Lego-ing 47's Quarks: 2 lights can become...

12. With the help of one extra body tube.


My first real powerhouse light was a Quark-X AA2. Being strictly an AA format guy at the time, I was blown away what that light could do a couple years ago. And its still pretty dang bright to me today, even now after I've acquired a couple brighter lights and finally jumped in with the li-ion crowd. There was one light I was missing though, a single AA light with throw. After doing lots of research here I decided on a light mentioned here several times, a lego'd quark turbo head with a 1AA body. I could have just ordered the head and body tube and used my existing tailcap, but for the same price I bought a whole QB2A gen-2 (XPG2), but did have to add the body tube still. I am really impressed with this little light, and since I got it I realized I could make all sorts of combinations of lights with the few parts I had. Now many of you are aware of this potential already but figured I'd show just what you can do, realizing that I only have a couple of lights so the possibilities are much greater. So here is what I actually own from 47's:



Thats it. 2 flashlights, 1 extra body tube, and a couple pocket clips.
L to R is Turbo QB2A (gen 2 XPG-2 version for throw), 1xAA Quark body tube, and Quark-X AA2.

So 2 heads, 3 body tubes, and 2 tailcaps yields 12 different light combos, with your choice of standard or deep carry pocket clip too. Now there really isnt any performance difference between the two 2xAA tubes, so really only 8 lights of different abilities, but the body tubes are cosmetically different and some might like one over the other in different configurations. And of course there are more heads and tailcaps available, but I just have the few above.




Here is a multi exposure pic I took showing the head, body, tailight combos just my 2 lights will make. Sorry I was a bit off in the position and some of them kind of overlap each other. But I'm not going to set this all up again and reshoot.
The two * are the stock light I purchased. 5/6 is the one I was mainly after, giving me the power and throw of the Turbo QB2A one a single AA size utilizing 14500 cell. Some other interesting combos though, like the perfectly smooth #9 where all parts of the light are the exact diameter. Anyhow here are the combos:
1.Turbo QB2A head - turbo 2AA body - turbo forward clicky
2.Turbo QB2A head - turbo 2AA body - reverse clicky
3.Turbo QB2A head - 2AA body - turbo forward clicky
4.Turbo QB2A head - 2AA body - reverse clicky
5.Turbo QB2A head - 1AA body - turbo forward clicky
6.Turbo QB2A head - 1AA body - reverse clicky
7.Quark-X AA2 head - 2AA body - reverse clicky
8.Quark-X AA2 head - 2AA body - turbo forward clicky
9.Quark-X AA2 head - turbo 2AA body - reverse clicky
10.Quark-X AA2 head - turbo 2AA body - turbo forward clicky
11.Quark-X AA2 head - 1AA body - turbo forward clicky
12.Quark-X AA2 head - 1AA body - reverse clicky

I really like 47's just wish they had good nuetral tints. That turbo head is the only cool white light I own. But I was willing to sacrafice my tint preference to fill the needs of a compact 1xAA thrower. For a cool tint though it is pretty nice, and evenly colored.

That is definitely one of the appeals of the Quark lights. I do like their Lego capability.

Also, nice job with the picture. I had considered doing something like this with my Elzetta lights so this may provide the motivation I needed :thumbsup:

Thanks, my motivation was that I just recently learned how to use layers in the GIMP, so I've been playing around with it, learning how to do HDR multi exposure images and stuff like that. Got the idea to just take a pic with each combo sitting next to each other and then open all the pics as layers letting each light come through to the foreground to make it appear they were all there together. Got a new wide angle lens too. So it was as much playing around with the camera and GIMP as it was illustrating Quarks lego-ability. Didnt realize it had that much distortion though - #7-12 all have the same head but towards the end, 11, 12, seem like the head looks much bigger. Its really very small and the #12 combo makes an excellent EDC light with nice wide beam and very bright on a 14500. Wish I would have spaced em out more, and set it up a little different to reduce the barrel distortion but I'm not going to re do it yet. Maybe if I get some more quark parts. :naughty:

Out of all the choices though, the two I go for is my original light in its standard config #7 as a utility light, with nice wide beam, very bright on turbo, and excellent runtime on just a couple eneloops (or even brighter & longer if L91 on a special trip or something). Its hard to beat for general purpose AA (well wish it had better tint though, its a tend yellow & green with a bit too cool spill). And #5, a bright tight beamed thrower on a 14500, programmed to turbo and high depending if I really need max throw or better battery life. The pocket clip is a little awkward on this combo though as it touches the larger head. Works fine though, just got to fiddle a bit more with it, and taking the head and body on or off I feel like the clip is scraping the anodizing on the fins of the head so I try and hold it off but its hard to do well.