Any difference between a Seoul modded TLE-5 and new TLE-5EX?

I'm wondering if the new TLE-5EX SSC 2AA Mini-mag drop in would be any brighter than the original TLE-5 with the stock Luxeon emitter removed and a Seoul P4 put in its place.... I thought there was some beamshots around here somewhere.

It says it is.

FYI I am an absolute newbie when it comes to modding, but today I tried replacing the luxeon LED on my TLE-5 with a Seoul LED.

The luxeon LED is thermal epoxied to the board, so it is very difficult to remove. I ended up removing as much solder as I could, snipped the wires/leads, and used brute force with pliers to rip the luxeon off.

I tried to install the Seoul just using thermal paste (not epoxy) and solder. It was very difficult as it would always shift and not stay put. I ended up getting it down but it did not work. Either I burnt out the LED or reversed the polarity, because I put the luxeon back on and it worked.

In conclusion, I spent 2 hours modding, destroyed one Seoul LED (crushed into pieces when I tried removing it), and lost a lot of patience. I would advise buying the TLE-5EX SSC and saving yourself the hassle of modding the TLE-5.

BTW: does anyone know how to tell which is the negative lead on a Luxeon and a Seoul? Also, does anyone know which side of the TLE-5 board is the negative side?

Did you try turning the module around in the Mini-mag socket? Thats what I did when I Seoul modded my TLE-5. It wouldn't work at first until I turned it around.

I mod mine with seoul and the brightness not so bright because of the stock driver.
Just buy the ready made seoul would be better because the ready made ssc is using the K2 driver.

KDOG3 said:

Did you try turning the module around in the Mini-mag socket? Thats what I did when I Seoul modded my TLE-5. It wouldn't work at first until I turned it around.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I think I may try that with the one Seoul LED I have remaining. Perhaps I'll also try sanding/grinding the bumpy thermal epoxy that was already on there with a dremel.

I should really get some of that epoxy...non hardening thermal paste doesn't make the LED stay put while soldering...

Its easier to go and buy the TLE-5EX SSC 2AA than to mod the TLE-5.
The newer board also drives the led slightly harder

Just an FYI, Jennifer Brady at TerraLux stated that the TLE-5K2 drives the LED at approximately 700mA and the TLE-5 is driving at somewhere in the 350-500mA range (she couldn't be specific about the TLE-5).

My TLE-5EX produces a brilliant, smooth white beam and seems to be pretty efficient. So far I've got over 2 1/2 hrs on a pair of Enloops and it's still going strong with no noticeable drop in output. I had an SSC P4 and a host TLE-5K2, but this thing works so well, that I decided not to do the mod. I'm quite impressed with it ...I say go for the 5EX.

jlomein: you're definitly going to want to get some thermal adhesive (arctic alumina 2-part epoxy is great). As far as the polarity on the Seoul, the cathode (negative side) has a notch. Here is a picture (cathode notch circled):



Not sure about how to tell the polarity on the Lux emitters.

As far as the polarity on the TLE-5 board, the negative side (where that cathode notch has to go) is the pad between the first "P" in "Pat. Pend" and the "x" in "TerraLux." It's the pad that's facing down in the picture above. Just make sure you insulate the bottom of that Seoul emitter.

KDOG3: the new TLE-5EX SSC w/ P4 for 2AA will be considerably brighter than the original TLE-5 modded with a P4. The old TLE-5 with a Seoul will be brighter than the old TLE-5K2, but not brighter than the new 5EX. After all, the new 5EX is driven by the old 5K2 board (but with a Seoul, of course), which drives the emitter harder than the TLE-5 board. I modded a TLE-5 with a P4 becasue the 5EX wasn't out yet, and I didn't want to have to heat sinc the 5K2 board. But now, as others have pointed out, you should just buy the 5EX if you want the most output. Hope that helps..
-mike

Well I ordered one Friday. So we'll see!

Wait a minute. 700mah? Ouch thats alot! And would probably suck the batteries down in no time. Anyone know if it can take 6v?

When I e-mailed Terralux about the TLE-5K2. Jennifer Brady stated that it drives the K2 emitter at approximately 700mA ...seemed a bit high to me too. She also stated that the maximum input voltage is 3.4v, making lithium primaries O.K., but Li-Ions questionable. Not sure about the 5-EX. I wonder if they upped the input voltage on the new light engines. Maybe I'll e-mail them again and see what they have to say.

I just got an email back from them saying the max input voltage for the EX is 3.5v, so a freshly charged RCR123 at 4.2v would probably blow it...

Re: I prefer TLE-5 w/ SSC-p4 mod

I prefer the TLE-5 driver with the SSC-P4 LED. There's always a trade off between brightness and battery life. Terralux says that the TLE-5 draws 350mA to 450mA. I'm not sure if that is battery power or LED power.....but I will tell you that the 3 TLE-5's that I have, battery power is considerably less....around 240mA for battery voltage of 2.65v. And with a battery voltage higher, say around 3.00v, the current would be less.

That's because power in = power out minus the efficiency of the regulator circuit which is likely to be about 85% efficient for a buck/boost type regulator. The voltage drop across my USVOI SSC-P4 led was 2.16v on one of them and 2.22v on the other while the original lux 1w forward voltage was 2.24v, so they are very similar in voltage drop at the current that the TLE-5 is pushing through them, even though it is an 'I' bin voltage rating.

pwr in = .240x2.65 = .636w
minus the efficiency of the regulator: 15% of .636w = .0954w
yields pwr to the led of: .636w minus .0954w= .541w
with Vf of 2.16v, Led current is: .541/2.16v = .250 amps

The real advantage is that the SSC is way brighter for the same current....and thus you will get around 8 hours on a set of batteries for both the TLE-5 original and the TLE-5, SSC-p4 mod.

Terralux says the TLE-5EX draws 700 to 850mA. Again from my experience with the TLE-5, I believe this to be high but none the less, the TLE-5EX drives the SSC-p4 harder and you will get more light out of it but at less battery life.

So it's a trade off or a personal preference. I am going to be modding a dozen or so TLE-5's for guys at work and give them the option of TLE-5, TLE-5 modded or TLE-5ex. It's an easy mod but it does violate the warranty.

I didn't think it was very hard to mod the TLE-5. It just took me a few minutes. The hardest part was having someone hold the led still (and centered) while I soldered the leads. Next time I will center them all with a small amount of epoxy to hold them in place first. You do have to know which side of the led is cathode (-) and which side is anode (+) before you put it on or else you end up soldering it in backwards....but that's easy to check with dvm in diode mode. I just made sure that I knew what side was + and what side was - on the Terralux module before removing the LUX.

The other issue that I have with the TLE-5ex is possible heat issues. I ran the TLE-5 w/SSC-p4 continuously and after several hours it was warm but not so warm that I couldn't touch it. I am going to buy a TLE-5ex just because I want one and will interrogate it a little more to understand it. Heat may be an issue with it. However, most people really never leave their lights on continuously anyhow.

I will be doing more characterization on these in the next couple of weeks.
Jeff

Lots of great info, thanks! My secret plan was to run the TLE-5EX in a E1e (after modding the head to accept it of course). But now I think I may have made a bad decision. With a 700+mA draw, it will suck a primary CR123a down in about an hour or so? Luckily, I have the standard TLE-5 already modded with a Seoul. So I'll probably use that instead. 250-ish mA will increase the runtime dramatically probably to about 3.5hrs before dropping from regulation. My other idea is to just get a GD250 driverboard made up at the shoppe and make a heatsink/module apparatus to run a Seoul in the E1e head, that way I can use one or two primaries with it. 2 primaries would blow the stock TLE-5 driver! But I want to try the TLE-5 setup first before spending anymore money.