Upgrading my U2..

I've got a virgin U2 Ultra with the Luxeon 5. It was my EDC for a while but i went back to my 6P.. now it's time to upgrade it.

So i guess my question is, has anyone put a MC-E in a U2?

If so.. how was the beam pattern?


I've taken a few measurements of the Lux 5 VS the MC-E, the MC-E is .08mm taller from the base to the bottom of the dome and the dome itself is .07mm wider so with some very slight mods it should fit.

I'm just worried that it'll be really floody where my goal is some decent throw (since the U2 has such a deep reflector).

Thanks for any info!

Superdave said:

So i guess my question is, has anyone put a MC-E in a U2?

Click to expand...

You're the 2nd one today who's asked that question.

Link ~ https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2702539&postcount=289

Nice!

Looks like it's a go then. Just gotta order up the LED.

Monocrom said:

You're the 2nd one today who's asked that question.

Link ~ https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2702539&postcount=289

Click to expand...

He's also the second Dave that has asked the question...

I've got a message out to Milky asking about MC-E and P7. The U2x2 on his thread looks great, but perhaps a bit too radical.

Illumination said:

He's also the second Dave that has asked the question...

I've got a message out to Milky asking about MC-E and P7. The U2x2 on his thread looks great, but perhaps a bit too radical.

Click to expand...

I'll give you one guess what my first name is.

If Milky's version of the U2 is a bit too radical for you, check out his L2 "Special Reserve." A bit subdued, and still has a high of 400 lumens.

Another Link ~
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/211483

I put a warm white Cree MC-E in my old U2. It is much brighter than the luxV but has some artifacts in the beam despite shimming up the emitter and shaving some depth off the reflector. The colour is very nice too. White walls look terrible, but in real use it is great.

Monocrom said:

I'll give you one guess what my first name is.

If Milky's version of the U2 is a bit too radical for you, check out his L2 "Special Reserve." A bit subdued, and still has a high of 400 lumens.

Another Link ~
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/211483

Click to expand...

Wow, another Dave. :twothumbs

The L2 special reserve is NICE. I wonder if he could do something with a U2. That said...maybe I could get used to the U2x2...that is surely something SF won't launch anytime soon...

ICUDoc said:

I put a warm white Cree MC-E in my old U2. It is much brighter than the luxV but has some artifacts in the beam despite shimming up the emitter and shaving some depth off the reflector. The colour is very nice too. White walls look terrible, but in real use it is great.

Click to expand...

Sounds like an interesting solution.

Did you try a P7? I wonder if the beam would be any cleaner.

Continuing a discussion from this thread: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/211698

(so i didn't pollute his thread with my pics)

Re-cap..

While dissassembling and attempting to break loose the SF glue i got hot water on the reflector surface which ruined it.. so before i bore out the head and make room for a more MC-E designed reflector i decided to clean out the MOP coating, remove the anodizing under it and give it a quick polish. I know it's not as pretty/perfect as they do from the factory but it's pretty close. Throw was increased and there is less flood (as expected).

Pics: (excuse the fact that i didn't use the tripod this time)

U2 Head:



U2 on high across my basement:



6P with a Q5



P7 Mag on high





I'll be ordering a MC-E emitter this week :thumbsup:

Hmm, so the stock reflector is plated over the hard anodize in the head? Interesting. Makes it easy to re-do the reflector like you did, as the profile is the same.

Looks like it wasn't a total loss. Gained some throw. But the MC-E is gonna have more artifacts now with that smooth. Oh well it needs the extra throw. You can always sputter it with some clear krylon though.

I need to mod some lights this week. Been on hold way to long. Car mods etc have been taking the time. SuperDave knows how that is.

I want to mod something small with the MCE. Just don't know what. Maybe an old KL4, but that would mean I'd no longer have onlyl AA/C lights.... lol

I was bored today so i replaced the luxV with a Cree Q5.. it was fine on everything but High, then it turned angry blue. :naughty:

beam looked like crap though, lots of cree rings.


