Texas Poker by Photon Fanatic

[DBCstm]

Well poot! You were supposed to go on letting me believe it was something akin to witchcraft! Now you've done gone and spoiled it! lol

Still beautiful, however you went about it. For those of us without lathes and the mastery thereof, it's pure magic! I mean, come on, how the heck am I going to duplicate that with a cheap crappy table-top drill press and a broken planer blade?

Dale

 

[Mattaus]

Daily carry, both HF's on the keychain with a Ti pen and Ti pill fob of my own make.

Wow...do you sound like a walking piggy bank with all that on you lol?

 

[climberkid]

No, but I'll bet he looks like a piggy bank with all that value in his pockets.

 

[DBCstm]

What are y'all talking about? This was all free stuff! People like me, I can't help it if they want to give me things! It would be downright disprespectful to not carry all these gifts, now wouldn't it?

Oh, wait, it's me that likes me. Never mind.

Got tired of buying clothes and shoes for my wife so the closet could fill up, decided to do an about face for a little while.

Anybody want to see the latest change to the Texas Poker?

 

[DBCstm]

Tried an experiment, the hard way. Did some anodizing with a propane torch. Then some selective hand polishing and it's where it's gonna be for the duration. Also entombed the copper in ProtectaClear, so it should stay shiny and new for quite a while.


DBC_May 14, 2013_101628 by genie in a black box, on Flickr

DBC_May 14, 2013_101722 by genie in a black box, on Flickr

DBC_May 14, 2013_101751 by genie in a black box, on Flickr

DBC_May 14, 2013_101833 by genie in a black box, on Flickr

 

[tjswarbrick]

Lookin' good, DBC. Lookin' good.

 

[DBCstm]

Thanks TJ, next time I'll get pyramids or knurling or something. Aside from fingerprints, the shiny surface is difficult to grip on such a small light. lol

 

[Zandar]

Dale, I'm very impressed! It looks as if, your getting ready to give ukmidnite a run for his money! Are you planning on "treating" your now non-matching battery carrier as well? For me the copper heat sink/ design element really sets of your light.

 

[DBCstm]

Thanks Zandar, not competing with anybody as I certainly don't have the means. Did this with a propane torch, was kinda scary! Actually achieved the color I was aiming for, the tertiary color to copper on the color wheel. (yeah, it's a photography thang)

I'm also quite pleased with the heatsink, and it works beautifully. Heats up quickly so you know it's pulling heat as soon as it's being made....a good thing!

The Battery Bunker is on it's own, I applied ProtectaClear to the copper end but since it's gonna be on the keychain there's not much point in going for fancy color schemes or anything. ProtectaClear seems to be pretty dang tough, hope it holds up on the heatsink, doubt it will on the Battery Bunker. Oh well, it's all good! The copper plug is solid, been giving some thought to making it a hollowpoint for effect Be cool to pull off a Hydra-Shock look, whatdya think?

Very pleased, wear it daily, all day all night. Use it daily too, comes in very handy with a bright enough beam to even be useful in the daytime. Gotta love it when a plan comes together!

Dale

 

[DBCstm]

To address the question of noisy walking, I use a stainles steel pocket clip from TEC to allow the contents on my keychain to hang down into my pocket. The stuff isn't sitting down at the bottom. And as such, everything is surprisingly quiet. Well, now it is. I tried using a Delrin battery carrier from CountyComm and it's noisy! Never thought about that, so now the Battery Bunker has it all quiet again. As a photographer shooting weddings, that's a matter of key importance. I have to hurry around the altar, bending, squatting and generally very busy in a quiet formal environment. Can't have change in the pocket, but my keychain isn't a problem. If it were, I'd suspend it in my camera bag. At the end of the day, and many points in between, it's nice to have a small source of illumination to assist in putting all the equipment away...everything has it's slot don't ya know! Usually out in a parking lot at midnight doing this, so the light is a blessing.

I just ordered some Sugru to try out on various things. Will probably make a black Silicone sleeve for the Texas Poker such that I can slip it on to facilitate holding the small light in my mouth when doing equipment breakdown and packing. Will let ya know how that goes.

Dale

 

[climberkid]

I like the idea of modifying the battery carrier to emulate the hydra-shock. I carry those exclusively.

 

[nbp]

Whose Ti gate clips are those? They look very nice.

 

[DBCstm]

nbp, the more squared off ones are Maratacs, they have very strong steel gates. The more rounded ones are McGizmo and the gates are Ti as well. The Ti gate is considerably weaker, both a con and a pro at the same time. If you need to remove the item regularly the McGizmo is the way to go, but if you want it ultra secure the Maratacs are tough to open, quite strong!

