Anyone modded a TLS "E" series head?

I'm just curious if anyone has tried swapping emitters in a TLS head. Would an MCE, P7 or some other high power emitter work in it?

My 2 cell TLS head comes apart easily, so I don't see why it would be too difficult to mod with a new emitter. The MC-E's have the same footprint as the XR-E's, but the stock driver might not have enough power to drive them to their potential level or brightness.

I haven't done it but an MC-E looks easily doable. The P7 dome is too big and will require boring out the reflector opening. For my first gen TLS E2 replacement head, you unscrew the bezel to expose the heat sink/reflector, which holds the pill. The pill sticks out of the bottom of the heat sink a little bit. Get some rubber strips for gripping and unscrew the pill from the heat sink. Remove the plastic insulator/washer that protects the Cree XR-E LED from shorting out against the bottom of the reflector. Pry out the LED (mine looks like it is held to the pill using the usual white, rubbery, thermal silicone and de-solder the driver wires. The stock LED is on one of those small ~14mm "rounded square" stars. Attach the MC-E to the pill and hook it up in 2S2P or 4P. Assuming a nominal ~1A buck driver, 2S2P would drive the MC-E at about 500mA per core, which should be plenty bright (probably at least 450 lumens for an M-bin MC-E), and 4P would drive the MC-E at ~250mA per core (underdriven, but still probably 250 lumens and much cooler-running).

The question is if the pill with the bare MC-E can be screwed into the reflector enough to get the LED to the right focus point.

What I would do is mark the outside of the pill as to how far it screws into the heat sink when the XR-E is installed. Then after you remove the XR-E, screw in the pill again into the heat sink and note if the pill can go in farther and by how much. If the pill can go in by an additional 1.7mm or so (see calculation estimates below), you should be good to go.

The overall Cree XR-E height is the sum of the XR-E die height, the thickness of the white substrate board, and the thickness of the star. I estimate the height from the bottom of the star to the top of the metal ring on the Cree emitter to be 0.133". The thermal glue adds some variable amount of height, so let's say 0.140" total. The emitter itself looks like it is located below the top edge of the metal ring, presumably in-between the top of the white substrate board and the top of the metal ring. The top of the white substrate is about 0.080" above the top face of the pill. If we go halfway, that would put the die at about 0.110" (2.79mm) above the top face of the pill.

A little while back, I sacrificed an MC-E to determine the height of the quad-die in the case. It turns out that the die is recessed below the top of the case and is slightly higher up that the level of the 4 pairs of terminals. As you can imagine, measuring that depth was difficult and the accuracy is probably not the best. But I got 0.015" (0.38mm) below the top of the case.

Referencing the datasheets, the MC-E case height is 1.45mm (+/-0.1mm). I measured my MC-E case at exactly 1.45mm. Thus, the MC-E die height is 1.07mm (1.45mm - 0.38mm).

If the pill can't screw in by an additional 1.72mm, you'll have to raise up the MC-E by that amount to put the MC-E die at the same focus point as the XR-E. 1.72mm is 0.067", so you could try using two 0.03" thick copper spacers from The Sandwich Shoppe.

I have both OpticsHQ and KD versions of the TLS. This afternoon, I took a KD head apart and took the pill out of a DX MC-E drop-in and it. The MC-E pill screwed right into the KD head. The head worked fine with an E1L body but wouldn't light up with an Aleph 17500 body. I didn't get a chance to try it in the dark. I might try it again this weekend when I have time and am more awake.

Pill threading looks to be interchangeable between the TLS head and regular P60 drop-ins. However, the emitter height may not match. For example, I tested a DX6090 pill in the TLS head and the Cree XR-E was way too low when the DX6090 pill was screwed into the TLS head.