Surefire E1E - LS?

I've been looking for a mod for the e1e. Searching the forums it seems that a CPFer, Lambda, has modded the E1E with an LS back in 2002. Whatever became of that mod? I'd be interested to hear more about this and get mine modded. Does anyone remember what the total lumen output was estimated at?

Lumenous,

I'm surprised that you missed all the stuff on modding the E1e. There are actually a couple of ways to do it.

The way I've done it is to build a pill using an ecan and esink with either a badboy or madmax converter. Then you drill out the post of the E1e head with a 13/32 drill. It's best to do it in a lathe or drill press, but some have done it with a hand drill. This is the easiest way. It results in a beam with a wide spill light and a very narrow hot spot. It has just OK throw.

The more difficult method, mentioned to me by McGizmo, is to drill the head out with a 3/4 drill and chase the threads with a 13/16-20 tap. Then you can build an Aleph light engine for it. The finishing touch would be the addition of a 17mm reflector and mineral glass lens to replace the stock lens. This results in a very good medium range light, but some may argue that there are better ways to obtain the same results.

The first method that I mentioned above is very easy to do and fairly cost effective. It will also make the E1e much more useful than it is in its stock form.

Estimated lumens after the mod?


Is the madmax more efficient at 3V?

What's the ideal current to run the board at to get a runtime of about 80mins off of 1x123 and a TY0M. Would the BB or MM be better for this config?

Lumenous,

I really can't quote you lumens specs. All I can tell you is that the T bin Lux III is rated at just over 65 lumens when driven to 700mA. You have to understand that the purpose of modding the E1e is to get something better than what you have now. It is far from being a steller performer. The E1e mod will give you a wide spill light with SOME throw, by virtue of a rather narrow hotspot. If you really want performance and still stay small, you could go with an Aleph head (with 20mm reflector) or a hot rodded KL1. Either of these will do nicely out to medium ranges. If you really want performance you could go with a head built around a 27mm reflector, like an Aleph or McLux PR.

Performance is really a matter of what you want the light to do. If you want flood, this mod will do nicely. If you want throw, look at the above. With regard to throw, the lux rating is probably a better indicator than the lumen rating.

ResQTech,

To get that kind of runtime out of a lux III with an M Vf, you're gonna gave to run it at a very low bias. M is a really high Vf for a Lux III. For a single cell light, I'd be looking for either an H or J Vf. Of course the H would be better.

Both the MM and the BB have their advantages. The BB is current regulated and you'll get a steady output level; however, the batt can go dead on you without much warning. The MM is voltage regulated and will dim as the batts drain, but you'll have an idea of when to change the batts. I don't do runtime tests (there are many posted here on CPF), I just build lights. It's my understanding though, that the BB will give you bright light for a longer time.

If you want to get 80 mins of runtime, you should look at about a 350 to 400mA bias, or maybe even at 500mA. I personally prefer the MM in small lights for one reason, that is because I tend to use my lights for more than a few minutes at a time, and the BB gets hot, even at 400mA, in a small light. The MM doesn't generate nearly as much heat.

For what you are looking for, I'd recommend either the BB400 or the MMlite. I say 400, rather than 350, because in my experience, some lux III's will show color abberations at lower than 400mA.

With all of that being said, if you are looking for something that will be used for only a couple of minutes at a time and want a decent runtime, go with the BB. I made a small light, similar to the FireFly, but with a reflector and a BB500 and people still freak out when they see all of the light comeing from that little bitty light.

There is another somewhat simpler mod that Don / McGizmo did early on with reworking the threads on the E1 and then building a battery spacer to take up the "slack". I purchased one early on to have the option of using the E1 body with ARC LS head. Nice idea but admittedly have never gotten around to using it. I think the cooler mods to use were the ones mentioned where the "donor" heads are chased out and a new ECan and engine are built. I have both an L4 head that Don modded and the L1 head mod. The L1 is by far the most compact and has a nice throw / flood combination.

~Greg

OK,

I just modified my E2 with an ecan/esink pill and a downboy 700, but the end result will be the same with the E2e.

First a pic of what my bench looks like after doing a dozen mods. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif



Here's a pic of the pill. Please disregard the relief cut. You won't need them with the E2e, I had to do it for the E2 to be able to keep the pocket clip.





And for the business end. Sorry about the crappy pics, but you get the idea.



And of course, a beam shot.



This was taken about 6 feet from a white wall. I don't know if you can see it, but the whole pic is lit up. That's because the sidespill is immense. The hotspot is on the small side and is misleading. You'd thing that with such a small hotspot, there'd be tons of throw, but there isn't. This is a good close to medium range light with a bit of a hotspot to put more light on what interests you.

I like it for what it is, but maybe I should have gone with maybe a DB 350 or 400 so that I could have used it as a car light or something. I wonder if one of McGizmos tail switch innards would work on this light.

The beam in the pic shows some rings though. I don't know what that's about. The beam is very smooth as is typical with a reflector.

I like your bench...it makes me feel a lot better about mine too /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Do you take the ring and lens out when you drill the post off? If not, how do you prevent the shavings from getting inside or drilling down to the lens?

On the mod above, I didn't remove the lens, cause it's pressed in there. Removing it risks damaging it. I didn't drill through the lens because I didn't go that deep. Shavings do get inside. I did a lot of stopping and shaking out the head.