# Modding a D10 Tribute with a Nichia 219 HCRI emitter [pic heavy]



## calipsoii (Apr 18, 2012)

Hi CPF! :wave:

Like many of you, I just recently received my Nichia 219 HCRI emitters courtesy of arek98 over on CPF Marketplace. 

I decided to document my first mod with this emitter. If you decide to try something similiar, I take absolutely no responsibility if things go south. I will, however, take the credit if they go perfectly. :huh:

I know you're all here for the pictures, so let's get right into it, shall we?

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arek98 hit it big in the bin lottery and got sw45 emitters with the highest flux and lowest forward voltage






The LED's have a small black arrow on them that points to the cathode. We need to know which way to mount it on our MCPCB. Luckily, I have here a Nichia 219 (~3300k) that found himself in an experiment gone horribly wrong. Cathode goes to negative terminal. :devil:





And now for a 219 with it's jello fully intact





This'll be our test subject for this evening. Let's strip it down and get ready to operate.









Be careful prying out the brass ring - you don't want to damage any of the SMT components. Rotate it a bit so that you're prying onto bare PCB.





Very carefully work at it until the ring pops up





To unscrew the pill from the head, slip something (I used the ends of some forceps) into these 2 notches, then rotate









Pop the plastic centering device off the pill









The white stuff you see is thermal paste. It conducts the heat from your soldering iron down into the pill and just generally makes it hard to get the wires to detach. Keep at it and _be gentle_.









Remove the MCPCB from it's pill and clean it up a bit.









Time to remove the old LED! Apply a tiny blob of solder with your iron, then heat it until the LED desolders. Work quickly or you'll scorch a lot of things in this step.









Our solder pads are a bit grungy, let's see if we can clean them up a bit.





Apply a little flux to the pads to help our emitter reflow smoothly.





You'll see the LED slump onto the MCPCB and pull itself into place when you've applied enough heat. Don't burn the emitter accidentally!









Arctic Silver is popular in the computer world as a heat conductor between CPU's and their heatsinks. It'll have to do because it's all I have. Apply a little to the back of your MCPCB.





Time to reattach those wires! They need to lay fairly flat for the plastic retaining ring to sit on top of them.





It took me 10 minutes to figure out that the black tape in the middle of the centering ring was... off-center. So I removed it and reapplied it.









Reverse the process you used to remove the pill to put it back into the head. Very carefully replace the brass ring.





Admire your work!





Now that your mod is complete, let's take this baby for a spin!

D10 Cool White -- D10 219 -- Haiku 119 -- Cree 85CRI XPG





Control shot (flourescent lighting)





Cool White D10





85CRI Cree XP-G





Haiku HCRI Nichia 119





D10 HCRI Nichia 219





That's it, thanks for following along!


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## fisk-king (Apr 18, 2012)

very nice indeed. good work.


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## The_Driver (Apr 18, 2012)

Your'e the first to have done this, very nice 
I'm planning on putting one into my Armytek Predator when I get the emitters.


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## jabe1 (Apr 18, 2012)

Nice job!

I've ordered 3 of these, and the first is slated for my Quark AA Ti.


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## think2x (Apr 18, 2012)

VERY NICE! I think now I will definitely change my XP-G HCRI out to the Nichia in my V10R Ti mule.


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## CKOD (Apr 19, 2012)

High CRI, in a neutral CCT, in a XPG compatible package? I dont think my wallet is going to like this very much, but. Welp, time to start swapping those into everything with an XPG/E that I can tear apart and rip the pill out of.

Nice work


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## e1sbaer (Apr 20, 2012)

Nice tutorial. I have ordered a few nichia's to mod my D10 the way you did.


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## ackbar (Apr 26, 2012)

really tempted to try modding my Jhanko D10 again. I could never get used to the nasty green tint but could not for the life of me get the damn brass ring off.


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## e1sbaer (Apr 26, 2012)

ackbar said:


> really tempted to try modding my Jhanko D10 again. I could never get used to the nasty green tint but could not for the life of me get the damn brass ring off.


