L1 help needed

A while ago (last year I think) I posted a question about putting the L1 Cree head on the older L1 1.1/22 lm body, never really got a clear cut answer to this.

My assumption is that runtime would stay the same 2hrs high and 90 hrs low but both levels would be brighter due to the more efficient Cree led and the runtime would remain the same because the drive current will not have changed. Is this correct?

And would this harm the newer Cree emitter on the high setting? I don't know what the mA draw is for these lights.

I wanted to get a low between the 1.1 of the old, and 10 of the newer model but I don't want to cook the emitter on high ( by using more current then is recommended )

Any thoughts are appreciated. (Can't go the custom route no money)

Thanks
Riddick

I have several L1's both old and new, no problems switching heads for me. Don't know about runtime though. I think the circuits are different though.

they both have dumb heads, so rumtime should be the same, how much brighter was the cree head on the old l1 that the lux3 head?

The low was brighter

the high is hard to tell because I don't have 2 old L1's side by side

Old L1 side by side with new L1 this move I gotta try again

I swapped the heads on my early L1 (serial number A00130) and my current version L1 for a nice little compact package with the early head and late body. Output definitely suffers with the stock early emitter though. No problems with the swap that I've found.

The current supplied by the regulator circuit (in the body of the L1) has not changed between the generations. The increased output of the newest generation is due to the increased efficiency of the Cree LED. You can use any L1 head on any L1 body.

vtunderground said:

The current supplied by the regulator circuit (in the body of the L1) has not changed between the generations. The increased output of the newest generation is due to the increased efficiency of the Cree LED. You can use any L1 head on any L1 body.

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That cant be right. Then the runtimes would be the same.

The old L1 has a lower drive level on low, but as far as I know the same or just a little lower on high as the new one, so the run times are not the same on low.
You will not get the old 90 hour run time, but more like 10 hours. I have both bodies (but not the cree head - another story) and switched bodies back and forth on Luxeon & SSC upgraded ML1 heads. They swap easily, but the low will always be higher (~10L as opposed to the ~2.2 on the Luxeon version) on the new shorter body - and the run time on low is much shorter.
I verified the switch resistance is still 10 ohm, so the difference is all in the body circuitry.

To summarize:

Body .. Bezel .. Low .. High (Lumens)
old ........ old ....... 1-2 ..... 22+
old ........ new ...... ~4 ..... 65+
new ....... old ....... ~5 ..... 22+
new ...... new ....... 10 ..... 65+

Sell the Cree head and send the old one L1 to Milkyspit.

You will get one of the best lights out there.

Better yet, send the new one to Milky. Have him replace the tailcap resistor to keep the low low and then have him bias up the high level to 120L. I have three ML1's and they rock.

coloradogps said:

Sell the Cree head and send the old one L1 to Milkyspit.

You will get one of the best lights out there.

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