Lumintop Tool + Nichia BLF-348 Experiment

I've been enjoying the tint of the blf-348 very much however, i felt like the brightness is exactly in the least useful zone for me.
It's too bright closer than 1,5m and too dim when further - especially outside, makes a good walk-with light when its really dark though.

Suddenly, one morning, looking at the stainless beauty next to my Lumintop Tool i get an idea... If i switched the LEDs i would get the usefull modes of one with the tint of the other! On top of that i would have a foolprof one button operated light as a present for someone (i would prefer l m h but this is the best i can get, i thought)


And so this experiment started. (note - sorry for the bad quality of pictures, i like pictures when reading so i took some during the proccess to share with you)


First time trying anything like this.
"Best case i get a very good EDC flashlight, worst case i just switch the LEDs back... "

Luckily disassembly of the Lumintops head was much eassier than the tail cap button (which i still havent been able to disassembly)
The BLF-348 disassembles itself when opened.



On the first glance i can tell the nichia should fit inside the lumintop, wasn't sure about the other pair though.



I started by desoldering the nichia, the wires were REALLY short which made it easy.

(adding pictures seemed to stop working after this point and [ IMG ] tags don't seem to do the trick either. I might edit this, for now, links it are.)


I haven't expected the nichia to have a driver, was a nice surprise but made me worried that it might not work after all. (no picture here because wires were too short and i didn't wanna put them back through the pill)
Desoldering the Lumintop was tougher, especially because the pill didnt fit in my clamp and i was one hand too short.



somehow the wire on the driver fell off on its own and i had to resolder that...




Soldering the nichia to the driver was even worse, i needed two more hands! with some patience i got it right though.
It was a very bad idea to apply thermal paste under the LED before the soldering though. Made everything messy and even though it sticked, it also slid from one side to the other.



i put the Lumintop back together, ignoring the other flashlight for now. It seems the centering will be the toughest part. Quickly tested if it works, and it did not.


At this point i realized what the tiny black piece of rubber (which i forgot to put in) is for. It prevents the reflector from shortening the LED and also keeps it centered. the BLF-348 has just a flat piece which doesn't help centering at all.
i re-opened it and soldered the contacts a little further away from each other to fit the rubber inside, it seemed to always move away and out of center in the last turn.





This time it worked.
Two more tries and i gave up. "The BLF-348 wasnt perfectly centered anyway, maybe it's because of the LED" i thought.



Oops, doesn't work, the soldering broke apart, it was too far. One more.



I decided to end it here while it works and to finally see the light output in the dark. The centering was bearable this time.


Somehow the hotspot was very green while the spill was very blue to purple, i also noticed that one half of the hotspot has a green edge and the other a purple one. I blamed the reflector cutting part of the LED and causing this. Or maybe the different glass lens of the lumintop.


The light looks bad and i was getting mad, for it looked to be a much worse tint than any cheap LED i've seen. For the same reason i did not take any pictures of it.

"Time to at least make the other one work!" - I opened the BLF-348 once again to try if the CREE board fits inside aaaaand... THE DAMN SPRING FELL OUT AND DISSAPEARED! I couldn't find it anywhere in the entire room. Putting all the pieces to a single place for later, experiment over. Also the board didn't fit.

EXPERIMENT RESULT: 2 USELESS FLASHLIGHTS + A RUINED DAY !

.
I decided to switch the LEDs back so i would have at least one working flashlight, i also soldered the nichia back to its original pill so i wouldn't have to get my soldering iron if i happened to find the spring.
.
Lumintop Tool was saved succesfully and restored to full health.
.

.

A few days later i happened to find the spring as i was cleaning. "TIME TO PUT THE FLASHLIGHT BACK TOGETHER"

And so i did, turned it on, and it was still VERY GREEN AND BLUE! It even had the same edges as before. "It must be dirty from the paste" was my first thought and i opened it once more. There was a gray line on the side of the LEDs glass dome, i carefully wiped it with a finger... AND THE DOME STAYED ON MY FINGER. Apparently i touched the dome with my soldering iron and the temperature difference made it crack. The line was no paste, it was a crack. The dome fell off together with the yellow stuff that i always thought was part of the LED.




"Maybe thats the de-doming i've read so much about on the forums, a different light focus might not be so bad"
Putting the light back together it started to light BLUE. VERY BLUE. Is that your secret nichia? Using a blue LED with a YELLOW filter? Well it would certainly explain why warmer white LEDs are yellow-er than cold ones. Pressing the dome onto the LED did not change its color in any way.



