Geez....I just Lego'ed a slightly shorter L1...ARGH!

I just got a shipment of two 1x123 HA bodies from Wayne at the Sandwich Shoppe. These bodies came with a two stage twist on tactical tailcap that tailstands. (say that three times fast...)

Toss on a KL1 head and a rechargeable 16340 or RCR123a into it and you're set. You get low and bright settings.

Anyways, I've been timing the low power setting on one just to see how long it lasts, when my wife comes up and says - gee...you just made a clone of the flashlight that you recently got (which was an L1 - she pulls it out of the ready safe in our bedroom).

And so she's right. I just Lego'ed together a slightly smaller (by about 3/10ths of an inch) L1 Lumamax with slightly less lumens....

Put the two together, and I just paid $120 for this combination (sans batteries). It's about the same cost as the street prices for an L1.

D'OH!

-Steve

Your wife is perceptive. What were you going for originally?

Something the size of the E1L - which is significantly shorter than the L1. However, electronics does take up space, so therefore it stands to reason why the Lego'ed unit is taller than the E1L.

Oh, well. I like it enough it's gonna be an EDC. I'm gonna stick a primary into one of my two E1L's and put it into my wife's night side GunVault. The other I'm keeping at my home office desk for various reasons.

The other Lego'ed body/lamp combo will go to my little brother, who's an optics engineer at Boeing.

-Steve

Here's a photo of the L1 side by side with the Lego'ed KL1.

http://www.yeefamily.us/sgyee/cpf/ss1x123/img_4610b.jpg

-Steve

Nice looking lego! Let us know the runtime on low.

So far - 5:29 on low. It's almost ready to go flat. I can see it flickering ever so slightly.

It's an AW cell that I haven't fully charged - I just threw it in. It's about 90%.

Not bad.

If you put an old style L1 head on there it will only be 1/8 inch longer than an E1L.

If you really wanted to get as small as possible you could switch out the tail for either a Z52 or a flat Aleph with a flat top McE2S switch. It wouldn't be a huge difference, but it would be a little shorter.

I finally pulled the trigger on the same combo. As far as I know it's the only way to get the standard aleph tail right now. I'm planning on using the new cree head from OpticsHQ when it becomes available.

yeah, but which one has the lifetime warranty?

I like the leggo better. Look at the "ribbed" bodies from dafabricata!
http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=183855
Check out the length.

I like that alot. I just got a new L1 for my EDC and love it. I need to do some research about these lego builds. My wife is not going to like this, she thought my flashlight addiction was bad before.

Lego'ing is fun. And sometimes you get features by accident and others on purpose.

I frankly got the two stage twist on tail cap by accident. I really didn't read the description beyond that it was momentary on.

I'm testing the KX1 head right now with a 16340 to see if I can get longer runtime than the 5 1/2 hours that I got with a KL1.

Either way, the jury is out between the VG FB1's that just came in and the Aleph body that I've got earlier this week. I've been carrying the VG one around since the bodies came in, and it's got a certain appeal.

If there was a way to mod the VG FB1 body's switch to a two stage forward click twist on, I'd do it. Then you get the best of both worlds - small and two stage. However, the electronics are too large for now.

-Steve

Well, that was totally sucky. A fresh 16340 and I only got 4:18 with the KX1 on low.

Ick.

Beastmaster said:

So far - 5:29 on low. It's almost ready to go flat. I can see it flickering ever so slightly.

It's an AW cell that I haven't fully charged - I just threw it in. It's about 90%.

Not bad.

Click to expand...

Yep - nice runtime!

As far as I'm concerned, the only down side to my L1 is that it can't tailstand. Nice Lego!

Thanks! I think the AW cells combined with both this and the VG bodies are the best combination.

My 16340 issue may just very well be the fact that the UltraFire battery isn't all that wonderful for constant drain applications. 4:18 isn't too bad though, but compared to an AW, well - there's quality in the AW.

-Steve

Brozneo said:

Yep - nice runtime!

Click to expand...

Beastmaster said:

So far - 5:29 on low. It's almost ready to go flat. I can see it flickering ever so slightly.

It's an AW cell that I haven't fully charged - I just threw it in. It's about 90%.

Not bad.

Click to expand...

Beastmaster great info on runtime. What do you estimate the output on low level? Did you get the 15ohm resistor tailcap?

Sure did.

Output is slightly brighter to the SF L1 Cree on low. But, since I have no measuring equipment, it's totally eyeballed.

E-series "lego" is fun. I took an early "dumb" L1 head and did some whittling inside to accept an uncut McR20S and made a solid copper light engine just upgraded to a nice P4. Added the McGiz body (drilled for the split ring through the hex) and shortest 2-stage cap (opened-up in back to give my thumb a better perch,) and run it on R123's. It's 3.220" long.


Larry