sounds like the XTAR WP2 is a decent charger:
linked from here:
under $20 on ebay right now
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h22a has new mag heatsinks
Looks like Setapong is shipping new “flat top” versions of the DHS and P7 heatsinks. This facilitates mounting XM-L or XP-G stars (PCB-mounted LED’s) on there.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?310770-********-H22A-Heatsinks-********
Bear in mind that unlike Seoul LEDs, Cree LEDs have an electrically isolated thermal solder point. Therefore there is absolutely no reason past looks to use an anodized heatsink, so the bare aluminum ones will be fine.
people have been talking about these mounted LEDs they get from illum.supply:
http://illuminationsupply.com/diy-parts-c-12.html
we’ve got XP-G’s on stars, XM-L on stars, you name it. Shipping seems to be $5. The XM-L’s are great and all, $9 isn’t too crazy, but what’s really caught my eye is the high-CRI XP-G they’ve got their hands on… 3000k is very warm, but my current EDC flashlight w/ the backup dropin in it (since I’m too lazy to fix the good one) is pretty cold. I was just finishing up mowing part of the lawn this evening as it got dark and pulled out my flashlight… my flashlight made it harder to tell if the grass was cut. I was literally better off not using the flashlight. After I was done I used the flashlight to shine around and check for bad spots (after all I was mowing in the dark). The low CRI really is something to think about.
Based on the bin code (Q2), I think at 1.4A you’re looking at something like a minimum of 278Lumens @ the LED… that’s very, very close to being the same as my “Good” Q5 dropin driven @ 1.4A, and it may be the same. (Cree’s XR-E datasheet does not cover the curve above 1.0A since that’s out of spec.) Anyway almost the same output numbers, but at 90+ CRI… mmmmmm.
All these developments are food for thought. Probably food for eating up my wallet. I think I’m done playing with XR-E lights now probably… for a few bucks I can make much brighter stuff.
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mana front assault bezel for Ultrafire
I’m not actually in the assault bezel market, but for those who pick up an UltraFire C1*, replacing the plastic retaining ring may be necessary.
This might do the trick:
http://www.manafont.com/product_info.php/31mm-3petal-stainless-steel-crown-head-for-led-flashlight-p-6020
It replaces the plastic retaining ring. I’d probably put it on the saw or dremel and cut most of it off, then try and grind it flat-ish with small crenelations like I like. DX also carries a C1 that has an XM-L + Assault Crown for $22, but it’s only single-mode and I think that may just be too bright…
*(Such as the super-inexpensive XM-L T6 models Ultrafire has now: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/ultrafire-c1-xm-lt6-5-mode-510-lumen-memory-white-led-flashlight-with-clip-strap-1-18650-55237)
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Fiddling with junk instead of buying new stuff
Rather than doing real work and making money, I decided to take another crack at fixing my junk.
I’ve got a 17in LCD that I had to replace the backlight on, I swapped in the board from another LCD. At that point it worked fine, but sometimes it doesn’t sleep and just glows brightly.
The backlight on/off line for the inverter strapped on the back is something like 1.5v trigger… I know ~1.65v will put it high, and I know it’s low at 0.6v, but past that I really don’t know. Back when I hooked it up I just found a line inside the monitor that was low when the monitor was off/asleep, and around 2v when it was supposed to be awake… unfortunately that line sometimes mysteriously goes really high when it’s asleep, ~3v.
I’d already checked the internals on the board that had the original inverters, power supply circuit, and speaker amplifier circuit a couple of times, there are almost no places to pull a voltage/signal that even changes when the monitor is on or off! The closest stuff I could find are several leads that go from 0v to 3v for a few seconds when you turn the monitor on, then drop back to 0v.
I didn’t find anything different this time around, but this time I took another look at the “brains” board that handles video processing and the OSD and stuff… I’d seen before that the power-on LED could be used, but I hated to draw a signal off of the LED power lead. Instead this time I traced it back to the transistor that lights up the LED and used the signal line that goes to that to signal the LCD inverter on/off. It was something like 0v low and 3v high, seems to be working great.
If that didn’t work I was going to wire in a physical toggle switch, heh.
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Finally ordered an XFX AMD 6950 2GB
I bit the bullet!!! but it gets better…
AMD Radeon HD 6950 to HD 6970 Mod
I picked XFX over Visiontek (both lifetime warranty) due to XFX’s better warranty policies (they don’t mind OC, different cooler, etc as long as the board is not burnt… same as EVGA) as well as Pine’s long history in the industry (parent company). XFX is a cooler name than Visiontek. Visiontek’s listing on Newegg did not include a picture of the actual card, neither does the Visiontek website, so there’s no guarantee they didn’t install some stupid off-the-wall cooler or other nonstandard component. Also XFX’s warranty is transferable… all in all it was worth the extra $10 for me this time.
To make the deal slightly sweeter, the mounting pattern around the GPU should fit my watercooling gear I already own (I have a DD Maze 5):
Frankly I doubt I’ll watercool it at this point unless noise is an issue or there ends up being a lot of extra performance locked away due to heat/temperature. Maybe if I build a nice case I’ll end up WC’ing just for the sake of appearances.
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DHS heatsink for *OLD* mags
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?203235-*****-P7-and-DHS-Heatsink-Part-2*****
At some point he (re-?) added these to the main listing… $20. That’s for the mounting of LEDs such as the XR-E, SSC P4, Luxeon K2-TFFC. In theory you could also put an XP-G or XP-E mounted on ~7.7mm mcpcb on there, based on my measurements of my DHS heatsink. Or just grind off the guides and mount a 14mm star or whatever.
This is primarily useful for those of us who have retired old d-size mags (those old enough not to have a D in the serial number). I’m not sure how worthwhile it is to upgrade, even with the heatsink being available… it’s true that you can achieve around 270L at 1000mA with a Cree XR-E R2-bin, which will net well over 200 out the front lumens with the optics in place… but you’ll need:
- $00 Old D-Size Mag
- $20 heatsink
- $10 LED
- $?? driver board
If you’re dealing with the popular 2D size, I think the lowest you could go for a decent 1A boost driver is a BB Nexgen 1A: http://theledguy.chainreactionweb.com/product_info.php?cPath=48_49_61&products_id=730 – that should be optimal for any of the last-gen LEDs such as the XR-E, SSC P4, and the Luxeon K2-TFFC, but not enough juice to get the most out of an XP-G (1.5A).
So about $18 shipped for that… bringing the cost of the mod into the $48 range.
A different option would be to use two KD 3AA->1D battery trays at $2 each and a DX 5W driver, in theory that should be good. Possibly more fiddly, but that reduces driver cost to $6 including the adapters, bringing the total down to $36 (assuming the $10 LED pricetag I actually made up is accurate) and allowing you to use readily available (and rechargeable) AA’s.
3D with a 7135 based 1.4A driver and a modern low vF XP-G might be a good recipe though.
I hate to pay $20 for a bare aluminum heatsink of that size though, the BriteLumens heatsinks have much more mass and are anodized a stylish black. Unfortunately they are not an option for older mags though.
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