peter yetman
Flashlight Enthusiast
Hopefully Dan won't mind me posting this here, if it's a problem I'm sure we can move it.
This will be an ongoing thread that I'll update as I do the work.
Here's some of the bits. There's a complete reflector next to the bored one.
I ordered a spare reflector and bezel from Unique Titanium.
I took the reflector to my local machine shop and asked him to bore out the reflector into a tube. The optic and MCPCB are 20mm and he managed to bore the tube out to 19.5mm and still keep some strength in the walls.
With a bit of work with some abrasive paper I smoothed the inside walls of the tube and made the MCPCB a little smaller. The optic fitted snug into the end of the tube.
Unless I'm mistaken there is a front and back to the tube there seems to be about one more thread at the front, that's why I marked that end with some red cord.
I fitted the optic to the MCPCB and they both slip into the tube with a tight friction fit.
Next I ordered some 20mm aluminium spacers 5mm thick and some washers 1.5mm thick to use as a heatsink shelf for the MCPCB.
The 5mm aluminium spacer is just right, after a slight slim down it is now a tight friction fit inside the tube, just have to cut two slots for the wires to the MCPCB.
Here it is with the holes cut for the wires.
The MCPCB has arrived back from CRX, look what a lovely job he's done. He's even polished the back of the board.
I'm expecting the Twisty to arrive in a few days, it's sitting in UK Customs at the mo......
I've soldered the wires to the board, put Knapton tape around the inside of the tube, added Thermal Paste between the board and heatsink.
And it works.....
Because the module that I've built has to be screwed into the host, the wires need to be 50mm or so long to take up the twisting. I'm a little concerned that there may not be enough room behind the module to accomodate them. Much as I'd like to use the 5mm heatsink, if I use a 1.5mm washer there should be enough room. I've slimmed down a washer and fitted it, just in case. I'll know when the host arrives.
I've decided to go with the 1.5mm washer for the heatsink, it does give me enough room to coil about 50mm of the two wires in the recess. With that and a little room inside the head I should have enough slack.
I fixed it in place with green Loctite, cleaned off all excess and then bonded it in place with thermal resin.
The Twisty host has arrived.
I did play with it for a bit, just enough to allow me to realise that the tint was far too cool for me and that while the secondary red emitter was a good idea, I'd never use it. I had a secondary red on my WASP and disabled it.
Here'e a shot of the Osram emitter before I removed it.
It was just a matter of desoldering the contacts and lifting the emitter off.
The negative tag is the one nearest the large Earth bolt.
The solder tags seem quite fragile. I initially connected my new module with slightly longer leads than I wanted, just in case. It all functioned perfectly so I shortened the leads and resoldered them. The solder tags seemed to just dissolve, and I ended up managing to connect the positive lead through the heatsink shelf and soldering the negative to the ground wire connected to the large Earth bolt.
The excess leads fit well into the void under the module, given that I hope to never have to mess with the wiring again I'm going to use medium threadlocker on the lower threads of the module so i can only unscrew the top part to access the optic and lens.
When I had the head apart I was able to measure the voltage and current before I soldered the second wire.
Voltage on High 3.4 volts - Current on High 1.6 amps.
On High I would guess the light puts out about 500Lm compared to my OR Nichia Triple on 30% this step-down after 10 seconds to a more sensible 250 ish lumens.
The programming we know, is a bit of a nightmare on this light and I've managed to make the first and second positions the same, so I now cannot program the light by toggling between Low and High. I'm now attempting a Factory Reset which in proving a pain. I will get there, it's just a matter of time.
I managed the Factory reset eventually, once or twice conventionally and with better results with this rig.
I bet Henry has one of these…
There's something about the emitters on high that causes the thermal protection to kick in before the driver has reset. It seems in this configuration I'm not going to be able to reset the light.
Now I know that the front end is a success, I'm now going to remove Henry's Driver (sorry) and put in an Icarus from Prometheus.
Here's a few pictures during the removal and clean up….
I'm going to make the shelf for the Icarus driver out of 22mm copper pipe and two copper washers. The larger washer has a 16mm hole in it for the driver to sit on and the smaller one has a 17mm hole so it sits around the driver and will contact the negative edge of the driver to the top of the body tube, completing the circuit.
I'll glue them together with Thermal Resin.
Here's the finished copper shelf.
The wires go to the gold pad in the centre and the pad on the right. There's an "L" between them and a + next to the center one and a - next to the side one.. I didn't notice this and wasted a lot of time having soldered to the outside ring and to the right hand pad with the +ve. Fortunately the driver survived.
Here's the Icarus Driver mounted in the shelf.
And finally the whole thing fitted inside the head.
The driver is a nice tight fit inside the 17mm copper washer, but I was getting intermittent flashes on the lower levels. I've made a small solder bridge between the outor ring on the driver and the washer. I now have solid light.
So I have my complete light. At the moment it's set to the default settings as trying to get the driver programmed with a Twisty is next to impossible, a bit like the original driver.
I'll live with it for a bit and then I'll make up a clicky rig to do the job.
Having learnt the programming using a clicky rig, it it now very easy to program it using the twisty. I'm very impressed with the Icarus driver, I shall use it again.
Conclusions (for my reference as much as yours)
Consider anodising the host to make it pretty and to avoid earthing problems.
Solder the driver to the 17mm copper ring before building the shelf. Less heatsink to help soldering.
Glue a 21mm i/d around the 17mm washer to stop any solder bridging the gap.
