McLux trivia and questions

Hi folks,

It took a while for me to catch on and realize how special the McLux really is. I have seen some real beauties (jealous!) and consider myself fortunate to have the 3 that I do. (Well, 2.5-I need a 1w head to complete one... anybody got one?)

So here's my questions, some of which might be silly. I refer to the original, 1X123 McLux.

1) How many original and TK 1 cell McLuxes were actually made?

2) How many black ones exist?

3) Were all of the TK pieces sold with low domes? What bin?

4) Will there be a "mark II" model?


A couple technical questions:

1) In one of mine I want to change out the emitter-it's too green for me. How tough is it to break it loose from the head and what's the best way to do it? (don't care if the emitter gets crunched coming out.)

2) Any way to mod the BB400 to kick it up a notch... make it brighter without heat becoming problematical? My ARC LS tromps it and my dim light/night vision is hosed. Resistor change, etc.?

Guess the addic... er... bug finally bit hard! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif


Thanks,

Rich

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richpalm said:
2) How many black ones exist?

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I own 1 black one (red LED and black body), and Kiessling owns another just like it. And I'm pretty certain there's at least one black with white LED McLux around somewhere - I think McGizmo owns it. So that makes at least 3 black McLuxes out there. Two "Black Widows" plus Don's with the white LED.

Rich,

Hopefully Wayne or one of the other skunks wh has a decent memory can answer some of your questions. The TK's assembled by Leo and sold officially as TK's all had Q3 LD's as I recall. I think the black parts were all from our very first run of parts which were for the Skunk gang's personal consumption. I don't recall any black DIY parts ordered in the second run. In addition to all of the EN parts we had done for the DIY set, I ordered 30 (?) black heads for myself with the intention of using them for fixed lighting applications. The one guy with the best shot at answering your questions is Leo but he doesn't post here anymore. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

In addition to the official TK units built by Leo, some of us built out complete units ourselves and let them into the population.

On your LED replacement, I would recommend unsoldering the leads and then heating the head up to 160 -170F. You should be able to pop the LED loose with a flat blade screwdriver at that point. Scrape away the excess epoxy and glue down a new one. If you have one of Leo's TK's that has the LED potted in GID epoxy, I wouldn't suggest trying to do a replacement. I also think that working on the BB is more trouble than it's worth. With a good high flux LED, 400 mA should give you a reasonable amount of light balanced with good run time.

- Don

[ QUOTE ]
richpalm said:
1) How many original and TK 1 cell McLuxes were actually made?

2) How many black ones exist?

3) Were all of the TK pieces sold with low domes? What bin?

4) Will there be a "mark II" model?


[/ QUOTE ]
Would it spoil anything if I answered any of this? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Maybe I'll just give you some interesting info instead of REAL answers...
1. WE pre-sold about 125 units
2. Not nearly as many as silver, but not as few as Craig thinks. I had six of them at one point... all but one are gone to new homes now.
3. All TKs had low domes. Let's see... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif Q2... maybe Q3. Can't remember anymore.
4. Don't hold your breath. But the good news is that Don has come up with some slick stuff to build your own Mark II.

[ QUOTE ]

1) In one of mine I want to change out the emitter-it's too green for me. How tough is it to break it loose from the head and what's the best way to do it? (don't care if the emitter gets crunched coming out.)

2) Any way to mod the BB400 to kick it up a notch... make it brighter without heat becoming problematical? My ARC LS tromps it and my dim light/night vision is hosed. Resistor change, etc.?


[/ QUOTE ]
1. Not too hard. De-solder the leads. Use a heat gun to soften the epoxy, and scrape the thing out of there. If you're Ok with total destruction, you can probably do it with needle-nose after the softening. I've done it successfully a few times. Even saved the emitter once.
2. I'm not sure how you'd get at the BB. If you start from scratch you can put any driver in there that you want. An R2H emitter at 400mA is something quite awesome, actually.

Thanks-fortunately mine isn't potted-I have a good heat gun. Works for me and I appreciate the encouragement about leaving the BB alone. Didn't want to mess with that! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Rich

If you can get the BB out of there, just yank it and pop in whatever size BB you want. That's the easiest solution - at least for a guy like me who just considers these circuits as little disks of magic.

I built mine "loose" like that for the same reason too.

I actually found that the black heads are easier to get than the packs. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

I need a black original head, and black PR head, and I will have them ALL! muuuuhahahahahha

Any black parts are very very rare. Even the EN parts are getting hard to get. For example: the 1x123 packs are out of stock. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

The 2x123 packs are also gone now. I just nabbed a 3 cell before they're gone forever too.