My modded Rayovac Vatios > Q5

Here's my first mod of a Rayovac Vatios, and my first mod, and my first experience with soldering. More pictures at bottom. Unsatisfied with the vatio's original Lux III efficiency and brightness, I decided to replace it with a Q5.

Off to dealextreme.com I go! There is where I found everything I needed. Becase of the pill, I needed a 13mm or smaller star/base, there was a 12.8mm but it was a P4. Next was a 14mm Q5-WC, which is what I got! I also got a 30w soldering iron for $6, solder for $2, wick for $2, etc, etc.

After melting off the solder and removing the luxeon (which was just a bare emitter stuck to the aluminum pill, I sanded the edges of the Q5 base until it fit into the pill. While I was filing it, my fingers kinda slipped and the emitter also got scratched against the file:duh2:. Oh well, everything else about this light was already slightly messed up. Then I soldered off the original leads of the driver, replaced it with two bare solid copper wires (stripped from insides of LAN cables), and bent it over to connect to the Q5 board.

Next, since the Q5 on a board extends much further out than the original recessed bare Luxeon, I had to drill and then rotor-file the reflector until I could fit the Q5 through. Reflector has sustained some damage, but it's.. ok.

After a lot of failed soldering (because the solder stuck to the iron rather than the wire or circuit board) and melting stuff on accident (electrical extension, plastic case of solder, my fingers when I was checking if it was hot ) it worked!

For about $20 and over an hour of time, I got to finally learn soldering, and upgraded my crappy 80 lumen Lux III into a nice (but slightly purple Q5-WC). Oh, there are now rings in the beam:sick2:, its a lot more throw and less flood, but oh well.