gladius led change

Has any body swaped the stock led with this one on the gladius? I know there is a upgrade from night-ops. I just wanted to try to do it my self.

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=W42180-Uvirtualkey61510000virtualkey889-W42180U

I am also thinking of trying it with my old Surefire E2L with KL1 head.

Any help would be great.

And by the way....thanks to all of you for making me a flashlight geek!

Tim

That is the LED, but you can get it cheaper from DX or slightly cheaper and with a good tint from Photonfanatic over at the Marketplace.

Thought I'd check Mouser's shipping to Australia for three LED's.
FedEx International Priority (Flat Rate Shipping) $45.00 :green:
Makes me realise that we are lucky to have members that will supply overseas folks at a reasonable price.
Norm

LukeA - So the one at DX (the T bin) will make the gladius brighter?

Thanks

snakeboy said:

LukeA - So the one at DX (the T bin) will make the gladius brighter?

Thanks

Click to expand...

U-bin is brighter.

Thanks LukeA. I am ordering the star right now. Bare emitter is on back order. Thanks again for all the help.

I think the bare emitter is used for the upgrade(I'm not sure though). Taking the emitter off the star could be a pain.

I just ordered the emitters from Mouser. Not the stars. Two of them. It ended up being cheaper with shipping.

Emitters are the way to go. I just upgraded my Insight H2X Typhoon(same as gladius) a couple weeks ago with a U bin Seoul from DX. I couldnt be happier. I ordered a U2 bin Seoul star from photonfanatic but unfortunately destroyed it trying to take it off the star. That bugger was soldered on there at the base and I didnt know it. take your old luxeon off your gladius and solder on your new emitter with a .30"(little less than a millimeter) copper spacer underneath it. Also you will want to put a THIN coat of adhesive or some other none conductive stuff painted on the bottom of your emitter before install to isolate the positive slug. I just used a coat of arctic silver(not an adhesive and contrary to popular belief, not conductive either).Also be sure to bend down your leads and don't pile up a bunch of solder on them if you want to be able to screw your head back down tight. The side with the notch in the leg is the negative side in case you didnt know. Notice on the bottom of the reflector there are two cut outs where the leads are supposed to rest under. You'll want to make sure you have those lined up to get your head screwed back down to normal. Doubled my output and I give my wife photosensitive seizures with the strobe. (Yikes!)
Its just dang wicked. My lowest setting got bumped up one level I would say but it is still low enough for reading a map or whatever in the dark without seeing spots afterwards. My run time is longer, my spill is larger and my hotspot is much brighter Its just better all around! I love the UI on this light and with the upgrade, its just a gem to use. You wont regret this upgrade at all.

Thanks fletch31. The question I have now is what is the spacer for?

Hey Snakeboy, the spacer is to fill in the round hole in the center of the star that you will see when you remove your luxeon to ensure good heat transfer and also lift the Seoul to the correct height for the reflector. The die in the new LED is not at the same depth as the old one so without the spacer you would get poor heat management and also an out of focus hotspot and crappier overall beam pattern. I made my own out of a copper plumping coupler. I just cut it down the middle, hammered it out flat and cut out a 1/4 inch disc. Sand it to make sure there are no burrs and make sure it is flat. You can also order them pre-made from hxxp://theledguy.chainreactionweb.com/product_info.php?cPath=48_52_85&products_id=945 for 50 cents if you don't want to make your own. Just paste it in your browser and change the address to http. Oh, one other thing: There is a ball bearing in the head for alignment that keeps the heatsink, driver board, and ribbon leads from turning when you loosen or tighten the head. It WILL fall out when you unscrew your head so keep an eye open for it so you don't loose it. Open the head on a towel or something. The ball bearing is small and just sits in a little cup indentation. Make sure you put it back in before you screw your head back on. Have fun with the mod. It was my first one and relatively easy to do.

Just got to the mod, and I can say is holy cow. I modded the gladius and a surefire e2l with kl1 head. Now I am looking for something to do next.

Thanks to all for the help.

snakeboy said:

I modded the gladius and a surefire e2l with kl1 head. Now I am looking for something to do next.

Click to expand...

"The itch"




:twothumbs

I am also interested in this mod. Can you provide some details as to how it is done?

I understand that you need 2 strap wrenches to unscrew the head? Then a ball bearing falls out (presumably, it is self-evident as to how the bearing goes back in when the mod is complete and I am re-assembling the head)?

At this point, I am unclear as to the issue with the spacer, this positive "slug" thing (not sure what that refers to), what kind of thermal paste or adhesive I might need, etc? I would assume that I am looking to desolder/remove the Luxeon and solder in the SSC, making sure that I connect pos lead to pos pad and neg lead to neg pad? Anything to watch out for in terms of accidental cross-connection or outright shorting?

Thanks.

Thanks for the links, and the reminder about that little ball bearing. I'm not sure if I want to attempt this myself, but a set of instructions to look over would help me decide if I want to mess with it, or "contract-out" the mod. (I know which end of the soldering iron to hold, but all this talk of anodes and slugs and stuff is over my head. )

One of Fletch31's replies now has me reading up on PSE, Bucha effect, and other things I hadn't heard of before. (Although I do remember that one scene with a lady scientist encountering a strobe, in the original Andromeda Strain.) I'd hate to light up a suspect with the strobe in my Typhoon and have them go full tonic-clonic onto the ground.

Used a 0.30 mm airsoft gearbox shim (tiny washer) and a mica transistor insulator, cut out into a small circle to fill up the cavity in the Luxeon III star after removing the Luxeon III emitter. The Luxeon III star is glued to the Gladius head/heatsink so I couldn't just remove the old Luxeon III star and swap with a Seoul P4 star.