Here is a comparison to TN36UT neutral white and nichia UV convoy s2+. It is much more blue than the UV light (It makes sense though, the UV light is mostly invisible afterall)



The BLF-348 is more blue than the UV light, sadly doesnt have any UV capabilities. I have no idea what to use it for, it is fairly strong to my eyes.

WAIT A MOMENT! That means i f***ed up and the LED swap would have actually worked!
I do not want to sacrifice another flashlight (Yes i had a spare) Is it possible to get a nice warm LED already on a similar board to the Lumintop?


I hope you have enjoyed reading this, or that my mischief will be of some use to anybody.
My search for the perfect EDC flashlight continues...

A 10mm sinkpad fits perfectly. On MTN.

10mm sinkpad fitting. Also swapped a 12mm FET driver to make a full toolvn

tigfur said:

...Is that your secret nichia? Using a blue LED with a YELLOW filter? Well it would certainly explain why warmer white LEDs are yellow-er than cold ones...

Click to expand...

All "white" LEDs are actually blue LEDs with a yellow coating: Yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG:Ce) phosphor coating on the emitter absorbs some of the blue emission and produces yellow light through fluorescence. The combination of that yellow with remaining blue light appears white to the eye.
(Edit, to be a little bit more specific: The above is a bit over-simplified. High CRI white LED's such as the Nichia type use various different phosphors as opposed to just YAG:Ce to achieve yellows, reds, and greens to get a better CRI, but the principle is still the same and the coating still looks yellow, albeit a little darker yellow.)

staticx57 said:

10mm sinkpad fitting. Also swapped a 12mm FET driver to make a full toolvn

Click to expand...

10mm sinkpad looks good, but i haven't found it together with a LED, so i should attach the LED myself? I already ruined one just soldering the wires next to it, i don't even want to imagine what will happen when i try to solder the LED directly.

If you choose a bare led and a bare sinkpad Richard at mtn will attach, reflow solder, it for you. Reflowing leds apparently isn't terribly difficult or so I've read. Takes practice I'm sure, I have not tried yet.

I just realized, since the LED broke but the rest is in tact... i could just replace the LED. What LED should i get to get the most lumens and neutral tint? And where? I will make this light a pocket flashlight for my mother who cant see well in dim light, so it needs to be bright enough and the tint isnt that important but it would be nice.

Mountain Electronics sells a lot of lone LEDs, as well as drivers and other parts. Drop a note to Richard and explain your problem, and he will probably have a good solution for you.

Another alternative for your mother would be a Lumintop IYP365 two AAA penlilght or the Copper Tool single AAA, either one with the Nichea emitter. The extra color rendition the Nichea gives would be very helpful in reading and looking for things, even with the slight decrease in output. I have Tools with both Cree and Nichea emitters, and the difference in brightness is not that noticeable, but the increase in clarity with the Nichea definitely is.

My dad had problems reading as well, and use a magnifying glass and a very bright light to read by. I found a nice size oblong magnifying glass with a few built-in LEDs which made it much easier for him.

what's the size of the sinkpad on the Lumintop tool? 10mm?

dealgrabber2002 said:

what's the size of the sinkpad on the Lumintop tool? 10mm?

Click to expand...

In the pictures the squares are 5mm, the lumintop looks to be a 10mm size and the BLF-348 is smaller so i guess maybe 8mm

Thanks

10 mm fits perfectly. I posted some images of fit before.

Is there an oring between the head and the glass len on the lumintop tool?

Your new beam profile looks similar to the Fenix E01...

Got my tool ti today, and was playing around with it. First nichia 219c 4500k. Nah, it has a nice beam profile, but lost the tint lottery on this led. Had a tiny-tiny hint of green. The stock 219b had better tint, so on to the next led. Xp-g3 4500K, close to perfect, but no cigar. Then my bread and butter led, xp-l hi 4000k. Perfect.

Reflowing the led to a sinkpad is not hard, i just turn on the kitchen stove and let it heat up at low -medium temprature. Drop the led/sinkpad on the plate. Use tweesers an pluck off the old one when i see it starts boiling under the led, and quickly put the new on it's place, done. Sometimes i have to add some solder, but most times i dont need to. You can buy bare leds or leds on different size sinkpads at kaidomain.com. I usually buy 10 different ones at the time so i have something to play with
Here is how my tool ti ended up with the xp-l hi led (No dome on this led from factory, so tint is controlled from factory. When dedoming yourself you wont know what tint you end up with)