR17xr reflectors with their accompanying Cree P4-WH warm white emitters slipped into place nicely.
For most of us, this (at time of this writing) is the final work day of 2006. With that in mind, gear up for the holiday weekend and enjoy the photos!
The X428xr, A Real Standup Guy.
Custom Milky Dogtag For the Light!
Profile.
Size Relative to This Modder's Scraped, Wrinkled, Cut, Bludgeoned,
Bruised, Stained, Burnt, Smoked, Steamed, Clawed, and Girlishly Small Hands.
Although not easy to see in the photos, pieces of black felt back the reflectors to set them off with a "jewelbox" look. Kiessling's M180 was the original jewelbox build, and though I'd done a few more I also swore off them as the labor in placing the felt is tremendous! Turns out felt was never designed to cut into precise little strips, then secure onto pieces of flat metal without getting the slightest trace of lint on emitters, reflectors, or lens.
Then again, maybe tanasit's build got the jewelbox treatment because he didn't ask for it! Sort of a holiday surprise.:santa:
A Look Into the Bezel.
Bezel Straight-On.
In the end, after devoting 2-3 times the time I'd intended to the project, I was finally satisfied that it looked acceptable... though only barely.
But how does it perform?
X428xr Beam Profile.
IMHO the beam is nice! Of particular note is how quickly the beams converge into a single virtual hotspot. The infamous Cree raccoon eyes aren't evident in the beam, either... a definite plus.
X428xr Hotspot, Regular (left) and Posterized (right).
How's the brightness? Well, as I don't have an integrating sphere I instead compared the beam to the Milky Labs' ambient lighting, plus did a little shootout vs. a nice SureFire L5 (the "Gene Genie" FWIW). Suffice to say, performance is good.
Ambient Light (left), Stock L5 (middle), X428xr (right).
Runtime on 3x123 primaries estimated around 71 minutes, rechargeables probably a little longer, with good regulation for most of that time and diminishing but still very useful light for probably another 90 minutes afterward.
All in all, thought this one turned out okay! Hope tanasit likes it. :sweat:
Thanks for reading! :bow:
