anyone else somewhat disappointed with their KD cree'd Elly?

I just got mine and it is no brighter than my UF GIDT 1xAA light. Perhaps not as bright. I can live with the LED being 1/16" off center and the thing coming pretty much unassembled. Even the crappy threads was no biggy. I was just kind of expecting my first cree light to be a little bighter.:mecry:At least the fumes from the tailcap are not as bad as I was expecting.

Presumably there's no booster in there, so it's only running at 1.5V. Bung in a lithium rechargable 14500 and it might work a lot better. Or, indeed, it might melt.

Dodge said:

Presumably there's no booster in there, so it's only running at 1.5V. Bung in a lithium rechargable 14500 and it might work a lot better. Or, indeed, it might melt.

Click to expand...

If you know nowt, say nowt.

Do NOT follow this extremely bad, ill informed advice.

A simple search will show the folly of this.

And always check the authors post count, the more the better, usually.

I kinda thought he was joking anyway but that's probably good advice. I'll putz with it a bit if only to make sure all the connections are clean.
Thanks, John...

Using numbers from a Lux meter and doing a ceiling bounce, mine is between med and high of an L1D, both using an alkaline.

L1D...med 38, high 77
Elly...55

Well, I did say it might melt. It was speculation, not advice. But I'm glad you let me know it was a bad idea before I tried it with mine!

Can you post a link? A search for "cree elly 14500" doesn't find anything useful.

Dodge said:

Well, I did say it might melt. It was speculation, not advice. But I'm glad you let me know it was a bad idea before I tried it with mine!

Can you post a link? A search for "cree elly 14500" doesn't find anything useful.

Click to expand...

The fact that nothing useful shows up should tell you something.

I've seen some posts where people found their Cree Elly is not as bright as the Elly's they converted themselves.

My own Cree Elly from DX is not that bright either, but in my case I can see I have a defective emitter. It looks like the emitter lens is fractured deep inside--like the way cracked plastic looks. But for the money I'm not going to waste any time on it and I'm not that crazy about this light anyways--my personal preference is for single AA lights to be smaller and lighter than this.

Dodge said:

Can you post a link? A search for "cree elly 14500" doesn't find anything useful.

Click to expand...

A lot of info in this thread, but it's very long.

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/141874&page=1&pp=30

lowatts said:

I've seen some posts where people found their Cree Elly is not as bright as the Elly's they converted themselves.

Click to expand...

Wish I could compare, but my Kai cree'd Elly doesn't light up. I suspect the problem is the solder blob they used to connect the negative terminal to the body isn't making contact. Haven't had a chance to fix it yet - and the threads between the head and body are mismatched, so the head won't stay on either. Not too impressive. :thumbsdow

I modded 2 DX Ellys with crees to far, and overall output has been good - one of them is intermediate to the Med & Hi modes of the L1D-CE (slightly closer to Hi), and the other is ~ the same the L1D-CE on Hi. :twothumbs

If anyone is interested, I'm selling two high output self modded Cree'd Ellys here:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/1989758#post1989758

Originally Posted by Dodge: Well, I did say it might melt. It was speculation, not advice. But I'm glad you let me know it was a bad idea before I tried it with mine!

Click to expand...

Actually it is a good idea, but only after you've converted the Creed Elly to direct drive. You will no longer be able to use AA Alkaline or NiMH batteries in it, only 14500 li-ion batteries. However, the output is amazing. I've done this with two of my lights and it's really easy. Here's the thread (very long), but post #394 has pictures of conversion to direct drive. There are quite a few interesting posts on the Elly, burning it out using a 14500 and then converting to direct drive, plus comparison beam shots. Browse for an interesting reading session:

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=141874&page=14&pp=30&highlight=joedm+elly

Here's another post, by me, which discusses how to do it:
http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1976499#post1976499

I'm starting to like it a little more now. I put a fresh 2650mAh NiMH into it 70 minutes ago and turned it on. It's not even slightly warm so maybe mine is running at 250mA or something. Won't know for sure till I get home and finish this run time test. Does anyone else's Cree'd Elly get warm after an hour?
John..

4hr and 10min till shut down with a 2650mAh NiMH and it stay about the same brightness level the whole time. Maybe I have the long run time version?
John...

Presumably there's no booster in there, so it's only running at 1.5V. Bung in a lithium rechargable 14500 and it might work a lot better. Or, indeed, it might melt.

Click to expand...

LEDs won't light at all below around 2.7 volts I believe. THere is a boost circuit. The problem with the Elly is that Kai essentially modded the light himself in-house, so the contact on the ground wire is pretty flaky. I replaced the solder blobs on mine with an actual WIRE wrapped around the screw that retains the star to the base.

I also added some arctic silver adhesive to the star, replaced the reflectors with his $1 Cree optic (massive improvement to the beam -- less annoying spill, floodier central hotspot). Finally, I isntalled a Kroll tailcap switch to one -- looks extremely tacky, but gives me the option of having momentary on.

On my other Elly, I installed a red Lux-III. Since the converter is a simple voltage, boost, it drives the lower-voltage red emitter harder than a white Cree LED, creating an absolutely massive flood of red light.

I modified two Elly's from DX before they were sold pre-modded. I still think it's a really nice (and easy) mod for the money. I'm not completely happy with the boost circuit (little regulation and low-voltage turn-on problem). One Elly was noticeably brighter than the other.

2xTrinity: are you referring to this optic:
https://www.kaidomain.com/WEBUI/ProductDetail.aspx?TranID=1488

How does it fit? Do you have beamshots to compare the alu reflector with the optic?

Replying to myself:
I got the optic from Kaidomain. It fits nicely in the Elly and indeed gives a smoother hotspot with less spill. The hotspot from the optic also seems slightly brighter than the hotspot from the reflector, but to my eyes the total output seems a little less.

i changed the stock elly driver with AMC7135 700mA and use the Ristoft head and 14500 cell attached together the terralux tailcap and it was the best regulated Elly in my hand right now.The beam is just nice not too bright and not too low.
Try it.

Bertrik said:

I modified two Elly's from DX before they were sold pre-modded. I still think it's a really nice (and easy) mod for the money. I'm not completely happy with the boost circuit (little regulation and low-voltage turn-on problem). One Elly was noticeably brighter than the other.

2xTrinity: are you referring to this optic:
https://www.kaidomain.com/WEBUI/ProductDetail.aspx?TranID=1488

How does it fit? Do you have beamshots to compare the alu reflector with the optic?

Click to expand...

I put those in my modded ones (bypass boost so I could use 14500). It really makes a difference. Very smooth spot now. It screws right in. I took out the glass lens though.

Got the idea from 2XTrinity and it was good advice!