Swapping emitters on a Sipik SK68?

I just received a Sipik SK68 (actually showed up as "HWA/WYS Ultrafire" but they appear to be clones).

Anyhow, I'm thinking of buying another and putting a royal blue emitter in it. The reason is that there is a local coral farm that I visit occasionally that uses natural sunlight to grow the corals, but most of us reef keepers use much more blue light (my array over my 36" long reef tank is 12 royal blue and 6 whites).

When you put the blue light over many corals, their colors fluoresce like a black light does to phosphorescent things.


How hard would it be to swap the emitter out? The pill appears to be removable enough, and the emitter is an XRE. Royal Blues run the same voltage and current specs.

I've never done anything of this sort with a flashlight. I've done hundreds of LEDs over aquariums but that's a slightly different ballgame.

Looking for any tips/advice--- thanks!

Not that hard to do. I've disassembled Sipik 68s a few times.

Unscrew the bezel and pop it out with the lens. Then insert a needle-nose pliers into the 2 notches at the front of the pill and unscrew the pill.

I use a tool with a small hook on the end (available at your local hardware store) to grab the white plastic retaining ring. Pop it out, then pull out the metal washer and clear plastic insulating washer. Then star with the led on it isn't glued in, so just lift up on it, then use a soldering iron to disconnect the leads from the driver. Solder up the leads to your new start. Then put some thermal compound on the back of the star. Insert it and reassemble the light. You should be good to go.

Changing the driver is a little harder, but if you're going for the same current range in your new LED you can probably just use the stock driver. I found the best way to remove the driver is to have a pot of boiling water and a pot of ice water filled with ice cubes. then use a pliers and cycle the pill between both pots. The rapid expansion and contraction should pop the driver board out of the pill. When installing a new driver board, the hardest part is connecting the negative contact to the pill. My soldering iron isn't strong enough to solder directly to such a large chunk of aluminum so had to resort to other measures to get it to work.

One possible issue: The Sipik 68 is NOT water-proof. As such, it may not be the ideal choice for use around an aquarium. The light does have sufficient o-ring slots that if you got the right o-rings you could make it waterproof. However, I don't recommend it. It is a push-pull type zoomable light. If you use o-rings to make it completely air-tight then the zooming mechanism won't function properly. Vacuum pressure on the inside will cause the light to zoom out or contract in on its own as the air pressure equalizes with the outside air. If you want a completely water-proof light I recommend choosing a non-zoomable light. Or accepting that your light just won't zoom.

Thanks! That's exactly what I needed

Now I just need to find the emitter on the right sized star. Do you know off hand what size star the Sipik 68 takes?

Also, I don't need a waterproof light, it won't be submerged (well, not on purpose lol). The coral are grown on the upper 8" of the water on a rack--- nothing is very deep in these large tanks except the rockwork beneath that is kept there for biological filtration and biodiversity (ie, microfauna that the coral eat).

What does the stock driver in the SK68 handle?

I've found emitters mounted on a 10mm star (2mm thick) MCPCB like the Nichia NVSL219AT-H1 4500K, 92 CRI, B10 Bin -- described as "suitable as a direct replacement of Cree's XP-G" -- but

Elsewhere I find the SK68 described as having: "450ma driver and Cree Q5" or as "Cree XRE-Q3"

(This could be China Lottery or confusion).

I've read http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?273135-placement-of-XR-e-vs-XP-g-in-reflectors

So I guess I'm looking for an XRE on a 10mm board in neutral, that will swap in.

You could probably get such a thing from Cutter, I may do it in the future.


I wonder how the new XTE (for royal blue) would perform in the Sipik. The emitter is a good bit smaller, so I expect it might goof with the adjustable beam.


For white, you might want to try an XML. They emit quite a bit more light than an XRE, with lower voltage consumed (ie, if the driver is constant current, should mean longer battery life), and the emitter is not terribly different in size than the XR the Sipik has in it, so I think the beam pattern will be decent.

I know this doesn't answer the OP's question, but....

Had you considered going with a P60 host and putting a blue dropin in it?

Solarforce L2, $9.

Blue dropin $11.50 all from Solarforce sales. (yes, you will need 18650's and a charger, add $20 from Dealextreme) But then you have a light you can change to whatever you want.

Blitzwing said:

I know this doesn't answer the OP's question, but....

Had you considered going with a P60 host and putting a blue dropin in it?

Solarforce L2, $9.

Blue dropin $11.50 all from Solarforce sales. (yes, you will need 18650's and a charger, add $20 from Dealextreme) But then you have a light you can change to whatever you want.

Click to expand...

I'm definitely open to that option. This is on the back burner for the moment because i'm graduating with my Masters here in a month, but afterward, I may do just that.


The main reason I like the Sipik is because of the adjustable lens--- I don't know if the L2 has that or not, I haven't looked it up yet.

led-dna sells the RB Cree emitter mounted on a 16mm star on it's BAY store for a woppin five spot.

redfishsc said:

I'm definitely open to that option. This is on the back burner for the moment because i'm graduating with my Masters here in a month, but afterward, I may do just that.


The main reason I like the Sipik is because of the adjustable lens--- I don't know if the L2 has that or not, I haven't looked it up yet.

Click to expand...

No adjustable focus on the L2.

redfishsc said:

I just received a Sipik SK68 (actually showed up as "HWA/WYS Ultrafire" but they appear to be clones).

Anyhow, I'm thinking of buying another and putting a royal blue emitter in it. The reason is that there is a local coral farm that I visit occasionally that uses natural sunlight to grow the corals, but most of us reef keepers use much more blue light (my array over my 36" long reef tank is 12 royal blue and 6 whites).

When you put the blue light over many corals, their colors fluoresce like a black light does to phosphorescent things.


How hard would it be to swap the emitter out? The pill appears to be removable enough, and the emitter is an XRE. Royal Blues run the same voltage and current specs.

I've never done anything of this sort with a flashlight. I've done hundreds of LEDs over aquariums but that's a slightly different ballgame.

Looking for any tips/advice--- thanks!

Click to expand...

Direct tutorial for SK68 swaps: http://www.northstreetlabs.org/creeupgrade