The Making of a Creechain Light (Long post...many pictures)

Hey fellas,

I have had an original Jetbeam MkI w/ cr123 tube on my key chain ever since they became available in the first GB many months ago. This light has served me well but the lack of levels has always bothered me a bit.

Well, after the release of the Cree XR-E LED's and seeing this thread, I started my search for a Luxogen LR12 to mod. I was fortunate to find a new one not long after. The day I received the light, I broke it


(Please forgive if any blurriness...I didn't use the tripod on all my shots


This project has been on the back burner for a few weeks, but I finally got some time to complete it. I followed the same procedure as the mod by photorob and had pretty good success. The beam wasn't anything to gloat about, though. It was just a medium sized hotspot with no corona/transition from spot to spill. I saw a new McR19 laying in my parts bin, so I once again broke a perfectly fine flashlight :naughty:

I started sanding down the McR19 until it would fit inside the LR12 host. After an hour, if not more, I finally got it to slide into the host (all done by hand :hairpull::hairpull:




Next, I had to figure out what to do with the electronics. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use a FluPIC board, so when I was preparing the parts for this mod weeks ago I ordered a Fenix sized FluPIC board. Here is what the LE looks like after disassembly. (already swapped the stock board for a FluPIC)



Because I wanted to use the McR19, I needed to conserve as much space as possible so I could use as much of the reflector's length as possible.

Here's showing the different lengths of the stock reflector and the McR19



The stock LE layout takes up way too much space for my application, so it had to go and I had to get creative...

What I ended up doing was getting rid of the plastic part that screws the LE into the head and also the aluminum part that the LED attaches to. In their place, I figured I could put a solid piece of copper and mount the LED directly to it. Now where could I find such a piece of copper?



Ahh, of course. Above is a shot mid sanding of the penny. My plan is to AA epoxy the converter board to the bottom of my copper heatsink. The ring that holds the converter board is just about the right height to keep the board off of the backside of the copper penny.

Here is a shot after sanding is completed. the penny is next to the original LED mounting surface.



After a little bit more sanding, and cutting two slots for the wires, the following picture shows how I will mount the penny against the converter board.



Here is a shot after I potted the converter board and AA epoxied the LED.



Holding my breath, it works :rock::rock:

Here is a shot showing the difference between the old reflector/sandwich and the new reflector/sandwich. A lot more reflector gets utilized with the new setup.



And here are some comparisons between my Jetbeam and the Luxogen. Note how well the HAIII finish on the jetbeam held up to the wear and tear of being on my keychain :twothumbs





(ahem perfectly centered :naughty:

The Jetbeam runs off a RCR123 and the Luxogen runs off a RCR2

Here's a shot of the size comparison between a CR123, Orb Raw NS, Luxogen, and Jetbeam




The head does not screw down as much as it used to, but it goes over the o-ring, which is what I was aiming for, so it should still be water resistant.

Beamshots!

Here are 2 beamshots against my ceiling. The lights are approximately 9 feet away from the ceiling. FluPIC set to burst. I'm using a Cannon SD800 IS on manual settings.

Here is with exposure set to zero



Here is with exposure set to -2


The jetbeam's spill is actually larger than the Luxogen's, but because the Luxogen dominates it in brightness, you can't see it from the pictures. The FluPIC on burst puts out ~1.2A, and IIRC, the Jetbeam puts also over 1A to the LED

And finally for some Lux readings (FluPIC on burst)

Jetbeam - ~1500 Lux @ 1 meter
Luxogen - ~3400 Lux @ 1 meter

AWESOME mod. how is the pill staying in the light? battery pressure? i might have to try something like it. keep up the good work.

Thanks...I was beginning to think no one else thought this mod was cool/a useful tutorial.

The pill stays in by battery pressure. It is really useful with the different levels, and the burst definately gets a "WOW" response from such a small light! Luxogen makes some really good modder-friendly hosts!

i already put a cree in a lr5(123 light) and a flupic and UX1J in a lr12

how by hand did you sand the reflector? and how about heat on burst? one concern i have about the stock pill is the plastic housing not transfering heat.

