Modding failure on ebay 1watt luxeon light

Well, I thought I'd start modding by doing something easy. The ebay lights were a perfect candidate - cheap and easy to take apart:



They were also good mod candidates because they were really dim compared to sandwiches, Arcs, baby pins, etc... pretty much everything except UK 4AA eLED. This picture shows the silver ebay light on the left with a baby pin on the right and the picture in the center lit up by a UK 4AA eLED:



They also used stars, so were easier to modify than bare emitters, and I happened to have a TX1J I'd bought from LitFuse (notice his innovative packaging, by the way /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif).

Here's another shot of light innards, with the star taken off the can:



Alas, the results were not an improvement:


After seeing this I measured the current through the TX1J - it was only 300ma. So it looks like the board is a constant current board like the BadBoy and not a boost board like the MadMax /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif I thought about replacing the board, as I had several bb/mm boards from the sandwich shop, but it didn't seem worthwhile - the body seems cheap, and the optics were glued in, so I didn't think it deserved a new board.

Oh well, live and learn...

That's a bummer... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Maybe the board can be boosted with a different value resistor? I don't know enough about circuit design to tell just by looking at it though. Maybe Wayne Y. or CM can offer an opinion?

Re: "Innovative pacakaging"- I recycle the bottles, just trying to recycle the caps too. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Oh, BTW- Nice pics! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif


Peter

Litfuse, my thought exactly.

I'm wondering what sort of optic is in there. I could probably be milled out or something and replaced.

It's a reflector with a plastic lens glued on in front. I don't think it would be hard to take out, it's just it's not a screw thing like maglites, the replacement would have to be glued or something.

you could always buy a cheap sandwitch board and stick in there Z/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

hm... i dont get it. what were u tryin to do????

[ QUOTE ]
Neg2LED said:
hm... i dont get it. what were u tryin to do????

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought I'd replace the 1 watt LD with a LuxIII TX1J to make the light brighter, but the driver board appeared to be fixed at 300ma output.

The silver light on the left is junk but the one on the right is a very nice Nuwai 1w Luxeon. Nice rugged feel and the projector type lens is very protected. The light on the right you call a baby pin can be modded to be about 30-50% brighter by adding a resistor. I just added a .5 ohm resistor to mine in the blank R5 spot on the puck. Stock was 310ma to the luxeon. It was 330,000mcd stock not bad for a wide even beam with no hotspot to boost mcd. I'll need to check the new mcd later. Now it's 460ma at 3.45 volts. 1.587 watts.


Stock Amperage at the battery was 500ma on a new 123 and climbed to 750ma as the battery ages. Brightness never drops for about 2+ hours then it starts to dim. My beam looks different then your beam shot above. It's square in shape with a perfect white fill. No hot spots at all. Nicest beam I've seen yet for a $35 fully regulated light. The bin in mine is a PW0L. I might add a Lux III TW0L to see how far I can overdrive the single 123 and puck. I did manage to get 1.2 amps out of the puck at the luxeon end by accident. I don't wan't to say how until I test the puck to see if it will burn out.

I was excited to read the post above, and I went ahead and ordered a bunch of surface mount resistors.

I measured the original current to the Luxeon at 180mA. After I replaced the original Luxeon with a LuxIII TX1J the current was 230mA (driven off two AA NiMH). I then tried to add a .1 ohm resistor... no change. Then I tried just shorting the R5 pad... no change.

Either my light is defective, or the innards are just different. I did notice that I saw the square light pattern when I put in the TX1J; I thought that was typical of LuxIIIs, so am surprised that was the beam pattern in Carbonium's light.

Here's a beamshot of the original:



From left to right:

- silver ebay light
- projector ebay light I tried to mod this time
- Arc LS (one of the defective heads that has light output within specified limits, this head is apparently defective because it just goes off once in a while for no apparent reason (not overheating))
- Arc LS 667mA LuxIIIT, one of the lights I'm selling in b/s/t

Here is a picture with the TX1J installed in the projector light:



The TX1J is only getting 230mA here, undoubtedly it would look a lot better at 1A.

This is interesting because I have an Arc LS 400mA Gray kit and one of the Goldengadgets.com silver lights that you posted above. The Goldengadgets light is brighter than the Arc. Luck of the draw perhaps? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif A beamshot can be seen in the thread of mine I posted about the Blaster III with reflector in the Mod Forum.

Even if the board is only pumping out 300mA, you should still see a output jump by using a good LS. Stock Arc LS runs at 350mA, and not many people here call it dim /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif I would check if there are other factors, such as a bad Luxeon, a weak battery, a loose soldering joint, a bad ground path, etc, before calling it a failure.

It did get noticeably brighter when I put in a TX1J to replace the HD originally in there, but the current was still less than 300mA, so it seemed like a waste of a TX1J. Unless I'm measuring the current wrong? I put a DMM in series with one of the power leads. I vaguely recall reading this might interfere with regulated circuits... still, even with the DMM out of the way the light was nowhere near as bright as a fully driven LuxIII should have been.