wquiles
Flashaholic
A co-worker gave me a Streamlight TL3 and said he wanted something different, brighter, better, etc. I said "sure, I will figure out something". Little did I know it was going to be a lot of work ...
I started by taking down the shoulder on the head/reflector:
I then very carefully opened up the hole to allow for an LED to fit:
Although this is the factory incandesent bulb holder, I used it to judge the opening in the reflector and to see how tall would the new heatsink "module" had to be:
The heatsink module that I am creating is a two part afair. The part facing the reflector will be in Al, and the part housing the spring and positive contact battery will be made out of Delrin. Here I am constructing the Delrin piece:
Here I started to cut the Al piece that faces the reflector:
and here I am fine-tuning the height:
Here I am setting up to drill the two holes for the LED wires:
Still more work needed on the heatsink, but the basic shape is done:
Here I am opening up the back side of the Al heatsink - it needs to house the Downboy LED driver that I am using, as well as mate with the Delrin piece:
Pieces fit as expected:
Some more work on the mill to setup the spring (donated by dead SureFire light module):
Not done, but starting to look like a real thing:
I had to enlarge the hole a tad to get the Downboy to fit, and I drilled a hole for the inductor to fit:
Here is how it looks on a dry fit with the driver inside:
Start the soldering/assembly part:
The hole for the inductor was cut so that the POS and NEG terminals would line up with the corresponding LED wires:
I added thin Krapton tape to prevent a short:
Solder positive wire:
Test with my bench supply before soldering/epoxying the spring side:
Epoxy the driver and Al/Delrin pieces together:
Add positive terminal:
And here is the completed module:
I removed the reflector to clean it with compressed air:
and finally, re-assemble the reflector, apply thermal paste between the heatsink and the reflector, assemble the head, put batteries, and test it against a while wall (like 18-20 inches away):
Lots of work, but it worked out great
Will
I started by taking down the shoulder on the head/reflector:
I then very carefully opened up the hole to allow for an LED to fit:
Although this is the factory incandesent bulb holder, I used it to judge the opening in the reflector and to see how tall would the new heatsink "module" had to be:
The heatsink module that I am creating is a two part afair. The part facing the reflector will be in Al, and the part housing the spring and positive contact battery will be made out of Delrin. Here I am constructing the Delrin piece:
Here I started to cut the Al piece that faces the reflector:
and here I am fine-tuning the height:
Here I am setting up to drill the two holes for the LED wires:
Still more work needed on the heatsink, but the basic shape is done:
Here I am opening up the back side of the Al heatsink - it needs to house the Downboy LED driver that I am using, as well as mate with the Delrin piece:
Pieces fit as expected:
Some more work on the mill to setup the spring (donated by dead SureFire light module):
Not done, but starting to look like a real thing:
I had to enlarge the hole a tad to get the Downboy to fit, and I drilled a hole for the inductor to fit:
Here is how it looks on a dry fit with the driver inside:
Start the soldering/assembly part:
The hole for the inductor was cut so that the POS and NEG terminals would line up with the corresponding LED wires:
I added thin Krapton tape to prevent a short:
Solder positive wire:
Test with my bench supply before soldering/epoxying the spring side:
Epoxy the driver and Al/Delrin pieces together:
Add positive terminal:
And here is the completed module:
I removed the reflector to clean it with compressed air:
and finally, re-assemble the reflector, apply thermal paste between the heatsink and the reflector, assemble the head, put batteries, and test it against a while wall (like 18-20 inches away):
Lots of work, but it worked out great
Will
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