Today I modded my first light!!

Hey guys. Momentous (sort of) day for me today. So my 1p Chinese flashlight died. The led failed miserably and ceased working. I had my zoomy sat there with the switch that's failing so decided lets combine them. The zoomy led is a Q5 so not great and the drivers in both only deliver 0.25 amps to the led so I soldered the negative direct to the pill and then bypassed the driver and soldered the positive direct to the Spring. Now running permanent direct drive at 1.3A. Output is a little blue but works for what I need. Gets a touch warm but not what I'd call hot by any means.
Don't seem to be able to post pictures.

Congrats! I haven't taken the plunge into modding yet. Glad it works for ya!

I did my first mod a week or so ago: switched out the 5mm LED in a Gerber Infinity Ultra.

That was the first mod that involved soldering stuff. I have certainly swapped 5mm LEDs in the Photon Freedom, but there's no soldering involved.

Nice. What LED did you use? I modded mine with Nichia DS but this was a long time ago. A nice underrated light.

I think the led out of the zoomy was an XRE Q5 which are pretty awful. The led in originally seems to be around 16mm (not measured yet) but the driver is very small in diameter. Probably use it as an experimental light.

Congrats,

the first is always the hardest and the most nerve racking. Now you'll know what to expect and modding becomes fun

This is for both Thom and ncgrass

ncgrass said:

Congrats! I haven't taken the plunge into modding yet. Glad it works for ya!

Click to expand...

Get yourself a convoy S series or C8 host and appropriate sized premade driver and emitter on a DTP star and figure out how they all fit together. Almost all lights follow this basic idea and it is a great way to learn and is quite cheap.

I've been wanting to for a couple of years now but I'm travelling frequently and can't bring parts or soldering irons along for the journey =( I content myself with a few lights and when I upgrade or change I gift old ones to my family at home.

I got some spare LEDs
XP-G2 R4-7A2 warm white
dedomed XP-G2 S4-1A where a little phospor peeled off
XP-G2 very blue unknown bin
and one XML2 U2 from emitter swap from Nitecore P12
one XML2 U2-1A from S2+

Nice work everyone!

Awesome well done, i started modding this way, to save lights. My nitecore extreme has seem a few configurations !

staticx57 said:

This is for both Thom and ncgrass




Get yourself a convoy S series or C8 host and appropriate sized premade driver and emitter on a DTP star and figure out how they all fit together. Almost all lights follow this basic idea and it is a great way to learn and is quite cheap.

Click to expand...

Already on it C8 with U6-3A in the post and now an M2 host and an XML2 U4-1? On a noctigon and an A17DD. Xml2 and a17 to go in the C8 and the C8 stuff will go in the M2.
Just wish post would hurry up.

Rather than start a new topic I will continue this one. So turns out I missed an email about stock availability and there will be no M2 host turning up. Meaning I now have the cheap eBay flashlight host here and will have a 20mm led and a 17mm driver spare after upgrading the C8. I'm thinking use them and the cheap host as more practice however there is a sizing issue. The led AND driver out of the cheap eBay light were both 20mm. The pill is hollow and has a bore down the center that is 17mm. Will directly soldering the driver to the pill cause me any issues as for the brief period the flashlight worked it was actually alright and with a decent led and driver would make a great little house torch. Otherwise are there any cheap solutions.
Thanks