Anyone ever try an L1 + M61W??

I have an L1 laying around that I jacked up when I tried my first and last mod. The body is fine. I have been trying to figure out what to do with it for the longest time until last night when I mated it with a Malkoff. I just held the drop in and the L1 together with my hands and powered it up. What a surprise! I get two well-spaced levels on a single primary!

I'm sure the runtime wouldn't be anything spectacular, but I may have to get a VME head and give this lego a shot.

I just wanted to know if anyone else has tried this before?

S1LVA

yes, that's been done before. (posted somewhere in the Malkoff Junky thread)

it's a very awesome UI IMO, the Malkoff compatibility makes it even better.

I think with a RCR123 the runtime will be about 1/2 hour for the M61(you'll be direct drive on a single primary, I think). I'd guess at least 8 hours on low....

I'd suggest getting a VME head for it. If you decide not to use the L1 body/tc, I might be interested. :naughty:

:thinking: Hmmm. I've got an L1, a VME head, and an M31W....

Not sure if that's been done before... aren't the "electronics" in the body of the L1? (IIRC)

if it's "boosts" voltage, that might not be good for the M31..... I have no clue tho, just a thought

NEVERMIND: post below mine confirms it's ok... thanks ishmael

BigBluefish said:

:thinking: Hmmm. I've got an L1, a VME head, and an M31W....

Click to expand...

Yes, it's one of my favorite edcs. I used an M31 and VME head.

Well, what do you know! I had tried this before and it didn't work, but after reading this, I went back and tried again and it did. So I compared the two drop ins and the pigtail on the one that did not work was just a hair shorter... a bit of stretching and now it's on.

I found I had to use the titanium VME to complete the connection on mine becasue the brass did not mate all the way down to the top of the body and the HA on the aluminum VME head killed that connection. So now I have an L1 + M30F + Ti VME. Man, I love CPF!

Glad we could show you the light, Darvis

S1LVA

I've received a few L1's for boring to accept a AW17670 protected cell. Never did ask the owners what they were using for a LE, but with 1600 mAh on tap, probably close to an hour of run time with the M61 or M61W.

aren't the "electronics" in the body of the L1?

Click to expand...

AFAIK, all "electronic" SF models use a driver built into the head, much like any available dropin. The L1 bodies that I've seen have a divider partition midway down the tube:



Why SF did that is a mystery. To leave the divider means that the tube has to be bored from each end, adding to the cost of manufacturing.

The inside of the tube needs to be at .680" diameter to accept an AW17670 protected cell. Since the smallest part of the tube is .725" outside diameter, the walls are still very thick after boring.

When the L1 is manufactured, SF presses in a brass bushing at the rear of the tube. It looks similar to the one in the U2, but the U2 bushing is stainless steel and impossible to modify. The brass is easy to bore through. Look really closely at the rear most thread & you can just see how the bushing overlaps the thread.

ishmael said:

Yes, it's one of my favorite edcs. I used an M31 and VME head.

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Tried it out last night. Excellent.

I don't believe the L1's electronics incorporate a boost circuit. Buck maybe, since it will run in direct drive on an RCR? I've kind of lost track of the technical aspects.

But, are you sure you used an M31 and not an M30? The M30 will take 4.2, the M31, only 3.0, IIRC.

If I'm wrong, an M30 would work, but my M31 might quickly bite the dust.

I'm not sure, I think the light is built for 3.0v, so as long as you run primaries, the M31 should be fine. If you want to go RCR, then I think it's M6X series or an M30.

But what I'm not sure on is how it works out with the dual electronics, right? Unless you remove the bits like Precisionworks does above, you're regualting a regulated circuit since the circuitry is in that divider inside the L1 tube and the Malkoff module has its own regulation circuit... or am I wrong on this?

since the circuitry is in that divider inside the L1 tube

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The divider appears to be nothing more than an aluminum partition between the front section & the rear section of the tube. An under sized twist drill was first run through the bore to remove the divider & the silver chips that flowed out along the drill's flutes were aluminum & nothing more. I don't believe that SF has ever built any type of circuit in a location other than the head (or right behind the head, as on the U2).