 

[nbp]

Ahhh, good tips man! I was a bit unsure, as some looked like McG, but from other angles they looked square - two different ones, that explains it. Good to have a decent alternative as the Ti McG gates clips are getting harder and harder to find. I don't think Don is commissioning these sorts of hardware anymore unfortunately. :shakehead

 

[DBCstm]

That's unfortunate, as his are the only ones that fully anodize to match your Ti items. I have anodized the curb chain this light is on as well as the McGizmo gate clip to a dark gold color. The chain, it's kind a funny...I have a 1" diameter Ti bar that has 1/4" deep slots cut in it at 0,90, 180, and 270 positions. It's tapered on one end with a smaller threaded end coming off the taper. This was perfect for mounting in my cordless drill and wrapping the chain around to heat with a propane torch while spinning it to maintain a constant heat over the length of the chain. Or so I thought. Forgot about taking those slots into consideration! So where the chain crossed the slots it was in open air space and got hotter, making blue/purple 1/4" spaces in the necklace in intervals of about 3/4". At the end where I anchored the chain it was also away from the Ti bar and got a wider area of purple/blue/light blue about 3/4" wide in 2 places on opposite ends of the necklace. All in all it's a pretty neat effect. The McGizmo gate clip is uniformly gold, holding the Texas Poker. I had to smooth the radius on the curved portion to allow it to slide into the mount hold in the tail but that was fairly easy to do and it polished out nicely. The softer gate mechanism is much easier to disengage with a finger to remove the TP from my chain. Works great!

 

[DBCstm]

A little update, I'm finding the light to be indispensable. My wife had surgery a couple of months back and I stayed with her at the hospital. I was reading a book, but of course the lighting was horrible in the room and I wanted her to get some sleep, so I read by the low on the Texas Poker. Very nice for close-up lighting in this kind of situation! So dim it didn't bother her, and she's bothered by light at night very easily! I literally read several hours with it, and it didn't put a dent in the battery level, low is Very low!

I'd been sort of worried when the PICcolo didn't work out, really thought I'd need that 1.2A. Well, glad I don't have that power level now! Hi, at some .80A is too bright for a lot of things and I seldom use it. lol

As in photography, the world of flashlights involves trade-offs and compromises. Ask Leatherman tool company about that one. lol But sometimes it's difficult to decide exactly which way to go, with a lens or with a light. Matt was some put out when the PICcolo didn't work out. As was I. In the end, Matt sent me some of the drivers in order for me to play with, and perhaps get working to my satisfaction. Well, indeed the mode changes are somewhat odd. As are they on the mini FluPIC. Come to find out, in conjunction with an Efest IMR10440 battery the PICcolo only pushes about .80A instead of the 1.2A we were at first expecting. So, after much debate on User Interface and functionality, I put the PICcolo in the Texas Poker. I made a solid copper button to solder onto it for the battery contact, with the Lee plastic spring holding the cell back to break connection. So the Texas Poker has the driver that was made for it, and has Fred's name on the board as well. A bit odd in mode changes, but so was the miniFluPIC. I'll take the trade-off.

Oddly enough, it has 4 modes instead of 3. Matt is perplexed, but there it is. A VERY low Lo, and 3 steps up from that to a very nice Hi. With memory.

Still use it daily, love it even more! Suits me, as I can be a bit wonky my own self...

 

[climberkid]

What makes the PICcolo so strange for mode switching? Do you have a comparison video or anything from the FluPIC vs PICcolo? always interested in your minute details you know.

 

[DBCstm]

The FluPIC had 5 modes. Lo, Med, Hi, blank, set for med. So if you were using Hi and wanted to go to lo you had to skip a dark mode, then skip the set mode, to get to lo. That dark blank mode was always messing me up! In any of the other modes, the light would flash at just under one second to indicate that mode had been stored in memory. The PICcolo has an odd flash of Hi at the onset of any mode, whether you're turning it on in Lo from memory (flash hi) or using Hi, there is no flash on Hi. So that very brief flash of bright light when you want lo is kind of messed up too. But I prefer it over the blank mode and having to skip the set mode. In the FluPICs 5th set mode, I was forever entering into it and messing up the 40% that I liked for a Med. (it had 10 levels at 10% steps, roughly) With the PICcolo, lo is very very dim, excellent for midnight situations (once you get past that hi flash, it's very very brief, I've learned to fist the light while turning it on then expose the level) the second mode is not much brighter than the dim moon low but it is a bit brighter. Then a nice medium and the .80A Hi. Hope I've described that well. lol Here's an animated GIF to show the modes, I had to set the camera to catch the moon mode but also not blow out the high, so you'll have to look hard to see the ultra low mode!
Texas-Poker-PICcolo-4-Modes-sm-sq by genie in a black box, on Flickr

 

[climberkid]

It's such beautiful light.

I think it's silly that for an on the spot programmable driver tout can't turn off the programming mode...

I understand that the size was the restrictive factor in this project so I guess it's pretty incredible for what you ended up with anyway.

 

[DBCstm]

I Love It! Fred did a fantastic job with it. As I've learned of late, what good is immense output if you can't use it? A few seconds and it burns you, that's not good for anything but showing off. When you're looking for something in the dark, a few seconds seldom gets the job done.