New Quad XPG Project..

I am a new flashaholic here and I caught this bug just the end of last year (nov 2010). I have three Surefires (2x6P & modded 9P). Long story short, I've bought many P60 drop-ins and my last has kicked my disease into high gear from which there is no turning back (Triple XPG 3 Mode from Oveready). I want MORE light!

Any who, Ive ordered some parts as I want to build my own Quad XPG P60 as seen on this link.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ad-XP-G-5.6A-3-mode-P60-module-7th-Run-*open*

Here are the parts I have so far.
Cutter-XPG24RDR5-CW:http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut1022


AMC7135*8+MCU 2800mAh 5-Mode Circuit Board SKU: S009742
http://kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=10995

Now since the driver can only handle one 18650, its going into one of my SF 6P. As for a drop-in body, I will make my own out of copper with my lathe. My questions I have now are: How do I wire this up? I'm planning on using the high, med, and low modes only for this drop-in. On another note, the quad drop-in that Kerberos is selling, he is offering a 5600mA 3 mode and i couldn't figure how he did this. So I searched around and found out that you can "piggy-back" the AMC7135 chips. Can the Quad LED handle this much power and how high can I go? I was gonna try the 12xAMC7135 by "piggy-back" but I really want to try 16. Is this possible? Also, what is a good optic for throw for this set up? As for cooling, I will deal with that when the time comes.

Thanks, Noxide400

I believe you'll get more & better answers in the Homemade & Modified Lights Forum: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?17-Homemade-and-Modified-Flashlights-Discussion

I've never worked with any of those components, but from all that I've read, the 7135 board has like 5 spots that you can bridge. Each spot provides a function: 1 mode, 2 modes, flashes, etc. Not sure which does what but I'm sure you can find that info somewhere.

5.6A on a quad equates to 1.4A per led, and I believe that's the max rated current the xpg can handle. Of course, you can hot rod it and go even higher, but that's outside of the manufacturers specs and would most likely decrease the led life significantly. Also, with 4 leds on a small surface area and small heatsink, it'll be difficult to dissipate all of the heat generated. So you could go really crazy with the current, but you'll run into all sorts of problems. Plus, after a certain point, the led will start to lose efficiency, so giving it even more current will yield you less results.

Barry is right about the better chance of activity over in the H&M forum. You can click on the upside down yield sign to "report yourself". There you can ask a Mod to move it for you.

Craig has a good picture of the driver you're asking about in his sales thread. Going from left to right, star number 3 is the one you want for just low, med & high modes. The 5.6 amp P60 Quad in your 1st link shows in the picture that he stacked the chips as you say. All you need for that is a couple of donor boards. I'm sure if you tried to use 2 slave boards there wouldn't be enough room. I wonder what if any provision he made for the 5.6 amps being carried by the trace of just one board? The ground ring on the outside of the board is pretty hefty. The output pin of the AMC7135 and more specifically the pickup trace on the board doesn't look like it can handle that much power.

How high can you go on current? Apart from the will all those chips fit and will it fry the board questions, the major issue will be heat from the LED's. I'm sure even the Quad P60 in your link is only good for intermittent use on high. Also the kerberos0023 link shows a C2 and a fivemega body with a Cryos cooling bezel. Both of those lights have more thermal mass than a 6P.

FWIW, another question might be are you looking for more lumens or more throw? A Quad XP-G must throw a ton of light, but it won't go very far downrange. You've already got an Oveready triple. A Quad is only incrementally better than that. They are both flood lights. Even if you use the narrow clear optics. A single XP-G @ 1.5 amps and a large reflector would easily out-throw a Quad TIR XP-G @ 5.6 amps.

Also there is a link for the Carclo 24 optics on your Cutter Quad star page. The 10.9 Candelas per Lumen spec are for the XP-E not the XP-G. The larger surface area of the XP-G probably drops that figure to less than half. Lux at 1 meter is the same as Candelas. If you had 400 lumens per LED, you would be getting a little over 6,000 Lux in terms of throw. A ton of light but not a lot of throw. Lux-RC has a beamshots page that show the difference between the XP-E and XP-G with the same optic. The 1 amp XP-E looks if anything slightly brighter in the center than the 1.5 amp XP-G. Click on one or more thumbnails and the large picture at the top of the page will cycle between the two.

