Quark 123-2 XM-L Mod......585 OTF LUMENS!!!!

I've wanted to do this mod for a long time, and initially I wanted to use an SSR-50 emitter, but it just wasn't feasible when you consider the size of that emitter, plus the current it takes to make 500 OTF lumens with it. Fortunately Cree recently released their new XM-L emitter, which fits the bill nicely for this type of mod. Anyway, enough jabbering and on to some pictures.





All of you should know what a 123-2 Quark looks like, but here's a pic anyway:





















First things first, get the little Quark head naked .



















Trim the centering plastic piece to fit the larger XM-L emitter:



















Open up the reflector to fit the larger XM-L emitter:



















Test fit the parts. Looks good:



















The MCPCB must be buggered up to make this work:



















Prepare the driver:





















Solder leads. Please excuse the messy solder job, I'm in desperate need of a new tip for my iron...........





















Insert pre-fitted centering piece:





















Put everything back together so that it looks untouched :





















I'll try to take beamshots of this mod when I have time, but until then, the beam has much more flood than the original XP-G beam, but it still appears much brighter to the naked eye :thumbsup:.





My OTF test results taken in my homemade 16 integrating sphere are as follows:



This light is powered by a single AW 17670 protected Li-Ion battery, and it was fully charged for testing.



________1 Sec_________585.5...............

_______30 Sec_________562.4........oo:.......

________1 Min_________552.7...............

________2 Min_________549.1.................

________3 Min_________545.5........:thumbsup:....:candle:..... WOW...........






Beam shots added:








Quark Turbo XM-L mod beam shots:







This is a real pocket rocket!! BTW, the drive current is 2.1A via a Shinigbeam 2.8A, 3-mode driver, less 2 of the 7135 chips which rings the drive current in at 2.1A and I measured Vf at 2.1A and got 3.3v. For reference, the emitter is an XM-L, T6 flux binning, 2T tint binning.

Hey Ti-force, I'm looking to do this mod and I was just wondering what the best way to go about opening up that head? Did you boil it in plastic bag, vice grip and mousepad, hit it with a heatgun or blowdryer, or any combo thereof?

Also, what kind of glue or thread locker does the factory appear to be using on these lights? If you could post the wiring diagram for the contact board and the driver I'd really appreciate that.

Thanks and beautiful build by the way..

whizdumb said:

Hey Ti-force, I'm looking to do this mod and I was just wondering what the best way to go about opening up that head? Did you boil it in plastic bag, vice grip and mousepad, hit it with a heatgun or blowdryer, or any combo thereof?

Also, what kind of glue or thread locker does the factory appear to be using on these lights? If you could post the wiring diagram for the contact board and the driver I'd really appreciate that.

Thanks and beautiful build by the way..

Click to expand...

PM replied. I'll try to update this thread as I have time. Good luck, let me know how it goes.

Great mod!! What run time would you expect from this combo?

Benz99 said:

Great mod!! What run time would you expect from this combo?

Click to expand...

Thanks! This light really wasn't built with run time in mind . In medium and low modes it would run quite a while, but the highest mode the emitter is being driven at 2.1 amps drive current and run time would be limited by heat, instead of battery capacity. And since there's no feature to keep this light from self destructing from heat it wouldn't be safe to run it on high for extended periods of time. I've ran it out to 4 minutes before on high and it did fine. It could possibly be taken out a little longer, but again it's built for short run periods on high. Just too much wattage for this little light to dissipate.

Excellent mod!

Beauty!

Thanks guys! Also, post #1 edited to add beam shots that were lost during the great CPF crash.