KevinL
Flashlight Enthusiast
Easily one of the toughest mods Ive ever done - most of the challenge being in getting the head open while only partially destroying it. As it is, the electronics module in the rear is partly destroyed, so after I got the remaining threads to screw back in, I refused to open it up again for pics. It is ugly, trust me. (Try to keep your food down ugly.)
Hats off to all you pros who make it look so simple and clean. Trust me it is not as simple as it seems - as my experience shows.
Board is a 10mm round, 2mm thick MCPCB from Cutter. Works perfectly - exact same height as a Lux3. (the Cutter guys really got this one perfect.). Cutting the MCPCB proved to be a real pain, hand-filing resulted in me slipping and scuffing the LED dome :hairpull: which fortunately did not result in noticeable beam artifacts.
The hated O-ring from the head which caused me so much grief was moved outside, to enable me to open up the head again if I should ever want to (reflector maybe).
Driver is a Shiningbeam 1.4A 3-stage. FAST shipping, timely delivery, rather than some other sources of drivers holding up my shipment for weeks. SB is highly recommended :twothumbs
Beam still looks very square but has a much broader hotspot. The square doesn't show up so well in the beamshots but is there in real life.
My standard settings (1/60 f/5.6 ISO 200).
Water resistance might be an IPX3 now (just guessing) instead of the fantastic IPX8 that I know from Surefires. I could probably pot up the whole rear of the driver with epoxy and seal the head down permanently and make it dunkable, but I would rather have easier access to the head should I ever desire to make changes again (though at this point in time I honestly wonder about my sanity should I try again
)
Man, last time I ever touch a KL1-4G. Gimme some nice old 3G's to mod.
Hats off to all you pros who make it look so simple and clean. Trust me it is not as simple as it seems - as my experience shows.
Board is a 10mm round, 2mm thick MCPCB from Cutter. Works perfectly - exact same height as a Lux3. (the Cutter guys really got this one perfect.). Cutting the MCPCB proved to be a real pain, hand-filing resulted in me slipping and scuffing the LED dome :hairpull: which fortunately did not result in noticeable beam artifacts.
The hated O-ring from the head which caused me so much grief was moved outside, to enable me to open up the head again if I should ever want to (reflector maybe).
Driver is a Shiningbeam 1.4A 3-stage. FAST shipping, timely delivery, rather than some other sources of drivers holding up my shipment for weeks. SB is highly recommended :twothumbs
Beam still looks very square but has a much broader hotspot. The square doesn't show up so well in the beamshots but is there in real life.
My standard settings (1/60 f/5.6 ISO 200).
Water resistance might be an IPX3 now (just guessing) instead of the fantastic IPX8 that I know from Surefires. I could probably pot up the whole rear of the driver with epoxy and seal the head down permanently and make it dunkable, but I would rather have easier access to the head should I ever desire to make changes again (though at this point in time I honestly wonder about my sanity should I try again
)Man, last time I ever touch a KL1-4G. Gimme some nice old 3G's to mod.