On the L1 the driver is in the tube between the partition and head, the stock head is just a dumb head with no driver. This is the only light that Surefire has ever made like that AFAIK.

Morelite said:

On the L1 the driver is in the tube between the partition and head, the stock head is just a dumb head with no driver. This is the only light that Surefire has ever made like that AFAIK.

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And that's what I'm getting at, so what happens when you run two drivers- one on top of the other? I mean, the light does work, I get the low and high options, but what about the runtime/regualtion... which driver takes precedence?

If the stock L1 is just a boost circuit, I can see it working in harmony with the Malkoff regualated circuit, but I'm not really sure and I think the L1 is regulated. Guess I gotta do me some runtime tests and see what gives.

Precsionworks, looks like you've taken a few of these apart, am I to understand that there is no circuitry in the tube at all? That plastic piece is just a pass through? You know, the latest gen L1 is much shorter than the older gen versions, I wonder if the circuitry has moved to the head?

All this aside, I swapped the M30F for an M31LL tonight and it works beautifully, really really nice and with the sweet UI intact. Opens up a whole new L1 world for me... so now the obsession begins, which Malkoff is best? M60... M60LL... M30F.. M31LL Maybe the M60LF. Arrrgghh....

I would guess the only ill effect will be in runtime as now you have two drivers taking a little cut in the efficiency. The stock driver will still supply what the second driver pulls so I think the drop-in will take precedence, but that is only my guess.

hmm I might actually use the L1 if I could replace its TIR with a vme head & m31ll or something, but i see some type of electronic module in the body of my version too. I know sometimes bad stuff still works for a short period of time before something goes wrong- I'd hate to damage one or both components there!

Maybe just an F04 beamshaper instead.

Morelite said:

On the L1 the driver is in the tube between the partition and head, the stock head is just a dumb head with no driver. This is the only light that Surefire has ever made like that AFAIK.

Click to expand...

Isn't the L2 very similar to this design, only longer?

The only real problem that I see is that you are using two drive circuits to power the LED and you'll get a shorter run time as a result.

The last of the L1s was almost long enough to accommodate a 17500 if you bore it out. The problem is that it's about 5mm short (about 45mm long). The only way around it is to make a custom head with a positive contact that sits higher relative to the rest of the head.

Yes, M31LL since about two weeks after the LLs became available. Not bored though just regular primary battery. Daily use since but not extensive, maybe a total of 10-15 min per night, no problems so far.

So I did some un-official tests as I have quite a few Malkoff modules on hand to play with; I tried the following combinations:

M60 + 16340
M60LF + 16340/primary
M60LL + 16340/primary
M30F + 16340/primary
M61 +16340
M61L + 16340/primary
M61LL + 16340/primary
M31LL + Primary

I was looking for the best split between output and versatility. Again, this was by eye only, no equipment, but I was able to do side by side comparisons witht the same setup as I have multiple VME heads and L1's as well.

Without fail, the M6X series lights were brighter with the 16340 and certainly more flexible as they could use RCRs and pirmaries, same with the M30F.

First observation: The IMR was brighter on both high and low for all drop ins, no surprise
Second: All drop ins lit on both high and low with a single primary, again, no surprsie
Third, and this was a surprise, Universally, when using an IMR, the split between the low and high mode was not as great as when using a primary. In other words, the nice low low was gone and became much brighter than what I would prefer in the L1

That said, the one combination that did work the way I expected was the M31LL. It had the beam profile I wanted and, more importantly, the high/low split was great... nice low low and very avery good full output high ON A PRIMARY...

I opted not to use any of the M60 series lights as the beam profile was too cloise to the stock L1 and I did not see the benefit, whereas the F modules and the M61/31 series lights had a very nice profile depending on the need.

It's M31LL for me in this setup, going to see what I can do about informal runtimes next

D