PT Apex mod?

[cbubu]

Just modded my APEX :

keep a nice throw and win a nice spill :twothumbs

Regards,

 

[NoFair]

Just modded my APEX :

keep a nice throw and win a nice spill :twothumbs

Regards,

Very nice!

Any trouble getting the reflector to fit?

Sverre

 

[cbubu]

@NoFair,
the McR 18mm is a little too short so I glue some O-rings to make it touch the lens and then stay in position :

A McR 20mm (about 14mm long) should be a better choice.
Regards,

 

[NoFair]

Very nice!

Thanks for posting the pictures. Might have to put a new reflector in one of mine now

 

[Avatar28]

Did the mod yesterday. I probably should have taken pics but I didn't think about it. The upgrade really was simple. I can't say that the connection of the wires to the leads is the absolute best solder joint I've ever done, but it seemed secure enough and I was afraid of cooking the LED since my soldering iron is a bit on the hot side. If my helping hands device from radio shack wasn't broken, I would have held a piece of metal against the back for heat sinking and it wouldn't have concerned me as much.

Anyways, other than blinding myself when I tested the LED and cracking the orange part of the case slightly due to a bonehead mistake, it went well. The crack happened because I got in a hurry to finish up and forgot to put the protective plastic back over the heatsink before trying to screw it in and then forced the screw in too far. It's not bad, though, and nothing a tiny smear of silicone won't take care of.

Thanks for the clear instructions. I used a neutral white bin P4 and a 20mm reflector. The reflector proved to be too large and I had to take some of it off. I found that a dremel grinding wheel running on it's lowest speed (5000 rpm) worked fairly well for doing that. it's not perfectly even but it was close enough. Beam is now VERY floody. Almost no discernable hot spot at all. I have a feeling that I am not going to have any need for FastCar's diffuser material after all.

 

[cbubu]

I replaced the McR 18mm reflector by a McR 20 mm. No more need of O-rings but I had to short the McR 20 : about 0.5mm

Here are the beamshots:

Just happy with this mod
@ Avatar28 : if you have a look at the first picture, you will understand that you are not the only one who craks the case ... ;-)

 

[greenLED]

nice, cbubu. How much of a gap is left around the McR20 after the mod compared to this pic posted before:

 

[cbubu]

@greenLED : just no gap the reflector completely fills the lens

Regards,

 

[greenLED]

Suh-WEET!!

OK, now I'm sold on this mod.

:thanks:

 

[greenLED]

I forgot to ask, did you shim the P4 emitter? and/or did you sand a bit off the base of the McR20 to achieve proper focus? Did you then sand of the top of the reflector to make the whole thing fit?

:thanks:

 

[cbubu]

The SSCP4 is directly glued to the metal heatsink with thermal epoxy. The reflector is a McR20Seoul so you don't have to sand the base to get a proper focus : I sand the top of the reflector to short it of 0.5 mm.
Regards,

 

[greenLED]

Ah, cool! I have a regular McR20 en route, so I guess I'll have to modify both ends.

 

[Avatar28]

When I did my mod, I just used a dab of Arctic Silver 5 between the base of the emitter and the heatsink. It was a really tight fit to get it back into the frame (I had tried to cut the black frame out but my snips were too big so I elected to just leave it. The damage I did to the plastic made it a tighter fit than it otherwise would have been though. I think that I had been able to do so the reflector probably would have fit vertically but he frame holds the LED firmly so I'm okay with it the way it is. I did not sand anything off the bottom of the reflector, but I had to lose a good couple of mm off the top of it to get it to fit back in there. The lens presses against it tightly so it's a good fit and doesn't move at all. I get even less of a spot than the beamshots that were posted.

I don't really have a white wall to use, so a gray one will have to do I'm afraid. Actually, in retrospect I could have used the front wall of the house but it's too cold to go back out there at the moment. So gray it is. Pics were taken at ISO200, 1/30th sec exposure at F2.8. Wall was about 6-8 feet away (I'm terrible with estimating distance, sorry).

First the Apex. Even though you can see something of a spot in the picture, it's rather less noticable in real world usage.

Now for comparison, my P3D Rebel on turbo at the same settings.

And finally, the business end of the light. You can see the black plastic of the reflector where I sanded it away. You'll also note that it's not perfectly centered. What can I say, it's hard to hand-hold that reflector against the dremel wheel to sand it down and get it perfectly straight.

The pics really don't do it justice, it really DOES put off a lot more light. I had ordered some of FastCar's diffuser material to go on the light to diffuse it but I'm not sure I'm going to really need it since it's so diffuse now. I'm really not sure why mine came out so much more diffuse than cbubus did. He also did a lot better job with the mod overall I have to say. But I was rather in something of a hurry and I'm happy with the results and that's what counts, right?

 

[cbubu]

@ greenLED : when I saw the last picture of Avatar28 I just remembered that I put a small black O-ring on the top of the reflector, this is why no gap appears on my mod ... just forgot this O-ring :-(
@ Avatar28 : to sand the reflector I used a small drill with an abrasive disc using it with axial push (finger):

Regards,

 

[Avatar28]

You know, i could have used a cut-off wheel with my Dremel that way if I had thought about it. Although I think I dropped the screw that holds it in place so that might not have worked anyways now that I think about it. That's actually a much better idea, I wish you had said something about that BEFORE I did my mod. Oh well, not that big of a deal. Maybe if I order any more LEDs from PhotonFanatic I'll get another reflector and give it another go then. It works now, though, so I don't see a lot of point in messing with it.

 

[greenLED]

:thanks: cbubu. I have the emitter now, but haven't had the time to gut the light yet.

As an aside, modding a reflector using sandpaper is a much, much cleaner and easier process to control than with a Dremel. You start with a medium grit and work your way down to finer grit papers. This works well with plastic or metal reflectors.

 

[Avatar28]

:thanks: cbubu. I have the emitter now, but haven't had the time to gut the light yet.

As an aside, modding a reflector using sandpaper is a much, much cleaner and easier process to control than with a Dremel. You start with a medium grit and work your way down to finer grit papers. This works well with plastic or metal reflectors.

That only works if you have sandpaper handy, which I didn't. In any case, using the flat of one of the cutoff wheels would probably give similar results in MUCH less time.

 

[mds82]

I just got my PT Apex in the mail today, and it didnt last more then 5 minutes without me modifying it

Got this headlight because i knew off the bat that would be great to mod and look great. I used the Seoul P4, i forgot the exact bin number, but it was rated at 7000k - 8000k. ( i had some left over from some automotive things i built)

The Mod was very simple and took me 20 minutes Max. Install was easy - didnt need to modify the reflector, just Open it up, remove the Lux III LED which was held in by pressure and thermal paste. Unsoldered it, soldered the Seoul P4, bent the tabs up just a bit as to not short it out. Put some thermal paste back in there, pushed it into place, and put it back together.

The color is perfect i think - its a very cool white.

The 4 small LED's appear to be VERY Blue at the center, almost like a solid color blue, with a white spill. Its kind of odd, but i can deal with it.

 

[Dan_GSR]

i finished doing this mod today using a

McR-20 Seoul reflector and Seoul P4 USWOH
the output is impressive
and the beam shape is much better than stock
has good throw, and decent spill

thanks to all who helped make this possible

 

[Yucca Patrol]

I just did this mod with one of my Apex lights. I'll do the other one tonight after I compare the two in my backyard. Since this was my first time doing something like this, I kept the stock optics in place.

The beam looks very nice so I'll probably just leave it as it is.