rhd
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This was my hardest build to date. Substantially harder than building a Pocket CR2 or Pocket Mini. In fact, I'd even venture to say that it was more difficult than building a whole 1085 inside the Coleman CR2.
I'm calling this the "Ribbed Silver". I don't know if this host has been done before, but it's a tough guy to work with. This guy is putting out 650mW peak (but through an acrylic lens - eek!)
Luckily, the inside "guts" are EXACTLY the same width as an Aixiz module (bonus!). However, there's just no way to use a bulky (*hehe*) driver like a Flexdrive or NJG-18 in this host. Basically the options I could think of were AK-007 (fairly untested as of yet) or stock LED driver (totally untested). I had the latter (obviously came with the host) and not the former. So, stock LED driver it was. The benefit? 5 modes! The downside? 2 of them are stupid. Also, it seems to be capable of less current than a similarly sized AK-007.
You need a decent ceramic cap when using a LED driver. The only way to make that fit in this host, is to solder an SMD ceramic cap across the diode leads. Truly no room for an axial cap in this build.
So, aixiz module gets pressed into the stock capsule, and the driver gets bookended onto that. It ends up looking like a bullet:
Before reassembly, here's what the pieces look like. Note that the 10440 (AAA sized) battery is roughly 60% of the entire host's size!
Here it is running, and compared to some other common hosts (my cameraphone is no good at capturing beam color):
And another generic beam shot:
I haven't LPMd it yet, but the max current when I tested the driver on a test load was around 580mA with batteries that had been charged a few weeks ago, but should otherwise have been fairly fresh. Better quality batteries and a totally fresh charge might improve this.
One final note, the driver has a neat thermal protection circuit in it, such that when it gets too hot (about 30 seconds on high mode!) it reverts into the lower "pulsed" mode. It's actually a decent approach to keeping the driver cool. Needless to say, duty cycles should be incredibly low.
I'm calling this the "Ribbed Silver". I don't know if this host has been done before, but it's a tough guy to work with. This guy is putting out 650mW peak (but through an acrylic lens - eek!)
Luckily, the inside "guts" are EXACTLY the same width as an Aixiz module (bonus!). However, there's just no way to use a bulky (*hehe*) driver like a Flexdrive or NJG-18 in this host. Basically the options I could think of were AK-007 (fairly untested as of yet) or stock LED driver (totally untested). I had the latter (obviously came with the host) and not the former. So, stock LED driver it was. The benefit? 5 modes! The downside? 2 of them are stupid. Also, it seems to be capable of less current than a similarly sized AK-007.
You need a decent ceramic cap when using a LED driver. The only way to make that fit in this host, is to solder an SMD ceramic cap across the diode leads. Truly no room for an axial cap in this build.
So, aixiz module gets pressed into the stock capsule, and the driver gets bookended onto that. It ends up looking like a bullet:
Before reassembly, here's what the pieces look like. Note that the 10440 (AAA sized) battery is roughly 60% of the entire host's size!
Here it is running, and compared to some other common hosts (my cameraphone is no good at capturing beam color):
And another generic beam shot:
I haven't LPMd it yet, but the max current when I tested the driver on a test load was around 580mA with batteries that had been charged a few weeks ago, but should otherwise have been fairly fresh. Better quality batteries and a totally fresh charge might improve this.
One final note, the driver has a neat thermal protection circuit in it, such that when it gets too hot (about 30 seconds on high mode!) it reverts into the lower "pulsed" mode. It's actually a decent approach to keeping the driver cool. Needless to say, duty cycles should be incredibly low.
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, I've seen this host but thought it was awefully small to work with. Excellent job!
