Cool X1 Mod...Pics

My friend and fellow member Owen gave me an old sandwich from the Shoppe and I have put it to good use. I do not know the BIN nor the output however it made a good mod for my X1.
I opened the X1 with the freeze method and cut vertical slits in the bezel to spread it out a little for re-assembly. I now cut off a little from the X1 making it much shorter and bored the bezel end using a Dremel tool. I used the reflector from a RiverRock 2-AAA light and put it inside the bezel with an o-ring and lens. You can spread out the little cut slits to help hold the reflector and to also make the bezel fit more tight when re-assembled.
Next I soldered a casing around the top of the sandwich that came from an old Dorcy AA 3-LED circuit. It was an empty casing that held the old Dorcy circuit and fit the sandwich like a sleeve. This does 2 things in that it makes the sides of the sandwich act as a ground and it also helps transfer heat to the X1 body.
Next simply slide it all back together and it works very well all in a package smaller than my Fenix and a little brighter. I have to use a 3 volt lithium in AA size so the comparison beam shot is not really fair when compared to my Fenix. I imagine a rechargeable 3.7 volt AA would also do well in this light. It will run from a lithium AA or even an alkaline however it is not nearly as bright.
Regardless it was fun to make and it works very well.
Enjoy the pics and the beam shot is the X1 on the right and my Fenix on the left from about 8 inches to the wall.

very cool

I am so jealous...

I'd like to build or have built something like that with a UW0K running direct drive on an LiON cell.

Now, where's that drooling/salivating icon?

If you send it to me, I'll be sure and check it out with a 3.7V LiON. Paypal for shipping waiting!

dont worry cratz, when i redo(change optic to reflector/lens) my TWOH MM wideopen. you'll get first dibs!

You know, I have two X1s and am not totally handicapped when it comes to mods... You'd think as long as I've wanted something like this, I would have got off my lazy buttocks and just pulled one apart by now!

Lazy Generation X-ish kids.

cratz2 it is really not that hard for this mod and the hardest part is measuring how short to cut the body. I usually stand the battery up and place the light engine on top of it and then the reflector on top of that. Then I place the X1 body beside it and measure just how much to take off by looking at where the reflector sits.
It is also a little hard to bore the bezel end with a Dremel however by using a little oil it goes smooth. I suppose it would not be necessary to even bore the end but in my case I had to do so. The casing I used to surround the sandwich was a little larger than the bezel end so to allow it to slide down far enough I had to bore it out.
If you decide to try it send me an e-mail and I will try to get some step by step pics for you.

Awesome mod, Robocop. I've been wanting to mod my old X1 for a while, and this is truly inspiring. I've even got a dead River Rock 0.5W ready to donate its reflector and lens.

What was the purpose of cutting down the X1 body? Just to get rid of the extra space?

Ikonomi when you use the sandwich it takes up much less space inside the head than the factory set up. When you get your X1 open you will see a large space left between the magnified optic and the 5 mm LED. I assume this was designed to better focus the beam however it is wasted space when using a smaller sandwich.
If I left the body the stock length I would have had to solder a spring to the bottom of the sandwich to take up the room so I decided to just cut it off. It is much shorter and actually seems to be more adapted to my hand now.
This mod can also be done using the standard Dorcy AA 3-LED circuit as the housing is the exact one used here. The Dorcy circuit is designed to use the sides as negative contact points and works pretty well when adapted to a luxeon.
The reason I used the sandwich surrounded with the casing was simply as it was a better tint than any other luxeon I had available. I am a little concerned as to heat transfer as the casing "fins" are really not very thick however so far with limited use it has held up well and does get a little warm.

To those of us without the current ability to readily cut down the body, could we just add a conductive 'blank' wrapped in an isolator to make up the difference?

While I'd like a Lux III rocket of some sort, I think if/when I get around to taking an X1 apart, I'd like to try just an MJLED or uncut MJLED or a colored THC3 LED with longer leads so the hotspot is a little larger, even if not stunningly brighter.

another way is to file down the brass thingy. Brass is soft and can be filed down by hand quicly. A standard sandwich will fit in perfectly.

Hrm, quick question... How do you get the reflector out of the RR 2AAA head?