Hey guys,
I just did a mod on an L1 head for a fellow CPF'er. He had a first time (first time for me anyway) request. He wanted to be able to use the head on his L1 body, but he also wanted to be able to use the head on a regular single cell body AND be able to run it on a 2 cell body using a Pila 168S. This left me with somewhat of a dilemma because going with too high a Vf would have unnecessarily cut runtime in the L1 body and going with too low a Vf would have resulted in too much current to the LED.
In order to keep flexibilty, we decided to go with a K Vf 3W. The results were pretty cool. Of course, running it on an L1 body will have very predictable results. Running it on a plain single cell body afforded a nice low level light that would be useful in complete darkness. The wow factor came in when I put this thing on an L4 body and ran it with a Pila. Man, was it bright. It's clocking in at around 1.5A and it's a scorcher. Yes, it does heat up quickly and I wouldn't recommend it for long term use, but hey, IT WORKS.
The last finishing touch was, of course, an SO17XA reflector. Just the usual trimming of the skirt on the lathe and the addition of an o-ring to keep it centered and voila!
If any of you guys have an L1 head laying around with nothing to do, this is a cool mod. If you go with an L Vf 3W, you could DD it off of a Pila for a nice 1A light. The one that I just did, running at 1.5A eats my coveted modded KL4 for lunch.
I'll post some beam shots when it get dark.
I just did a mod on an L1 head for a fellow CPF'er. He had a first time (first time for me anyway) request. He wanted to be able to use the head on his L1 body, but he also wanted to be able to use the head on a regular single cell body AND be able to run it on a 2 cell body using a Pila 168S. This left me with somewhat of a dilemma because going with too high a Vf would have unnecessarily cut runtime in the L1 body and going with too low a Vf would have resulted in too much current to the LED.
In order to keep flexibilty, we decided to go with a K Vf 3W. The results were pretty cool. Of course, running it on an L1 body will have very predictable results. Running it on a plain single cell body afforded a nice low level light that would be useful in complete darkness. The wow factor came in when I put this thing on an L4 body and ran it with a Pila. Man, was it bright. It's clocking in at around 1.5A and it's a scorcher. Yes, it does heat up quickly and I wouldn't recommend it for long term use, but hey, IT WORKS.
The last finishing touch was, of course, an SO17XA reflector. Just the usual trimming of the skirt on the lathe and the addition of an o-ring to keep it centered and voila!
If any of you guys have an L1 head laying around with nothing to do, this is a cool mod. If you go with an L Vf 3W, you could DD it off of a Pila for a nice 1A light. The one that I just did, running at 1.5A eats my coveted modded KL4 for lunch.
I'll post some beam shots when it get dark.