Carefully with a screwdriver.
Taking it apart is done. Now waiting for the led to arrive.


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## tobrien (Apr 29, 2012)

holy cow! so awesome! thank you for posting this guide


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## e1sbaer (May 14, 2012)

Received the 219 leds today and did the mod. The desoldering was the hardest part. The led wouldn't come off at first. The rest of the procedure gave no trouble. Running at high the head does get warm. Do you recognize that? (I might have applied a bit too much thermal paste).


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## calipsoii (May 14, 2012)

e1sbaer said:


> Received the 219 leds today and did the mod. The desoldering was the hardest part. The led wouldn't come off at first. The rest of the procedure gave no trouble. Running at high the head does get warm. Do you recognize that? (I might have applied a bit too much thermal paste).



Oh yeah, the D10 head gets quite hot a lot faster compared to the old XP-E that was in there before.

It's also a good deal brighter than the old emitter - I imagine the two are related. I couldn't tell you the reason why though. :thinking:


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## ^^Nova^^ (May 15, 2012)

Lower Vf of the Nichia emitter drawing more current?

Love the mod, this was one of the first mods I had done (neutral xp-g into EX10), love these lights.

Cheers,
Nova


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## fyrstormer (May 15, 2012)

I'm torn. On the one hand this would be a great mod for my Jetbeam TC-R2, but on the other hand I like the amount of output it has now. I guess I'll just have to wait until I can get >90CRI in a neutral-to-cool-white tint with >300lm of output.


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## eebowler (Jun 11, 2012)

Thank you for the beamshots! I actually think the hi CRI LED looks so much more WOW. Any comparison to a neutral type cree LED? Thanks!


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## calipsoii (Jun 11, 2012)

eebowler said:


> Thank you for the beamshots! I actually think the hi CRI LED looks so much more WOW. Any comparison to a neutral type cree LED? Thanks!



These were taken in my backyard in early spring.
The Quark is running on 1xAA (like the D10) and is from 47's first run with the neutral XP-E emitter.
The full set of beamshots is here.


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## Romanko (Aug 4, 2012)

Hi. Maybe you can help me. My Nitecore D10 has no centering disk for led. Where did you get your, because it fit xp-g?


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## eebowler (Dec 25, 2012)

calipsoii, i'm some MONTH late but, thank you for the pics!


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## ninemm (Apr 1, 2019)

Hopefully Mike doesn't mind me hijacking and bumping his 7 year old thread! Picked up two Nitecore D10s for old times sake but new I would want to modernize them. So began my process in researching how to upgrade the emitter. New to soldering but have access to a high quality setup. Just need to get a chisel tip for the iron. Placed an order with Mtn Electronics so I've got a Nichia 219C 4000k 90+ CRI and an XM-L HI 4000k en route. I'll update the post once everything comes in and with some progress pics. Hopefully sans ARGH WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?#@!86f*!^K&!


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## scintillator (Apr 1, 2019)

Cool,I will be watching.


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## ninemm (Apr 5, 2019)

scintillator said:


> Cool,I will be watching.



Thx scintillator!! 

Got one of the two SmartPD D10s I picked up open last night to have a look at things. Hopefully the new emitters will sit correctly on the stock board! Also jeeeez everything is so much tinier than I imagined hahah


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## light-modder (Apr 5, 2019)

A 219 won’t fit on the stock board unfortunately. You also may have to add a spacer under the new board to get the led focused in the reflector.


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## ninemm (Apr 5, 2019)

light-modder said:


> A 219 won’t fit on the stock board unfortunately. You also may have to add a spacer under the new board to get the led focused in the reflector.



I was wondering about focusing and the possible need to add a thin copper shim or some such. However, the OP in this case was able to swap a 219 with the stock emitter. However, he did have a Tribute version of the D10 as opposed to the original SmartPD version.


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## badtziscool (Apr 5, 2019)

The 219 won’t work on this version but if you have a D10 that uses the xpe led, then that should work since the led pad size is the same. So a tribute version, a d10 r2 “hybrid” version or the d10 sp r2 should work.


