[ti-force]

Here's another light that I've modded with one of the new XM-L emitters. Now before you start thinking that I've bumped my head because I've taken apart a $100 light and modified it with a different emitter and driver, you need to understand that I purchased this light when they were first released. What that means is that this light had the original user interface that does NOT include Max mode in the same set as High mode, so a lot of twisting and turning is required to change back and forth from High to Max, and consequently I found myself not using this light at all. Seriously, I played around with it two or three times after I purchased it, then it just sat unused.



So anyway, that's my excuse .



As usual I thought I'd share some pictures of the build process, some info about the build and some OTF lumens data





Most of you probably know what the G5 looks like, but I'll share a couple of pictures anyway:

















First things first, I haven't noticed anyone else on the forum who's crazy enough to tear one of these down, so I thought some of you might be interested in seeing what the driver assembly looks like, components used on the driver, how it's assembled, and how it works.



































Then I disassembled the driver from the holder/battery contact point:













In this picture you can see the different contact pads on the bottom driver board. Battery positive pad is in the center, and the other three pads on the board are multiple battery negative contact pads that are used for mode changing:

















Stock XP-G R5 on factory MCPCB:

















Time to start modding . Trim the plastic centering piece to fit the new, larger XM-L emitter. I thought I captured a picture after the lead wires were soldered, but after I went through the pictures I discovered I did not. Oh well, you get the idea anyway:

















Next I assembled the bottom factory board to the Shiningbeam 2.8A board. 24ga mil-spec teflon coated wire was used throughout to minimize losses, and yes, my iron got too close to the plastic and melted it just a bit :





















Now it's time to open up the reflector to fit the larger XM-L emitter:







Before:













After:

















I'd say it fits nicely in its new home . BTW, I bored the factory smooth reflector and one of the available textured reflectors for use in this light. More on that later:



Smooth:







Textured:















Then re-install the new driver assembly back into the head and reassemble so it looks untouched . BTW, I made a small modification so flat top batteries will work in this light now . Now it's time for testing :

















Now it's time for some OTF lumens measurements taken in my homemade integrating sphere. For reference, the emitter is an XM-L T6 flux bin with a 2T tint binning. I used an AW 2600mAh 18650 for testing unless specified otherwise. The light was allowed to cool to room temperature before each test was performed, batteries were topped off before each test was performed and I didn't use my hand for heatsinking the light during testing.











These results are with the smooth reflector and some nice, crystal clear UCL glass :



________Time________Lumens________Temperature (F)____________



________1 Sec________756.4______________73__________________

_______30 Sec________720_______________85.8_______ __________

________1 Min________710.3________________90.8______________ ___

________2 Min________698.2________________97.5______________ ___

________3 Min________689.7________________105.4_____________ ___











These results are with the smooth reflector and the factory glass. You will notice that there's roughly a 20 lumen increase by using the UCL glass:



________Time________Lumens________Temperature (F)____________



________1 Sec________739.4________________73________________ __

_______30 Sec________701.8________________85.8______________ ___

________1 Min________693.3________________90.8______________ ___

________2 Min________682.4________________97.5______________ ___

________3 Min________672.7________________105.4_____________ ___











Now it's time to test with the textured reflector. You will find that there's roughly a 40 lumen loss by using the textured reflector vs the smooth reflector. I haven't tested the textured reflector with the UCL glass yet, but I'm assuming the results would be very similar to the above improvements over the factory glass:



________Time________Lumens________Temperature (F)____________



________1 Sec________705__________________73________________ __

_______30 Sec________660.6________________85.8______________ ___

________1 Min________652.1________________90.8______________ ___

________2 Min________641.2________________97.5______________ ___

________3 Min________632.7________________105.4_____________ ___





Beamshots will come .