TJ's latest creations & XPG 5000K in various reflectors

I've been busy lately. Coming off my SST-50 jag, I've been playing around with CREE XPG emitters. I just got some 5000K tint XPGs and the output reminds me of this handsoap my wife has called, "warm vanilla sugar".

The XPG is a reall pain in the butt to focus and doesn't like most reflectors, but I think I've found some winners here. By far, the most impressive is the new 41mm SMO reflector from KD that fits a C8 host almost perfectly. It puts a really tight spot on the XPG, but you have to be careful not to overtighten the bezel or the centering ring stand that's built into it will push the bottom of the reflector up into the reflector cup and screw up the focus. (Ask me how I know.) It can be remedied by pushing it out again, but it's tricky.



On to the pics... (some non-XPG torches for reference/comparison)

The contestants:


1. SmartFire/SacredFire V-65C (MG R-X1 clone) 53mm deep SMO modded with SST-50 4500K driven to ~4.2A by IMR18650

2. UltraFire C8-A1 41mm deep SMO reflector modded with SST-50 4500K, ~4.2A IMR18650

3. Lowes TaskForce 2C modded with MC-E 4A tint (neutral). 35mm MOP reflector. Driven to 2.8A by 2*LiFePO4 C cells and 8*AMC8135.

4. AAP Professional's Favorite 2C modded with XPG 5000K top bin. 35mm MOP reflector. Driven to 1.5A by 2*LiFePO4 C cells and modded 3.6-8.4V buck driver.

5. Lowes TaskForce 2C modded with XPG R5 WC. 35mm DX 4544 optic. Driven to ~1.1A by twin OEM boost drivers and 2 NiMH C cells.

6. AAP Professional's Favorite 2C modded with XR-E Q5 WC and LTF2C optic. Driven to ~1.1A by twin OEM boost drivers and 2 NiMH C cells.

7. TrustFire P7-A2 modded with XPG 5000K top bin and KD 41mm (C8) SMO reflector. Directly driven to ~1.7A by conditioned 18650.

8. Aurora SH-034 stainless modded with XPG R5 WC and KD 20mm SMO reflector. Driven to 1.4A by IMR16340 and 4*AMC8135 regulator.

All shots taken 30ft from target with fixed camera settings. ISO 400, 1/4 sec exposure, white balance set to 5200 Kelvin (daylight setting). F-stop at 4 on left, 10 on right.

Control, lights off



1 & 2, SST-50 4500K creations:



3 & 4, 35mm MOP comparison MCE netural vs. XPG 5000K:

Same batteries, nearly the same output. Runtime ~40min MCE, ~120min XPG.


5 & 6, 35mm optic comparison XPG vs XRE:



7 & 8, XPG in SMO reflector comparison, 41mm vs 20mm. Different tint, similar drive currents:



Enjoy!

TJ,

Holy crap!! When do you find the time to do all these mods?

Man am I jealous!!!

Thanks for sharing!

Hill said:

TJ,

Holy crap!! When do you find the time to do all these mods?

Man am I jealous!!!

Thanks for sharing!

Click to expand...

Quite simply put, I have flashlight OCD. If I break one, I can't go to sleep until it works again, even if it's a temporary downgrade until replacement/upgrade parts come in.

Speaking of which, I killed the XPG emitter in the TrustFire above when I boggled the pill (which I had stripped the threads on long before I was any good at this), so as long as I had to surface mount solder another XPG and AAA the pill in place, I also went ahead and reamed out the reflector and added some glow. Now it's reeeeally cool. I liked it so much, I added glow to the SH-034 mod also:

At it again...

This time I used a 4000K XP-G to downgrade a torch I had previously modded to MC-E. I wanted to see how the XP-G looked in the MC-E 40mm MOP reflector + pill combo from DX (sku 18073). I used a 4*AMC8135 regulator and measured 1.42A at the tail using 3 AccuPower NiMH C cells. Under that funny looking GITD switch cover is a KD forward clickie.



Now this Ray-O-Vac Sportsman Xtreme 4W 3C has a lot more runtime on the same three AccuPower NiMH C cells and comparable output to the MC-E it replaced. The MC-E is being repurposed in another project with a reflector that will hopefully do more for it, and a battery/driver combo that will drive it at full power for all of the discharge.

I have another torch running a neutral white 4A tint MC-E with the same reflector and pill combo. I'll grab some comparison shots this weekend if I get a chance. Basically, the comparison is very similar to the MCE vs. XPG in the 35mm MOP reflectors in the 2C sized torches, #'s 3 & 4 above. The XPG has a slightly tighter spot, and the MCE has brighter spill. The main difference between these 40mm reflectors and the 35mm ones above is that in both cases (XPG/MCE) these 40mm reflectors produce a slightly tighter hotspot than the 35mm ones do.


