Modding Greenforce lights

[Goldigger]

Its not a new head. Its the original tri star head which appears to be different from the current tristar head.

I did a quick search but couldnt find any decent pics of the quadrastar.

Battery is a 12V NiMh pack. Never measured it but I guess at full charge it will be the same as most other 12v Ni Mh packs. Upto 14 volt.

Yep i know its the old tristar head, its a lot bigger than the new tristar P4 head which puts out 660 lumens unless you get the tristar max head.
if this link is removed google lumb bros and you will find the uk greenforce distributer, all the new heads are on there.
http://www.lumb-bros-das.co.uk/acatalog/Light_Heads.html

When i quoted the new head in my last post i meant the new transformed head..

 

[Packhorse]

Ah yes I see what you mean. It does look similar but It does not look like it is using aspherics. My guess is that the beam would be very similar to the tristar, just brighter.

 

[silent solutions]

Here is a link to the retail prices for green force in oz dollars.
http://www.divetekoz.com/Green Force 2009 Retail Price List.pdf
About $780 for the quadstar p4 head.

 

[silent solutions]

The a12 battery pack when charged seems to sit around the 12.8v

 

[Packhorse]

Wow. The STD 12 is quite a bargain. I reckon my quad aspheric set up would fit in there as it appears to be a MR16 sized head.

Anyway... your light is now under the control of NZ Post. Let me know when you get it!

 

[Goldigger]

Wow. The STD 12 is quite a bargain. I reckon my quad aspheric set up would fit in there as it appears to be a MR16 sized head.

Anyway... your light is now under the control of NZ Post. Let me know when you get it!

The standard 12 uses one of them 2 pin bulbs, it has a seperate reflector.
but you can also pull all that out and use a mr16. Bit tight i think.
I did have the measurements for inside the new tristar P4 head which is bigger than the standard 12. I think it was only 37mm untill the head starts to shamfer down to the thread that screws into the battery.
Standard head retails for arounf £70 in the uk..

 

[Packhorse]

MR 16 is 50mm. You may be thinking or MR11 which is 35m.

The Pro Light IRC should be about 50mm ID I think.

I have another customer who wants a total can light system built and I think using a GF head with custom LEDs. GF umbilical and custom battery pack and cannister could be a good way to go. This will allow switching from the light head.

 

[Goldigger]

Greenforce dont use MR11... so nope im not thinking MR11.

This should give you a good idea of how much space you have to work with.
PRO Head IRC
Diameter 70mm - length 95mm

 

[Packhorse]

Yeah that looks like a MR16 bulb. and 70mm OD sounds right.

The STD12 has an OD of 55mm so 15mm less than the Pro. MR11 is 15mm less than MR16. Not to say they use MR11 bulbs but the reflector could very well be the same size.

 

[Goldigger]

What do you think you can squeeze in the IRC head? You only have about 45mm inside diameter to play with.. i doubt your quad R2 setup will fit.

 

[Packhorse]

Where did you get 45mm from?
As I said before "looks" like a MR16 bulb is used which is 50mm. A MR 16 just fits in a maglite. Done plenty of quad aspherics in mags.

This pic above uses a set up that is bigger than MR16. In fact this will fit 5 aspheric XR-Es. It does not look like it as the orange spacers and aspheric lenses are not machined down at all as they are in the Maglite heads.

If you are right and the ID is 45mm I can simply bore it out to 48mm (ID of mag off the top of my head). Looks like there is plenty of wall thickness.

 

[Goldigger]

I think you have misunderstood me.. We have already agreed it uses a MR16 which are 50mm in diameter... moving on
Maybe this pic explains the 45mm

 

[silent solutions]

If you can fit the asperhic set up in a std 12 count me in for one.

 

[Packhorse]

Yes I get that. I just wondered if you have measured one of these or are you just estimating the diameter?
A Mag light has a similar internal design where the MR16 sits on a lip. The Greenforce pro head does look a little tighter but if it is too tight there also seems to have enough wall thickness to machine it out a little.

It would be good to get some exact measurements before ordering one.

The GF STD 12 head is too small for a quad aspheric set up. Although it will take a P7 or MC-E 700-900 lumen LED. Done 3 conversions from 10wHID's with that internal sized head. They were a huge improvement.

 

[DM51]

This is an excellent thread - makes great reading. This is what CPF is about!

 

[Goldigger]

Packhorse,
You got me thinking now..we know that a mr16 is 38mm deep excluding the pins.
I knocked up this which comes within the 38mm , it uses a fraen frc reflector which is roughly the size of a mr11. I used the idea of using a MCE which is wired in series so it would need 13.2volts @700mah hence the maxflex driver.
At least this way if you already have a greenforce 12v battery you can keep it at 12v and still use the other heads you may own.
Wasnt to sure on the heatsinking for the maxflex driver, what do you think? stick it on the back of the 10mm ali heatsink, hopefully enough heat will be absorbed by the casing?
Could even use an ostar..

 

[Packhorse]

Im sure that would work great. As long as you can get the heat sink the same diameter as the heads ID you should get good heat transfer.

 

[kallehornstrom]

Do you think it would be possible to squeeze 2 or even 3 p7's into a pro head using the flexi II as power source or would the burn time be too short?

 

[Goldigger]

Do you think it would be possible to squeeze 2 or even 3 p7's into a pro head using the flexi II as power source or would the burn time be too short?

Which reflectors/optics was you thinking of using? The only ones i know of that might be small enough are the ledil booms, i have 3 of the spot ones and i can confirm they are to floody.

Personally i dont think you can do it, ledil booms 15mm deep, heat sink 10mm then you need to squeeze a driver in there, although you could direct drive of the 12v f2 battery pack.

Burn time wont be long either... 2.8amps from a 4500mah battery..

 

[kallehornstrom]

Yea I guess the short burn time would not do. I doing this mod along with a friend and we figured we need to aim for a min. 1,5h burn time at full blast. Even one p7 could not be driven that long on that battery right?
So in order to beat the output of the current 35w mr16 what setup should we go for?
I'm a newbie when it comes to LED's and trying to read as much can but ultimately I think some concrete advise will be necessary - there's a jungle out there.