Thank you Moderator for moving this thread to H&M.

Al Combs, thank you for the enlightenment. I am looking to building something with throw but a huge amount of light as well. I really appreciate the run down on the XPG. Since you said that they have a ton of light but not a lot of throw, I just might have to experiment with some different lens and report back here with my findings for future projects for others. I'll runs some tests with the drivers when I get them before I piggy back them. As for heat, I do own a Cryos cooling bezel. They are awesome BTW.

I suggest Running the xpg's at 1.5 amps or less each.
I have the Vannisle Quad 5.6amp two mode R5 dropin and it is throwier than my Overready triple.
You can feel the heat a few inches infront of the bezel.
A small flamethrower :laughing:

Ok guys, I have gotten all my stuff and have been working on this project for two days and things were looking good till i did something stupid during the cutting down task of the four led pcb. I was filling with a big file while the pcb was rotating on the lathe. Then i slipped and nicked one of the leds and scraped 1/3 of the dome off. :shakehead The gel is exposed and I want to try to fix it before I go and order a single led to replace that one. Would epoxy work? Or would it burn off? The rest of the dome is there. Just that little piece is gone. Here is a picture to show what I'm talking about.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/232/img2051f.jpg/

I couldn't figure out how to put a pic so I put the link. Any help would be appreciated. :wave:

Noxide400 said:

I was filling with a big file while the pcb was rotating on the lathe. Then i slipped and nicked one of the leds and scraped 1/3 of the dome off. :shakehead The gel is exposed and I want to try to fix it before I go and order a single led to replace that one. Would epoxy work? Or would it burn off?

Click to expand...

Ouch.:sick2:

The domes are made of a special optical silicon glue. Epoxy won't stick to the dome. I read a ma_sha1 thread once where he was able to get a sample from one of the manufacturers. The normal way is a five gallon drum for several hundred dollars. So forget about that. I have used Elmer's Stix-All gel successfully. The good thing about it is for a silicon glue it's more 'watery' than normal. It has a tendency to flow after its applied. So it's self leveling, to a degree. The bad thing is it's not as transparent as the optical glue. In quantities that small you very likely wouldn't notice the difference. Prop the star up sideways so the damaged part of the dome is at the top. Something small like a toothpick would make a good tool.

I can't really tell from the picture, is the phosphor exposed? If it's just a matter of it looks ugly, you might want to consider leaving it alone. It will definitely create an artifact in the beam. But the other three will tend to smooth it out. If the bare phosphor is exposed, you will have to cover it. They tend to burn over time if left bare.

Reworking a star to reflow just one LED while possible, might be more difficult than it sounds. Here is a link with a YouTube video of a guy reflowing an LED with a heat gun. Here is another thread of interest. Post #28 shows forum member trout reflowing a multi-emitter star similar to what you want to do. The easiest seems to be a frying pan on the stove set very low. A bare aluminum plate if you happen to have some lying around might be better than possibly destroying kitchen hardware. You should resist the temptation to drop a new XP-G right onto the star after removing the old one. With no flux in the joint, it will almost certainly be cold. Plus thermal shock might damage the LED. Rather take a Q-Tip and very lightly remove the old solder from the star with one swipe and let it cool. Then warm it up a second time with some fresh solder paste, or this one. Store in in a Zip-Lock bag in the fridge afterwards with your Arctic Alumina epoxy. Anyway, watching the videos and looking at the pictures will make more sense than reading someone else impression of what it looks like.

I couldn't figure out how to put a pic so I put the link. Any help would be appreciated. :wave:

Click to expand...

