A2 mod

Just moded my A2 with some 5mm led's from DX.

two red and one yellow, not difficult at all and looks totally standard. A good soldering iron and a steady hand is all that's needed.

The angry white ones had to go! A good stop gap until koala gets the onion rings done? I didn't want all red as they are not that bright. The yellow one defiantly ramps up the brightness by 2 fold and the colour is perfect for my needs.

Sorry for the bad pics

That looks very good - the effect is quite like souptree's A2 with orange LEDs.

Thanks dm51,

Its 11pm now and am messing around with it and its better than expected?

Two red and a yellow is a good combo? If you like that thing???:shrug:

my table looks like hair on my arm, as i said bad pics!!!

Amber is great for camping as it doesn't attract insects

I recently modded my A2 with Nichia GS leds... I wasn't very impressed with that mod, it's still very blue. Maybe I'll try yellow/red leds next. What sku:s did you use?

M.S said:

I recently modded my A2 with Nichia GS leds... I wasn't very impressed with that mod, it's still very blue. Maybe I'll try yellow/red leds next. What sku:s did you use?

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not sure as its so difficult to check on your DX account but they only sell about 4 colours? red white yellow infra. and UV

Yes I know I am very slow but the onions will be done, I am pretty sure no one will be happy with a crap product so it takes a while to make it right.

Careful, those Red LEDs have about 1.7v of forward voltage, if your original LEDs are White then they will be overdriven. If you notice some dimming, then you might want to change the current limiting resistor to a higher value. Otherwise just swap the LEDs since they are from DX .

strideredc said:

The angry white ones had to go! A good stop gap until koala gets the onion rings done?

Click to expand...

I meant to give a link before to souptree's thread about his orange A2 - here it is. The tint seems very similar, and both yours and his look very good.

Maybe what koala says about the red LEDs in yours being over-driven has made them appear more orange?

DM51 said:

I meant to give a link before to souptree's thread about his orange A2 - here it is. The tint seems very similar, and both yours and his look very good.

Maybe what koala says about the red LEDs in yours being over-driven has made them appear more orange?

Click to expand...

no, its my bad photos

koala, they will last untill you get the rings done

i really do like the colour, let me try to take some more pics...

koala, what resistor should i change it to?

dm51, no more photos as my camera is away for a week... and my phone will take even worse ones!

Hello strideredc,

These are regular smd resistors which you can find on dead computer parts. They are just rough estimates, please continue reading to find out why.
200 ohm (201 smd marking) for 20mA
120 ohm (121 smd marking) for 30mA
100 ohm (101 smd marking) for 36mA

I don't know what's the typical forward voltage of your Red LEDs. I have a bag of them, I picked a few randomly and measured them. The range I had was 18mA to 27mA when driven at 2.0 volts.

The voltage from 2 CR123 is 6.0volts. Assuming forward voltage of your Red LED is 2.0v@20mA. That's 6.0V - 2.0V = 4V drop.
So (resistance = 4V / 0.020A) makes 200 ohm. There's a 10 ohm resistor in the tailcap, which makes it 210 ohm in total. This will reduce the total current to 19mA or so. So remember to add 10ohms to the total resistance when calculating the actual current going to the LED.


Surefire drives the 5mm LEDs whites and greens quite hard, at about 55mA or so.