1.9W Ehgemus 2X26500 Custom Host W/3XGroove 2 Drivers

Alright folks here is a special treat. I have been thinking about this unit for a while now and finally got all the parts I needed to get it up and running. I was wanting a host that I could use four groove 2 drives driven by 2 26500"s in a sweet custom host. So I hit up Ehgemus and gave him my idea for a new design. As always he was enthusiastic about make something interesting for me and said he would get it going.
















About a week later I had so much going on I almost forgot about it and was really excited to see a PM from him saying it was ready. He sent me this picture.









Man this is just sweeet. It is going to be a true beast.:eg: Huge direct press head and that amazing looking body. When the unit arrived yesterday I decided to stay up all night getting it up and running.













































Here are the required components for this build. The host that is composed of these items.

The body, massive direct press head, focus adapter.







The tailcap with Ehgemus's high quality forward clicky.









You will also need some Groove 2 drivers and some half moon heatsinks for attaching the drivers to the inner walls of the host.









I started out by setting my Grove drivers up. You can refer to the PDF on the Groove 2 to set the current.
http://hacylon.case.edu/ebay/laser_diode/Groove2 manual.pdf









I used some thermal adhesive to attach the large chip on the top of the groove 2 to the little half moon heatsinks.







So I thought I was going to be able to fit four of these in this host but unfortunately that was not going to happen so I had to alter my plans a little. This could have killed the whole idea but I noticed when setting the current on the Groove drivers that they go beyond the stated max current of 500mA to around 650mA. So this made the project viable again. I set each to 600mA and got a combined output of 1.8A.









Now the most time consuming part of this build was getting the drivers bonded to the host walls and packing all the wires up in the host. It was not easy to get all the wires properly soldered together and organizing this rats nest of wires neatly in the pill. But it came out looking great.










Once this was done I pressed a diode into the massive direct press head. This is one of the most functional reasons to go with a custom host from Ehgemus. The direct press head not only being very massive itself on this unit but when it screws into the host it turns the entire body in to a heatsink that has a lot of surface area for dispersing heat.:can:









Now I got the host and put some shrink tubing on the diode wires and soldered them to the diode.










Now I have the diode soldered on just pack the wires down a little and give the head about 6 counterclockwise revolutions twisting the wires up and then putting the head in the host and let the wire untwist as you are screwing it in.









Now the hard pat is over.










Just need to get a lens screwed into the focus adapter.











Then put it in the host. Pop in your batteries and you are ready to go.
























































































This could be my new favorite laser. It is a close runner with the 1.6W 14650 host. But for me I have to have both. This thing has exceptional heatsinking and a very sleek look. Not only does it look good but it is truly very functional. I will always have one of these in my collection. I also want to give a big thanks to Ehgemus for putting all these great hosts together for me. He is one of the real assets this forum has to offer. Thanks for the great work you do man.:thanks:



I hope you all enjoyed this review I know I did. If you would like to see more reviews/tutorials see the compilation link in my sig.:beer:​