drop in question

I am trying to replace this drop in LED with the cree MC-E any idea's on opening the head.

Thanks in advance

http://i534.photobucket.com/albums/ee345/striwa/DSCN1745.jpg

http://i534.photobucket.com/albums/ee345/striwa/DSCN1747.jpg

http://i534.photobucket.com/albums/ee345/striwa/DSCN1746.jpg

please note
1st: pic too large sideways (dont have it larger than 800*600)
2nd: a 400*300 shows exactly the same and is even easier with the text
3rd: put pics in vertical, not horizontal

4th (and most importantly): what do You want to get with that mod?
Its no emitter swap thing, You gain nothing and make everything worse:
* the MC-E needs another voltage than a normal XR-E (four times more, as it is 4 times the XR-E)
* the light emitting pattern and sizes of the MC-E differ enough to worsen anything that that insert might (or might not) do good

You can, maybe, get the old led out and the MC-E in in a parallel setup -
then it would need four times the current (as the MC-E is 4 times the XR-E)


short: makes no sense, when driver is not changed also
+ will get brutally more hot and heatsinking path is pretty nonexisiting (only when driver is adapted for the MC-E)

Sorry, how do I resize the images, I was going for a brighter light, but after reading the post sounds like it might not be such a good idea.

You must resize the picture before uploading it, if you're using imageshack you must set it to 800x600 and put the pics in separate lines.


1. You are not getting a brighter module by just swapping the emitter.
2. The light it produces will probably look yellow due to voltage.
3. The emitter wont fit into the reflector.
4. Even if you can fit the mc-e into the reflector and pill, you'll probably get a ugly beam.

Lets supposse the solarforce drives the led at 1A. The only way to wire it is parallel and each emitter at the mc-e will be drawing 250ma, which is very dim. Having 4 dim emitters instead of a single bright one will result in a floody, maybe yellowish beam and most probable a useless module.

Conclusion: don't do the swap.

You'll get a bit more output because LED are more efficient at lower drive currents. But the much larger emitting area means you will also get a much wider beam and it could appear dimmer.

If you want a lot more output, you'll need a new driver and can't run the drop-in for long due to heat.

Thanks for the advice and imput. I need to figure out a project for the MC-E

I've replaced those over-seized photos with links.

You can resize them with any photo-editing software, and I believe photobucket offers the facility too. When you've done that so they measure no more than 800 x 800 pixels, you may replace them.

Always put a "return" line break between photos so they stack one above another, rather than side-by-side.