Thanks for looking.
P
This will be an ongoing thread that I'll update as I do the work.
Here's some of the bits. There's a complete reflector next to the bored one.
I ordered a spare reflector and bezel from Unique Titanium.
I took the reflector to my local machine shop and asked him to bore out the reflector into a tube. The optic and MCPCB are 20mm and he managed to bore the tube out to 19.5mm and still keep some strength in the walls.
With a bit of work with some abrasive paper I smoothed the inside walls of the tube and made the MCPCB a little smaller. The optic fitted snug into the end of the tube.
Unless I'm mistaken there is a front and back to the tube there seems to be about one more thread at the front, that's why I marked that end with some red cord.
I fitted the optic to the MCPCB and they both slip into the tube with a tight friction fit.
Next I ordered some 20mm aluminium spacers 5mm thick and some washers 1.5mm thick to use as a heatsink shelf for the MCPCB.
The 5mm aluminium spacer is just right, after a slight slim down it is now a tight friction fit inside the tube, just have to cut two slots for the wires to the MCPCB.
Here it is with the holes cut for the wires.
The MCPCB has arrived back from CRX, look what a lovely job he's done. He's even polished the back of the board.
I'm expecting the Twisty to arrive in a few days, it's sitting in UK Customs at the mo......
I've soldered the wires to the board, put Knapton tape around the inside of the tube, added Thermal Paste between the board and heatsink.
And it works.....
Because the module that I've built has to be screwed into the host, the wires need to be 50mm or so long to take up the twisting. I'm a little concerned that there may not be enough room behind the module to accomodate them. Much as I'd like to use the 5mm heatsink, if I use a 1.5mm washer there should be enough room. I've slimmed down a washer and fitted it, just in case. I'll know when the host arrives.
I've decided to go with the 1.5mm washer for the heatsink, it does give me enough room to coil about 50mm of the two wires in the recess. With that and a little room inside the head I should have enough slack.
I fixed it in place with green Loctite, cleaned off all excess and then bonded it in place with thermal resin.
The Twisty host has arrived.
I did play with it for a bit, just enough to allow me to realise that the tint was far too cool for me and that while the secondary red emitter was a good idea, I'd never use it. I had a secondary red on my WASP and disabled it.
Here'e a shot of the Osram emitter before I removed it.
It was just a matter of desoldering the contacts and lifting the emitter off.
The negative tag is the one nearest the large Earth bolt.
The solder tags seem quite fragile. I initially connected my new module with slightly longer leads than I wanted, just in case. It all functioned perfectly so I shortened the leads and resoldered them. The solder tags seemed to just dissolve, and I ended up managing to connect the positive lead through the heatsink shelf and soldering the negative to the ground wire connected to the large Earth bolt.
The excess leads fit well into the void under the module, given that I hope to never have to mess with the wiring again I'm going to use medium threadlocker on the lower threads of the module so i can only unscrew the top part to access the optic and lens.
When I had the head apart I was able to measure the voltage and current before I soldered the second wire.
Voltage on High 3.4 volts - Current on High 1.6 amps.
On High I would guess the light puts out about 500Lm compared to my OR Nichia Triple on 30% this step-down after 10 seconds to a more sensible 250 ish lumens.
The programming we know, is a bit of a nightmare on this light and I've managed to make the first and second positions the same, so I now cannot program the light by toggling between Low and High. I'm now attempting a Factory Reset which in proving a pain. I will get there, it's just a matter of time.
I managed the Factory reset eventually, once or twice conventionally and with better results with this rig.
I bet Henry has one of these…
There's something about the emitters on high that causes the thermal protection to kick in before the driver has reset. It seems in this configuration I'm not going to be able to reset the light.
Now I know that the front end is a success, I'm now going to remove Henry's Driver (sorry) and put in an Icarus from Prometheus.
Here's a few pictures during the removal and clean up….
I'm going to make the shelf for the Icarus driver out of 22mm copper pipe and two copper washers. The larger washer has a 16mm hole in it for the driver to sit on and the smaller one has a 17mm hole so it sits around the driver and will contact the negative edge of the driver to the top of the body tube, completing the circuit.
I'll glue them together with Thermal Resin.
Here's the finished copper shelf.
The wires go to the gold pad in the centre and the pad on the right. There's an "L" between them and a + next to the center one and a - next to the side one.. I didn't notice this and wasted a lot of time having soldered to the outside ring and to the right hand pad with the +ve. Fortunately the driver survived.
Here's the Icarus Driver mounted in the shelf.
And finally the whole thing fitted inside the head.
The driver is a nice tight fit inside the 17mm copper washer, but I was getting intermittent flashes on the lower levels. I've made a small solder bridge between the outor ring on the driver and the washer. I now have solid light.
So I have my complete light. At the moment it's set to the default settings as trying to get the driver programmed with a Twisty is next to impossible, a bit like the original driver.
I'll live with it for a bit and then I'll make up a clicky rig to do the job.
Having learnt the programming using a clicky rig, it it now very easy to program it using the twisty. I'm very impressed with the Icarus driver, I shall use it again.
Conclusions (for my reference as much as yours)
Consider anodising the host to make it pretty and to avoid earthing problems.
Solder the driver to the 17mm copper ring before building the shelf. Less heatsink to help soldering.
Glue a 21mm i/d around the 17mm washer to stop any solder bridging the gap.
Thanks for looking.
P
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