Another P60 drop in DIY

Building a P60 pill ....

Picture 1 = parts needed ...

Shinning beam driver [ 1.4A 3 mode ]
XP-G R5 emitter
XP-E empty pill assembly

Step 1 /

Start by fitting the driver to the base of the pill [ this is a dry run ]
You may need to file the driver to size as there are some rough bits on the edge , once the driver fits move onto step 2

Step 2 /

Glue the emitter onto the brass pill , use thermal epoxy , try to line up + - with the holes in the pill as best as possible ..
When gluing , use the reflector to center the emitter as best as possible .

Step 3 /

solder the leads from the driver to the LED , before soldering the driver itself to the pill , check to make sure you soldered positive to positive etc
After soldering the driver in place double check to make sure there are no problems , then solder on the + spring in the center of the driver ..
I do this by first getting some solder on the spring , and then soldering the + part of the driver , and when both parts have solder on them , then soldering them together .

Step 4 /

Screw the reflector down , but first tape the bottom of the reflector to stop the reflector from shorting out on the LED [ Happens a lot with the XP-G in a P60 drop in ]
I use a 2xAA battery holder with gator clips to do the testing with , as the voltage is low enough so if there is a short , hopefully you wont blow the driver or LED

Step 5 /

Assemble pill [ Springs etc ] and put in host , again testing for a short ..
I now superglue the reflector to the pill , so it wont move [ tighten ] and then use pliers to adjust if there is a short [ unscrew ] .

This pill I built really suffered from shorting , and needed about a 1/4 turn open to rid the pill of the short .. But now , once its sorted out , its a nice XP-G R5 drop in , and the shinningbeam driver seems to be a good driver .

Any questions ?

Thank you for what i've been looking for. Off to buy some p60 parts for diy drop-in building.

good chance to ask something.....

how does your wire affect reflector screw down height?

I think in mine this is the reason I cannot get a proper focusing....what gauge wire are you using?

kosPap said:

good chance to ask something.....

how does your wire affect reflector screw down height?

I think in mine this is the reason I cannot get a proper focusing....what gauge wire are you using?

Click to expand...

The wires are the ones that came with the driver [ Shinningbeam ] Mine do not affect reflector height

Problems are ... The reflector screws down far enough to short ...

Does it short on the wires , or does it push down to hard on the LED itself ?

What thickness is your base ? 1mm or 2mm , if its on a 1mm base then you may find that the brass pill is stopping the reflector from screwing down ..
Im talking about the ridge on the brass pill ..

These pills were made with XR-E in mind , and there have not been design changes made , you may need to remove 1mm from the ridge [ height ] on the brass pill .

My XP-G R5's are put on 2mm base , which come close to XR-E dimensions for LED height .

An insulator disk is a must, to alleviate shorting...









The nice thing about the XRE is that it sits up off the PCBA enough to allow the use of a thick insulator material, and still keep the die in focus. 3M 467 with 200MP adhesive is shown here. I used the same material on my XPG drop in, but I am using an XRE reflector with the XPG and I have to de-focus it a little anyways to alleviate the slight doughnut hole in the beam. I have never tried this with a small opening XPG reflector.

thanks for sharing your diy, took me a long while to figure most of that out on my own, though Im super cautious....

With respect to that disc, what if you would use say a 16mm board, which fills up a p60 pill almost entirely, making centering easier, though would there be a danger of a short considering the sides of the cpb might touch the pill directly? If so could you run the insulator up the side of the pill a little to prevent board to pill contact?
I dont know if that would cause a short or not.

Also Ive seen a plastic-like film that some manufacturers, Romisen for example, uses to cover the cpb entirely, except the emitter of course, I assume to prevent contact with the reflector, what is that material, is it recommended? Im not sure what kind of heat it can take, or else it would seem beneficial to always be used.

thanks, PBX

kramer5150 said:

An insulator disk is a must, to alleviate shorting...

[photos removed from quote as unnecessary - DM51]

The nice thing about the XRE is that it sits up off the PCBA enough to allow the use of a thick insulator material, and still keep the die in focus. 3M 467 with 200MP adhesive is shown here. I used the same material on my XPG drop in, but I am using an XRE reflector with the XPG and I have to de-focus it a little anyways to alleviate the slight doughnut hole in the beam. I have never tried this with a small opening XPG reflector.

Click to expand...

Even with insulation disk [ I use tape ] I get shorting when the reflector is screwed down to tight , it has to be just so , so I use superglue to hold the reflector in the correct position .
If you leave the reflector to far out , then you may lose to much output ..

kramer5150 said:

..... I used the same material on my XPG drop in, but I am using an XRE reflector with the XPG and I have to de-focus it a little anyways to alleviate the slight doughnut hole in the beam. I have never tried this with a small opening XPG reflector.