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## ninemm (Apr 5, 2019)

Hmm but I could just get a MCPCB that would work and use that? Something like this 10mm board from Mtn Electronics? 

http://www.mtnelectronics.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=63_65&product_id=436

Thanks for the help and tips guys! When I saw the board was different I had a little bit of pause haha


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## light-modder (Apr 5, 2019)

Yes that board should work, and a thin piece of copper under it is the right idea for a spacer to focus it. If you are able to measure the stock MCPCB then you may be able to get a bigger one that might help with centering.


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## calipsoii (Apr 6, 2019)

Oof, it came with an XR-E. Your mod just got slightly more involved. 



The pill screws all the way up to the base of the reflector, pinning it against the lens. Shimming *beneath* the MCPCB won't affect focus since either way the reflector is sitting directly on top of the MCPCB. To change focus you need to shim on *top* of the MCPCB, moving the reflector closer/further from the LED.
That silver disc around the XR-E was a built-in focus + centering mechanism. 3535 LED's like the N219 don't have any built-in mechanism like that, which is why the later D10's came with that white plastic disk. You'll need to fabricate some kind of shim that keeps the emitter in the center of the reflector hole. Otherwise when you run it for a while and it gets hot, the MCPCB will slide around on it's thermal paste and your LED won't stay in the middle of the reflector.

Something like this will get the LED centered and allow you to easily adjust focus by just sticking some tape on the bottom of the butterfly gasket. If you search for "XP-G centering gasket" you should be able to find a supplier. If it doesn't come with butterfly cutouts, make some with an X-Acto knife so that your wires have somewhere to go.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/XPE...lation-gasket-Butterfly-shape/1615398958.html


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## ninemm (Apr 6, 2019)

calipsoii said:


> Oof, it came with an XR-E. Your mod just got slightly more involved.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ugh ugh ugh haha Not a big deal but this will be my third small individual order from Mtn Electronics! They had two different types of XP centering/spacer rings. Ordered a handful and will fiddle with them to get a nice fit n focus. Thanks Mike!!


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## light-modder (Apr 7, 2019)

Oh man I’ve got quite a few I could have sent you a couple. Maybe next time.


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## ninemm (May 30, 2019)

Finally after quite awhile and many misordered parts and procrastinating I got around to modding my two D10s. The first one was around a week or two ago now and I put a V2 5D XPL HI in it. Overall it went pretty well minus getting the pill/spring/brass ring back inside afterwards. What a PITA! (Mainly because I forgot how it all went together because I'd taken it apart a few months previous haha). The XPL HI was a marked improvement in color and output. Super creamy rosy white...just amazing. Next we went to putting a 219C 4000K in the second one. This time I tried my hand at soldering...it went alright! A bit tougher in some ways but also not too bad. Reflowing the led is easy peasy by comparison. 

Pic of the XPL HI on right with the original emitter on left




Desoldered the leads and removed the old MCPCB (new 219C also pictured)




Solder paste applied to pads, LED aligned and test fit prior to reflow (not pictured small torch that we used to reflow)




Finished pill, LED reflowed, artic silver paste underneath, leads soldered to pads...man they were such short tiny wires! Dirty but got the job done. 




Finished installed! It is much better centered than seen...also since the board sits incredibly snugly within the pill and is contained by the wires, no issue at all with it moving even after prolonged use thus far


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## ninemm (May 30, 2019)

Thanks to Mike and everyone else that helped out! It was a fun project and honestly I am now looking for more hosts with leds to swap.. haha A bit addictive!


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## DHart (May 16, 2020)

ninemm said:


> Thanks to Mike and everyone else that helped out! It was a fun project and honestly I am now looking for more hosts with leds to swap.. haha A bit addictive!



Excellent info in this thread - thanks to all.

Following info here I just replaced the XR-E in my D10 R2 with a domeless XP-L HI V2 5A2, which came from Mtn Electronics on a 16mm diameter MCPCB. Fit like a glove. Well-centered. Wonderful floody, warmish beam. Major improvement over the cold, spot beam of the XR-E that I removed.


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