Inspired by Lambda's mod of Harbor Freight's tiny single-123 flashlight with 1W Luxeon, as well as McGizmo's mod of the same light with a dat2zip sandwich, I decided to get my hands on one of these things and, with the aid of a top-secret developmental boost circuit, commenced to build a mod that drives a 5W HD Luxeon at FACTORY SPEC (690 mah!) using just one CR2. This is not a misprint, I did say CR2, the 3V lithium battery that's smaller than a 123, the same one used in tvodrd's little keychain light.

Below is the circuit, already potted in a thick white coating of Arctic Alumina to help spread and shed the copious amounts of thermal energy it will no doubt produce:

Here it is further potted into my exquisite, elegantly crafted "C-Can" (Copper Can) because the circuit was way too tall even for Don's E-Can!

Dropped into the HF light's diminutive body tube:

Cinching up the heatsink and waiting for the CW2400 to set:

Almost ready to rock:

aaaaaaand...Rocking:

The light produced was so intense it upset the camera's auto white balance and the light beige benchtop became a dark yellow.

I did not spin on the head for output tests because of a mysterious short somewhere that I just discovered, caused by the pressure of screwing on the head. Unscrew head, light goes back on. Hmmm...

Oh well, time to turn in for now, gotta work tomorrow (Labor Day -- double overtime and-a-half, can't be late..), then a mad dash back home late at night to get it all apart and reconstruct. See? That's what I get for rushing by being so excited...

If all goes well, tomorrow's title will be, "Introducing...the Baby Pin!"

PS. Get it? Space Needle -- Baby Pin? Heh heh...

Okay, took an extra-long "meal break" (it's GOOD to be the Watch Commander -- or as my guys call me, "Kommandant"!) and refit the heatsink as a press-in so that screwing on the head could not affect its contact with the body tube in any way. And it works fine now.

Coupla bad things though, both fixable but it will take some doing (and certainly NOT while on break) which I'll get into later.

First off here's the light with battery (singular) removed:

See? TOLD ya it was a CR2. BTW most 123's are rated at 1300 mah while the CR2 has only an 850 mah capacity which may be affecting something I'll get into a little later.

And here is Baby Pin's sparring partner for the day -- the SureFire L4 with E1 body -- hey we gotta be fair ya know, no going up against a TWO-batteried light, especially two 1300 mah CR123 batteries! Even so, look how much smaller it is:

And now for the long awaited beamshot (Baby Pin is on the right):

As you can see, the BP makes more light with a significantly bigger hotspot but there's a problem with this hotspot -- the Pin's reflector is screwed down all the way against the black upper shoulder of the Luxeon's plastic casing. In Space Needles and most other mods with reflectors, I usually found tightest focus with the reflector hole's lip just below the top of the black casing. Otherwise it was too defocused and a black cross would just begin to show up at closer range, like the Baby Pin exhibits now:

Here's my favorite drama/vanity beamshot, the LLS (Lambda Lightsaber Shot) but again, note how big the hotspot is. If it could be made tighter to get rid of the black cross at closer range, the lux reading would shoot up dramatically (yes, I am indeed finally getting up to what I promised was coming "later"):

And here is the "later":

KL4 w/E1 body - 160 lux

Baby Pin (w/defocused reflector and "just" an 850 mah CR2) - 161 lux

So what does this tell us? Well, since the BP still edges out the L4 despite the reflector and battery type questions mentioned above, there may be a dramatic improvement if I would just --

No. 1 - enlarge the hole of the reflector slightly so it sits just below the top of the black casing, enabling it to focus more tightly, and

No. 2 - run it on a CR123 at 1300 mah and check lux readings again.

Because when handling the Baby Pin in person, it is so very obvious that there is already a lotta light coming out the front, just needs to be collimated/directed more precisely, as well as give this light a little more lithium juice using a CR123:

Only then will it be time for cigars...

9.02.03

So here's the latest tweak -- I decided the wimpy little reflector was just not going to make reworking it worthwhile, it is really too tiny. As with high performance automobiles ("there is no substitute for cubic inches"), when working in light output manipulation there is no substitute for square centimeters/inches/what-have-you.

So I borrowed the head from my LG5 which was equipped with EL's 30mm collimator (here's the Baby Pin's body courting LG5's head):

Note the slight inequity in size!

Here the mating process is completed (they do not screw together, the threads of the Baby Pin's body are a tad too small and it simply slid snugly into the head until the Luxeon fit in the 30mm's bottom cup):

End view of LG5 head where you can clearly see the 30mm optic:

And then we light'er up:

Here's the beam shot:

Note the big solid hotspot -- it produced an astounding 641 lux from one meter. That's LGI output in a keychain light, although with the giant LG5 head it would have to be a rather large keychain...unless somebody would machine a small slim thin-walled head to house the 30mm and have it threaded for the BP's body.

But at least the exercise illustrates the potential of this tiny light. Now if I could just find a way to fit the Mag 2C reflector on it...