Update: The light in this post has since been modded to XM-L as described in this thread. The 4000K XP-G now resides in the SmallSun ZY-C37 shown in post #9 below. (The cooler XP-G that the light in #9 was originally modded with was then de-domed and put into a TrustFire F22 14500 light and gifted.)

What do you think of the 5000K (it's 3A right?) tint?

I'm trying to decide if I like the tint. I think it's considered an outdoor, or maybe mid-day daylight tint?

gunga said:

What do you think of the 5000K (it's 3A right?) tint?

I'm trying to decide if I like the tint. I think it's considered an outdoor, or maybe mid-day daylight tint?

Click to expand...

The best way to describe it is as a cool white LED that wants to be neutral white, but isn't quite. It's cooler than any neutral white LED of any variety that I own.

It's spec'd at the same lumen/mA as the purely cool white ones in Digikey's catalog. I think technically it's an R3 brightness bin. Basically, it gets you into neutral tint category without sacrificing any of the lumens of a cool white XP-G.

Compared to a WC tint, the 5000K makes the colors of finished and unfinished wood, trees, leaves, grass, etc. look richer. The spill on a plain white ceiling doesn't look blueish the way it does with a WC tint. Overall, I perfer it.

What is your feeling vs your neutrals?

Thanks for the feedback!

:twothumbs

gunga said:

What is your feeling vs your neutrals?

Thanks for the feedback!

:twothumbs

Click to expand...

Personally, I think I like something just slightly warmer, like the 4500K SST emitters overdriven (they're warmer at lower currents and cooler at higher currents). That's just my taste though. My house is mostly earth tones and natural woods, and so is the great outdoors, which are my primary torch targets. If I were using my torches in a dusty warehouse or a cave, I might care less about the difference between neutral and cool tints.

I just installed a 4000K XPG and a 1.4A regulator in a somewhat floody 40mm MOP reflector (post #4 above) and that's a little warmer than my 4A MC-Es. If I ever build a multi-XPG, I might combine 4000K and 5000K emitters to hit the tint sweet-spot.

Short answer, I like the tint of my neutrals better than the 5000K (and the 5000K better than the cool whites).

Here's some updates.

I liked the results of the TrustFire A2 (from post #3) so much that I wanted to make another one similar to it. This time, I wanted to use a 3AAA light and a 22600 battery. The SmallSun ZY-C37 has almost the exact same shape only with a fatter tube to fit a 3AAA carrier or an 18650, or in this case, a 22600.



I had to carve out th inside of the head just a tiny bit to get the metal KD 41mm deep SMO XPG reflector to fit. What surprised me is that I achieved a tighter focus with a smaller hotspot on the first torch with the bottom of the reflector removed. The torch came with a glass lens which is nice. I replaced the switch with a forward clicky and replaced the driver with a single mode step-down driver. I modded the driver to provide 1.7A current output. On a full charge, the 22600 battery provides that current for quite a while, not sagging as much under that load as smaller Li-Ion batteries. With this driver, I can also use two Li cells if I wanted to. Speaking of which...

I made another driver like the one mentioned above and installed it in the Trustfire P7-A2. I wasn't satisfied to have this HA-III torch with the nicer spot out done by the output of the new el-cheapo creation. After a driver update and a swap of the 18650 for two 16430P, this thing completely rocks! The intensity of the spot has to be seen to be believed. The XPG driven this hard in this reflector rivals my SST-50 torches driven to 5A in Mag Rebel reflectors. I'm nuts about this one now.

The other torch in post #3, the Aurora SH-034 suffered a minor catastrophe that turned into a happy little accident. When comparing the beams of these XPG torches, this litte SS brute stopped working. I had forgotten all about the broken trace route on the XPG star that I had repaired before applying the glow treatment to it. Under stress, that solder cracked. While I was in the process of attempting repairs (which included removing the glow-epoxy), I severely damaged the XPG dome with the tip of my soldering iron (I use the soldering iron to soften and removed the glow powder infused epoxy). Several hours later, I had removed the rest of the dome, mounted the domeless XPG on a new star, filed down the bottom side of the SMO reflector to allow more range for focus whipped up some more glow epoxy and...



While not nearly a match for intensity, the spot shape and size and beam pattern of this little 16340 torch matches that perfect focus of the TrustFire P7-A2 with the modified KD SMO XPG reflector in it. Before the dome removal, the XPG in this reflector had a larger, less intense hotspot that bled into a non-uniform spill that was brighter at the center and dimmer at the edges. Now, the spill is completely uniform in brightness and the hotspot is a perfectly defined brilliant little circle. Still regulated at 1.4A, it throws further than an XRE R2 that I have driven to similar current in the same reflector. Also, since losing the dome, the cool white tint of the R5 changed to an almost perfect match for the 5000K version. (It didn't get all green like my dedomed SST50 did.) I carry this one on my keychain and am astonished every time it lights up tree tops 400 feet away.

Now two of my all time favorite lights are XPG based (and they're also both lights that are better for having been damaged and repaired).