Click to expand...

I did a similar thing I used a small opening one that i had reamed the hole for the XREs. recovered most of the output loss but with abeam I did not like....3 different output rings of it....

Old4570.....you are so right about the rim height.....I did not think of that....

kosPap said:

I did a similar thing I used a small opening one that i had reamed the hole for the XREs. recovered most of the output loss but with abeam I did not like....3 different output rings of it....

Old4570.....you are so right about the rim height.....I did not think of that....

Click to expand...

Smooth or OP reflector , the smooth ones can be ringy if your unlucky ...

I use this empty pill ATM for my XP-G builds

This one also works if your looking for something to keep in the spare parts box .

I never founs smooth ones......other tahn XR-E
Have tried both.....infact I will standarize o the first with teh hole opened up as I mentioned before...

works better than the originals for the MC-E and XR-E LEDs

old4570 said:

http://whatapic.com

Click to expand...

:thumbsup:

I was curious to see what the underside of that XP-E reflector looked like.
I've ordered one but it hasn't shipped yet.

I'd really like to know where to get a reflector set like the one that is used on DX sku 32953.

kosPap said:

good chance to ask something.....

how does your wire affect reflector screw down height?

I think in mine this is the reason I cannot get a proper focusing....what gauge wire are you using?

Click to expand...

@kosPap - Fixed the screw down height focusing problem by not having any wire insulation resting on the R5 star/PCB. The 2 small half round cutouts on the R5 star/PCB allow just enough wire insulation left so the soldered wires to the emitter pads do not short to the brass pill.

Made an insulator cut out from sticker paper, covering the R5 emitter star/PCB and then used a clear plastic sticker book cover material for the reflector side. As you know, the R5's output is very sensitive compared to an R2 when the reflector is not screwed down enough.

The reflectors for maximum output for me would be the Solarforce smooth R5 drop in and the DX R5 drop in if you prefer OP. Note that these reflectors have a wide hole, allowing the reflector to be screwed all the way down to the star/PCB level and shows the R5 emitter's square body, not just the R5's lens/dome.

The XPE OP reflector in KD has a very small opening showing only the dome/lens which reduces the R5's output by almost 50% (same hotspot size as DX's R5 drop in), no matter how screwed down it is.

The XRE OP reflector in DX R2 drop ins create a smaller hotspot with slightly better throw (only when compared side by side) than the DX OP R5 drop ins.

The DX XRE smooth reflector only creates a big ringy and floody hotspot. I expected it to create a smaller hotspot like the OP XRE reflector and out throw the smooth Solarforce R5 drop in but it didn't. It just created a disappointing ringy and very short range floody beam.



@old4570 - how many amperes at the emitter and at the tailcap of this DIY drop in? TIA.

THis one used the shinning beam driver , and pulls 1.43A @ the tail ...
Efficiency ?

old4570 said:

Even with insulation disk [ I use tape ] I get shorting when the reflector is screwed down to tight , it has to be just so , so I use superglue to hold the reflector in the correct position .
If you leave the reflector to far out , then you may lose to much output ..

Click to expand...

My solarforce r5 dropin did the same thing. When the reflector is screwed down too tight, it gets shorted. I checked the insulation disk and dont see any problems. Then i swapped the driver with another driver in the solarforce pill, the reflector can now be screwed in very tight without shorting. Weird

seems like sorting of bares wires on the pcb....see FLT Medic's post above

FLT MEDIC said:

The XPE OP reflector in KD has a very small opening showing only the dome/lens which reduces the R5's output by almost 50% (same hotspot size as DX's R5 drop in), no matter how screwed down it is.

Click to expand...

Have you measured the output? A 50-60% drop would be too noticeable and there have been measurements by a few on this forum with this type of reflector. The OTF lumens is inline with the typical 20-25% loss from emitter lumens.

The bezel on the L2 [ standard ] does block a fair bit of output if your measuring in a lightbox or ceiling bounce . This one does about 275 with the bezel , and 325 without , thats a rather fair drop from just the bezel ..

And due to the XP-G being more flood , it becomes a bit of an issue if you have a bezel that blocks spill , so flashlight design becomes some what important or you may as well stick with the XR-E R2 .

Not the best picture : but shows XR-E pill used with Xp-G [ DIY ]
Beam is just as good as with the XP-E pill ...
This one is in my L2P ..

Have you measure the current? Is it really 1.4A? An R5 @ 1.4A should be around 420 emitter lumens. If you measure OTF 325 (23% loss) or 275 (35% loss) it still not 50% loss as FLT Medic suggests when using an XP-E reflector.

Regarding the bezel losses, would a reflector that was narrower and tapered more towards the reflector so that light doesn't hit the bezel fix this? Sort of like the reflector in a Malkoff but not as narrow.