Just did a small run of Space Needles for some LAPD LEOs. If the term Space Needle has you thinking wistfully of cold, drizzly, overcast days in Washington State, that's the wrong kind of Needle and you'll have to go here for a refresher -5W Space Needle

Took a few digital pics along the way to highlight how they go together, plus give away all my secrets to the flashoholic world (heh heh).

Like lambs to their slaughter, here they are fresh out of their clampacks, waiting helplessly for decapitation:

Now decapitated, as well as torn limb from limb:

With help from their little black aides, the Six Samurai lay their swords down...

...in order to court their soon-to-be mates, the graceful white-faced geishas from the House Of The Floating Lilypad (courtesy of the great Lambda himself):

Dispensing with the need for pesky PR bases, as well as lightening the flashlight considerably by removing and discarding the weighty brass focusing pistons that come in all larger Mags, the positive and negative wiring is soldered directly to the Mag's internal leads:

The heavily overwrought original Mag endcap springs make successful reinstallation of the tailcap an almost impossible task at times, and the diameter of the final coil is too large to line up with the center of the typical CR123 negative pole anyway, so they are pulled out and replaced with hand-wound light-duty springs:

And the marriage of the converted parts commences, using rubber band preachers and Arctic Epoxy wedding rings:

The last step is to Arctic some decent 5W Luxeons onto the exact centers of the heatsink posts and solder up the wires to their respective leads.

And then -- it's eye-squintin' time...