KX9-A tear down and mod!

foxtrot824

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The 02135!
KX9-A tear down and XHP35 HI mod, lots of pictures

The KX9-A LED conversion head is an older and under performing unit that I haven't seen around much. After seeing it surface on eBay I decided to pick one up and modify it, being an M series head it is large so it has plenty of space and mass for heat sinking.

Since the light was born with an XM-L emitter I'm tempted to stick with something like an XHP-50 so I can use the same optic (more or less), but before we being all that work let's establish a baseline. The stock CCT was just terrible, very green. Measured about 480 lumens running off of two 17500s. (which is about right since there wasn't a correction factor applied and was measured in a very large sphere). The CRI was 67 somehow, just sooooo green.



The before the modding pictures, such a large light compared to E and P series lights.









See how green the KX9-A looks compared to the 6p that has a Tana triple putting out a perfect 4900K on the line white




As I open up the head I'll post pictures, I'm still looking for a host to put this on so if anyone is looking to get rid of a two cell host let me know, Thanks.
 
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m4a1usr

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Sounds like an interesting mod. Footprints are the same. The only questions I have might be the performance due to the slight variances in the dome geometry and the XHP being a 4 die LED. However using the TIR optics neither might be an issue. Have you decided on what driver strikes your fancy?
 

foxtrot824

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The 02135!
I figured getting the XHP to look good under that optic might be a long shot, on the plus side SF usually puts in a diffusion film to smooth out little things. If it looks bad I'll just end up going reflector and maybe something bigger for light source. As for drivers I ordered a buck driver from Mountain Electronics for my other KX9 build so I'll see how that performs and go from there.

Sounds like an interesting mod. Footprints are the same. The only questions I have might be the performance due to the slight variances in the dome geometry and the XHP being a 4 die LED. However using the TIR optics neither might be an issue. Have you decided on what driver strikes your fancy?
 

foxtrot824

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The 02135!
Getting the head open wasn't so bad, just plenty of heat.

Massive TIR in that head, the back side will come apart next with a little more heat.





 

foxtrot824

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The 02135!
Finally finished this project! Upgraded the emitter to an XHP-35 HI ~5500K for a narrow beam, the driver was replaced with Mountain Electronics buck driver. Because of the 12v Vf of the LED I had to go with a 4s lithium setup. The body has been bored to accept 18mm cells and the tail cap is a SF XM00, I felt it looked better with a larger tail cap on account of the over all large size of the light. On high it puts out 750 lumens, a step up from the stock 500 but more importantly the color quality is much better than the stock XM-L 1 emitter.

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