I've been thinking about putting a MC-E in a P60 dropin as well, i have a nice deep OP setup that's just sitting around, might make for a good EDC dropin with a multi-level driver.


When it's cold out i stay out of the garage, my E-bench is in the basement so that's where stuff gets "upgraded" or Broken :twothumbs


*edit, just ordered 2 M bin MC-E's

Illumination: no I haven't tried a P7 in the U2- I don't know if the driver would be very happy about the required currents.
Superdave- I use an 18650 in my U2s so maybe you can avoid the blues by trying that? It worked fine for me, altthough the levels are a little different in their relative brightness cf the original.

Thanks!

I wonder if I could add a high quality SSC to replace my Lux V? That might be an adequate solution!

I measured 6V across the LuxV on high and 5V on low. The regulator might have given the Q5 a bit too much current on high, plus the higher than recommended input voltage and it sang the blues. It still works and will find a home in something i'm sure.


I wouldn't put a P7 into anything with a reflector smaller than 1.5" wide.. it was worthless in my P60 dropin and works way better in my 2D Mag.

Now, a MC-E in a P60 dropin might just work.. hopefully the 5 level driver i used on the old P7 setup still works.. i'll drive it with 1 18650. :thumbsup:

my U2 is the newer style so i'd have to drill it for the 18650, not sure that i want to go that route. i have enough 123's to last for several years so i doubt it.

Unfortunately my garage is where my "e-bench" is too. So any mod, car, flashlight, or otherwise I have to endure the cold... Gonna be pulling the car in this weekend to put on a 1" addco rear sway bar to replace my 21mm Z51 bar... Not looking forward to that! brrrr At least with electronic mods I have a space heater I can sit by my legs near the work bench.

The MCE just cause it's smaller doesn't mean it's going to throw more. It's still got 4 dies, and projects the light probably forward more than the SS (typically that is, cree has a more focused dome, I haven't looked at the actual beam angle on the mc-e yet). Of course if you have to open up the reflector a lot to fit a P7 you do loose reflector real estate so an MCE might have the advantage there. Hard to say until you try it!

Illumination said:

Thanks!

I wonder if I could add a high quality SSC to replace my Lux V? That might be an adequate solution!

Click to expand...

Illumination just as I was saying to Superdave the U2 is made to drive a LuxV (with a Vf of about 6 volts or so). In my experience it overdrives emitters (like SSC P4 or Cree XR-E) that have low Vf (3.2-ish) volts, so it is happy with say the luxV or Cree MC-E (which is easy to wire as 2S2P configuration with Vf same as luxV). I have used cree XR-Es in U2s but in that case I run them on one cell only. So that means an 18650 or 17670 if it fits in your torch!
Good luck. FWIW the Cree MC-E gives a whole lotta light in the U2- nice colour in warm white and beam pattern not too bad.

David - Did you use a shim under your MC-E? If so, do you know how thick it was? I have an approximate figure from another member for focus in the U2 reflector - about 0.080", but I am looking for confirmation or a suggested adjustment of my target value.

Yes I used a shim of copper which I cut down on the lathe to the right shape- 2.45mm, which is about 0.095" I think (+ 2 layers of arctic silver). BUT I also milled the top of the U2 heatsink so the 0.08" will be very close. Don't forget you'll also need to carve out the back of the reflector a bit- I still have a bit of a doughnut but hey I cope because the colour and brightness bring the U2 up to competitive with other lights.

The other member I mentioned also told me that an MC-E in a KL4 head produced a doughnut when the emitter was too far forward into the reflector. I suppose the same may be true for the U2 reflector.

Bringing this back up for now.. the MC-E's are on their way but since we were discussing input voltage, should i go ahead and drive the MC-E in parallel and hope the driver's output voltage will dip down due to the higher current draw or do some kind of 2S-2P config.

I'll be using regular 123's, i don't want to bore the body of this one out and i only have 1 good protected 18650 left..


I could always mount a MC-E on a computer heatsink, hook it up to the U2 and monitor the current and voltage at the different levels.. might be worth the extra few hours to ensure reliability.