The stock pill transfers the heat to the stock reflector via the raised outer edge of the emitter board. It's the reflector that actually transfers the heat to the shell of the flashlight. The snugger the reflector is in the barrel the better heat transfer you get. A layer of copper or aluminium foil wrapped around the reflector will fill the void between the reflector side wall and the flashlight barrel nicely.

Sanding the reflector by hand not fun at all. Basically, I just held the reflector sideways and rubbed it on a piece of 60 grit sandpaper. I continually changed the surface I was sanding to try to keep it as cylindrical as possible. I finished it off with some 150 and then 400 when it was the proper diameter.

Heat transfer is probably not as good as the stock design because I am not using the reflector to pull the heat away from the LED. To overcome this, I have AA epoxied the pill together. This still does not provide *really* great thermal transfer, but it does help.

I like my FluPIC on mode 4, which is low, med, burst, strobe. The low and medium are perfect for just about every chore a keychain LED can be used. The burst is more for just showing off and not to be used for extended periods.

For what it's worth, on a fully charged AW protected CR2 rechargeable cell I got a steady 840 milliamps going to a XR-E on burst. I would imagine that with a larger 123A sized rechargeable cell and it's lower voltage drop the current to a XR-E would be up around 1 amp.

Setting 10/10 of a version 2.2 flupic-RCR2 combo measured 510 milliamps going to the XR-E.

I prefer mode 4 also but will switch it to the default mode 1 if the light gets borrowed.

LumenHound said:

For what it's worth, on a fully charged AW protected CR2 rechargeable cell I got a steady 840 milliamps going to a XR-E on burst. I would imagine that with a larger 123A sized rechargeable cell and it's lower voltage drop the current to a XR-E would be up around 1 amp.

Setting 10/10 of a version 2.2 flupic-RCR2 combo measured 510 milliamps going to the XR-E.

I prefer mode 4 also but will switch it to the default mode 1 if the light gets borrowed.

Click to expand...

so is burst higher than level ten? i thought they were the same.

any ideas if the new mcr17xr would be a nice drop in replacement?
http://theledguy.chainreactionweb.com/product_info.php?cPath=48_50_64&products_id=725

or should i just get one of the new seoul P4? is there a polarity reason it would not just drop in? im not quite clear on how these translate.

Ahh thanks for the info about the current, Lumenhound. It is much appreciated :twothumbs

Yesterday, I took a piece of copper pipe and press fit it on the bottom of the reflector. This seats against the copper that the LED is mounted on, making a thermal path from the pill to the reflector and (hopefully) the body of the flashlight. It seems to be doing it's job.

Pumaman, IIRC the flupic uses 2 LDO regulators that are capable of ~600ma each. On burst, both are going at max spec, so you get 1.2A (given a battery that can support this). Burst is definitely brighter than level 10.

The McR17 should fit in the LR12W, and I did order one to drop in, but I was too impatient to wait for it to arrive. It may be a bit loose, though.

I ordered a mcr17xr and a seoul u-bin yesterday im sure they will both be useful somewhere. i have a PT eos cree mod that could use the reflector. thanks for the good info and tips guys. My only flupic is the lr12 on rcr2, so i assume either the battery and/or the UX1J cant translate much difference between level 10 and burst.

Pumaman said:

I ordered a mcr17xr and a seoul u-bin yesterday im sure they will both be useful somewhere. i have a PT eos cree mod that could use the reflector. thanks for the good info and tips guys. My only flupic is the lr12 on rcr2, so i assume either the battery and/or the UX1J cant translate much difference between level 10 and burst.

Click to expand...

It's not the battery or the UX1J, it's your eyes and brain. We don't perceive a doubling of lumens as being twice as bright. I guess you could say we register brightness differences on a semi-logarithmic scale.
Test your flashlight with a light meter and it will tell you that there is a big difference between level 10 and burst even though your eyes barely register it.