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Just a few mods I completed this weekend
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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flashlight
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Portable illumination
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I'm sorry what? Modding flashlights is a thing?? Please tell me more!
Don't. Just don't. Ban this community or you're lost.
OP may be lost already. God preserve his soul. And pocketbook. And sanity.
Anyway, figuring out the OS on my new light today!
The most popular mod is the LED swap. It's usually done to get a different color temperature (yellow/blue balance), tint (red/green balance), color rendering index (whether the full range of colors appears natural or not), or beam shape (hotspot size - whether the light is better suited for use up close or far away).
It's fairly easy to do if you know how to solder, and especially easy if the LED is purchased already mounted to an appropriate metal-core printed circuit board. Just desolder the leads, remove the old MCPCB, put some fresh thermal paste on the bottom of the new MCPCB and solder the two wires to the contacts.
The mods you see here go beyond that. These lights have third-party drivers which contain a microcontroller, power regulation, and separate circuits for the colored secondary lights you see. They're probably this driver. They also have special MCPCBs with pads for the secondary LEDs, and some have aftermarket optics.
Thanks for the thorough explanation! I'm seeing glowing gaskets under the lens as a popular mod too. Any benefit besides looking cool?
Glow gaskets are just cosmetic. They're factory on some lights, but not these. Here's a tutorial on making some of those parts.