In the toolbar on the editor page, the one that looks like a globe with binoculars is for inserting url's. Three tools to the right, the one that looks like a picture is for inserting pictures. Paste your picture's url in the box that pops up. A mouse over of any of the tools will bring up the alternate text to tell you what they do.

Ok, I have some pics of the quad project I have been working on. Ive decided to make the pill from one solid 6061 aluminum piece. Its was tough to make as i have very basic and cheap blades. The lathe is manual (not cnc) but it was fun.

The aluminum was 1 inch in diameter.







I tried to get the pill as close to the one oveready sells.

here are a few better pics of the damage i did to one of the LED dome


The phosphor didnt seemed exposed but I didn't want the gel to heat up and leak out so I used some Devcon 60 Sec epoxy to make the dome repair.

Does the TIR optic fit OK over the larger than normal dome? I have seen people post that you can't use epoxy to cover phosphor was the reason I relayed that info. I don't recall anyone ever saying what the reason was though. Keep us posted and good luck.

Well the LED didn't work. But since i was doing this repair at work, I for got to test the LED before I put the epoxy on. :shakehead I got sidetracked and didn't test. But I was aware that the label did say "corrosive" on the back. So this might have killed the LED. Any who, I did have an extra XPG R5 laying around so I replaced it and all is well now. I used a flat iron tortilla skillet on the stove. changed that baby out in 5 mins!:twothumbs I know this may be a no no but I used the same solder and it fell into place. I tested it and it works! Thanks Al for giving me the links on how to reflow the LEDs. That was the biggest help.:wave:

Oh BTW, the TIR optic did fit good. I didn't use much epoxy. Just a tad that wasn't even a drop. To bad the LED was dead.

@Noxide: This looks exactly like what I was planning on doing later this summer, right down to machining the 6061 Aluminum! Thanks for sharing! This is great project. :thumbsup: You should be able to get a wall o' light out of this drop-in. I was actually thinking about taking the Manafont Ultrafire XM-L drop-in's driver out (I'll replace it with a 8x7135 2.8A) and running it with an IMR, since I heard one user mentioned that it pulled 4.5A out of them. That ought to be plenty of burn for my purposes.

Noxide400 said:

I know this may be a no no but I used the same solder and it fell into place. I tested it and it works! Thanks Al for giving me the links on how to reflow the LEDs. That was the biggest help.:wave:

Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of anyway that works is the right way. Glad everything worked out OK for you.

I for got to test the LED before I put the epoxy on. :shakehead I got sidetracked and didn't test. But I was aware that the label did say "corrosive" on the back. So this might have killed the LED.

Click to expand...

Actually the acetic acid in most silicone glue is more corrosive than epoxy. But I think it may have been more a case of bad luck, than bad glue. There are 3 tiny little bond wires in an XP-G. Two to supply power and one to the zener diode for ESD protection. I looked at your pictures again. Three of the 4 LED's on your star had their bond wires facing the center while only 1 faced outwards. Guess which one took the hit.:sick2:

I just finished it Friday and I'm very happy with how bright this thing is. Now the only problem I have is that the driver will not change modes any more. It just stays on high now. I tried the different stars and still nothing. I did use arctic alumina to adhere the driver to the pill though. Maybe that's the problem. Oh, I didn't forget to disconnect the default star before I changed modes. I'm probably going to leave it this way as the thermal compound has a real good hold on the drive and I don't want to break it. But all in all, I'm very happy that it works!






You'll have to excuse my soldering skills on this PCB. I didn't noticed that I was using lead free solder and was having a super hard time making the contact and wires bond. But luckily I found some after almost ruining one one LED leads.



The best thing about this project is that I can change out the optics (even though there's only two). I'll Post some night shots between the triple and the quad tonight when it dark.

@bmmeadors: You should go for it if you have the tools. Its fun and cheaper than buying one already made. Don't get me wrong though as the ones I seen being sold here on CPF are beautiful and I wish I had the money to buy one. But learning to build it yourself is the most rewarding thing...IMO.

@Alcombs: Man what are the odds!?!?:laughing: Thanks again for all your help.