scott.cr
Flashlight Enthusiast
Hi group,
I promised (in another thread) to post pics of my Thor HID mod. What brought this up was the low cost of the Thor as a host. At the $30 Costco price it's pretty much cheaper than using an empty cereal box as a host once you've paid for the SLA battery and charger.
The Thor uses a 12-volt lamp and a 12-volt battery. There is serious voltage drop in this system, which underdrives the lamp (and seriously reduces its efficiency).
I toyed with various upgrade ideas for this light, but one day got lucky at my local Horrible Freight store as they had a broken HID light on their clearance table, which I scooped up to use for parts. The Thor uses an H4 lamp, and the HF HID uses an H7 lamp, so I had to machine an adapter to get the H7 lamp to fit into the Thor. The adapter itself is just a simple donut with a step machined in it to securely hold the H7 and provide focus. The H4 and H7 do NOT have the same focal point, so anyone doing this mod will have to fabricate an adapter, use a stack of washers or obtain an H4 HID lamp.
Here's the H7 lamp in the Thor reflector. It's set back a little ways so the base doesn't lie flush with the apex of the reflector.
Here's the backside of the H4-to-H7 lamp adapter. There's a bit of a ridge that doesn't appear to be necessary... it's not. I designed the adapter to be able to use the original H7 lamp retaining clip, but changed my mind midway through the job and didn't feel it necessary to face off the ridge. The adapter is fastened to the reflector with epoxy. I used Arctic Alumina... why? Because it was handy.
In this pic you can see the 3mm socket-cap screw that holds the lamp into the adapter. The reason why I went this way instead of using the retaining clip is that the screw provides better "clocking" of the lamp. The original flange is a "D" shape, which is difficult to machine.
Last pic. The HID ballast easily fits into the white plastic bracket already inside the Thor. I AAed a CPU heatsink to the aluminum flange that sticks out of the potting material. The heatsink originally had a little 12v fan on it, but I removed it before taking this pic. The ballast never got hot enough to justify having the fan. At the 12 o'clock position you can see the high-tension leads that attach the lamp to the ballast. They're big and clunky and will rattle around inside the light so I zip-tied them to one of those 3M stick-down wire ties. The battery electronics are stock and I wired it with 10 gauge. In retrospect, 10 gauge is overkill for this job and difficult to do a good job routing. 16 or 18 gauge would probably be better, and would be easily capable of these power levels for the lengths of wire used.
All in all a very easy job, and BRIGHT!!! I think I will further mod this light by using a spray-on conformal coating over the electronics and paint-on connector sealants for the wires, to enhance water resistance. (The switch would be the weak point; can't seem to find a suitable marine switch, but then I haven't looked that hard either.)
I promised (in another thread) to post pics of my Thor HID mod. What brought this up was the low cost of the Thor as a host. At the $30 Costco price it's pretty much cheaper than using an empty cereal box as a host once you've paid for the SLA battery and charger.
The Thor uses a 12-volt lamp and a 12-volt battery. There is serious voltage drop in this system, which underdrives the lamp (and seriously reduces its efficiency).
I toyed with various upgrade ideas for this light, but one day got lucky at my local Horrible Freight store as they had a broken HID light on their clearance table, which I scooped up to use for parts. The Thor uses an H4 lamp, and the HF HID uses an H7 lamp, so I had to machine an adapter to get the H7 lamp to fit into the Thor. The adapter itself is just a simple donut with a step machined in it to securely hold the H7 and provide focus. The H4 and H7 do NOT have the same focal point, so anyone doing this mod will have to fabricate an adapter, use a stack of washers or obtain an H4 HID lamp.
Here's the H7 lamp in the Thor reflector. It's set back a little ways so the base doesn't lie flush with the apex of the reflector.
Here's the backside of the H4-to-H7 lamp adapter. There's a bit of a ridge that doesn't appear to be necessary... it's not. I designed the adapter to be able to use the original H7 lamp retaining clip, but changed my mind midway through the job and didn't feel it necessary to face off the ridge. The adapter is fastened to the reflector with epoxy. I used Arctic Alumina... why? Because it was handy.
In this pic you can see the 3mm socket-cap screw that holds the lamp into the adapter. The reason why I went this way instead of using the retaining clip is that the screw provides better "clocking" of the lamp. The original flange is a "D" shape, which is difficult to machine.
Last pic. The HID ballast easily fits into the white plastic bracket already inside the Thor. I AAed a CPU heatsink to the aluminum flange that sticks out of the potting material. The heatsink originally had a little 12v fan on it, but I removed it before taking this pic. The ballast never got hot enough to justify having the fan. At the 12 o'clock position you can see the high-tension leads that attach the lamp to the ballast. They're big and clunky and will rattle around inside the light so I zip-tied them to one of those 3M stick-down wire ties. The battery electronics are stock and I wired it with 10 gauge. In retrospect, 10 gauge is overkill for this job and difficult to do a good job routing. 16 or 18 gauge would probably be better, and would be easily capable of these power levels for the lengths of wire used.
All in all a very easy job, and BRIGHT!!! I think I will further mod this light by using a spray-on conformal coating over the electronics and paint-on connector sealants for the wires, to enhance water resistance. (The switch would be the weak point; can't seem to find a suitable marine switch, but then I haven't looked that hard either.)
