# Introducing the Milkyspit L1cx2 "Legolas"



## Crenshaw (Aug 3, 2008)

*Introducing the Milkyspit L1cx2 "Legolas" *ITS BACK! IMPROVED!**

New Info!

after my damaging the original LED, i sent back the head to Scott, with the request of putting in a Q35A.

its pretty much identical...except for the oh-so-warm beam


















Quark 123 Tactical Neutral White Turbo on left, Legolas Q35A on right











Malkoff M60 on left, Legolas Q35A on right
















This thing is BRIGHT



*Original Post*

I requested a pocket thrower from milky, in an L1 format. Two Damaged L1 bodies, later...











This monster of a light:

CreeXRE Focusable TIR 150ohmTail Acorn 1.3 ('C-Crenshaw' Firmware) Optimised for 17500 rechargable

If you are observant, you will notice that its pretty much a Creemator head. :devil:






yep, thats a KX2 head.

The body of the L1 has be bored out. Meaning the top is now empty, its just a hollow tube.











and man can this light go low...






The UI of the light works like this.

Single mode Creemator with 1.3A drive level. 303lumens.
ML1cx2 vs Malkof M60





ill take some low exposure shots later..

Because of the Tail cap, you immediatly gain an extra, low level, such as in the regular L1

Arc-DS ML1cs2 Low (150ohm Tail)





and then, there is the Miser Mode :devil:
Which is activated by Momentary-on 40+ times in quick succession.
Miser decreases the Light output but percieved Half, while increasing run time but correspondingly more.

ML1cx2 Miser High vs Malkoff M60





And because of the Miser, you get the Bonus of an even LOWER low...






What more could one ask for in a small light?

many thanks to Milkyspit for this excellent light. it took awhile to get exactly right, but i think the result speaks for itself. 

btw, anyone want to buy my older ML1 PM me, i might be willing to sell it now that ive got this baby.

Crenshaw


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## tx101 (Aug 3, 2008)

Very nice light Crenshaw .... waiting for my own mod from Milky as well


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## Metatron (Aug 3, 2008)

great stuff Crenshaw, yup it takes a genius like milky to turn a SF into a torch


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## jumpstat (Aug 3, 2008)

Thats one cool Milky! Congrats..


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## Flashlight Aficionado (Aug 3, 2008)

Crenshaw - Any outdoor beamshots to show how good a thrower that little guy is? If he _really_ throws good, I will be sorely tempted to buy one. An easily EDC thrower, :naughty:


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## Crenshaw (Aug 3, 2008)

well, its no Tiablo or Dereelight. But it does have a heck of alot of throw for a small light. milky quoted me 10,000 lux at 1 meter. I got that once, but some how keep missing it on my lux meter. I think it might be my batteries. I dont have 17500s yet, so im running 14500s, maybe they cant handle the current draw. Ill see what i can do about outdoor beamshots, although i will tell you that theres so much light pollution round here....it wont be easy..

Crenshaw


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## m16a (Aug 3, 2008)

Thats real nice how much did that bad boy cost you?


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## KeyGrip (Aug 3, 2008)

How do you get out of miser mode? 40 more taps?


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## Crenshaw (Aug 4, 2008)

yup, 40 more taps to get out of miser.

how much did that cost...uhhhh...lol....it was more then my previous one...

in excess of $300 im guessing, not much excess though

Crenshaw


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## jchoo (Aug 4, 2008)

Nice! I hadn't realized that the e-series heads threaded onto an L1 body. Oh, the possibilities!


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## Blindasabat (Aug 4, 2008)

But they do not work on the L1 without modification. 



jchoo said:


> Nice! I hadn't realized that the e-series heads threaded onto an L1 body. Oh, the possibilities!


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## jchoo (Aug 4, 2008)

Blindasabat said:


> But they do not work on the L1 without modification.



Nod, I figured that part out... two driver boards and all... still one heck of a mod!


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## Blindasabat (Aug 4, 2008)

I agree, one awesome mod. I'd probably prefer to go somewhere in between a straight Creemator and the Legolas route, but I'm not sure wich way. I really like the L1 switch, so it may work well for me, but not sure how I'd do it yet. I direct drive most of my ML1 heads (including two with SSC and one U-bin Lux3 all modded by Scott) off single RCR123's, so I may just have to go that route. But I just got an Aleph 17500 body that I am using as well. I have been talking to Milky already, so we will see what I end up with. This is another good idea to ponder, though I already have an old L1 body bored and stroked by Milky to fit that 17500. 


jchoo said:


> Nod, I figured that part out... two driver boards and all... still one heck of a mod!


I know you knew that. I just didn't know if everyone knew that...


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## milkyspit (Aug 8, 2008)

Well, I'm sure late to the party here! Somehow I never noticed this thread until now, and no one happened to mention it, either. Sorry guys! 

Some quick mentions just to bare my soul on what was a terribly frustrating build with great results...

Crenshaw's $300+ price tag included what he paid for the parts themselves, which he sourced elsewhere. My part of the project was less expensive.

I did indeed damage not one but TWO L1 bodies, ironically ON MY LATHE, which was supposed to make the boring-out process BETTER!  Sourced the replacement parts myself, out of my own pocket, so Crenshaw would have a good piece. Unfortunately, this also put me in a hole over the entire project and caused some emotional scar tissue. 

The L1 tail came from the body Crenshaw had originally sent over. The minor scrape on the tail was already present.

The head differs from a standard Creemator in one additional respect that Crenshaw didn't mention: I had to replace the entire underside contact area... in addition to the issues some have already noted, there's not quite enough room for a 17500 cell lengthwise even after the body has been completely bored-out... I resolved the latter problem by pulling the positive contact further up into the head itself, to buy enough extra length in the body tube to accommodate the 17500 cell. I'd like to credit McGizmo and his now-obscure L1-PR-T builds from long ago with the inspiration to pursue this approach to fitting the battery.

I'm cropping and uploading some photos I'd taken prior to shipment, and will post them later this afternoon for folks to see.

BRB... :sweat:


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## milkyspit (Aug 8, 2008)

*[size=+1]Some Build Photos[/size]*

Crenshaw approached me in hopes of building a turbocharged L1 suitable for a variety of purposes, but chief among those being an ability to generate output comparable to that of the Creemator builds. Didn't seem realistic at first, but as the idea had time to gestate it became clearer how one might do this while also keeping the great things about the L1 platform: AWESOME tailswitch; immediate dual stage capability; high beam and full lockouts; great ergonomics come to mind. :naughty:






The above photo certainly looks like a stock SureFire L1 Cree! And that's the intent... but under the hood this little monster is somewhat different, heh heh. The label gives a hint...






I will admit that I'm a big fan of Lord Of The Rings in both book and movie form, as are my kids... and wanted to make this light a little special, so I imported a crude facsimile of the character Legolas from the movie, into the label. For those who don't know, Legolas is an elf with a certain elegance while also capable of serving up some serious, er, punishment when needed... and he has a particular proficiency in long-range archery with his bow. Since this light was among other things designed for both unusually high output for the L1 platform and an exceptional throw-to-size ratio, the name seemed appropriate.

One thing I did was move from the stock 123 cell to the larger, higher-capacity 17500 rechargeable... this allowed me to design the light to run higher output for longer, and since I stashed the circuitry itself in the head, there was really no penalty other than what admittedly turned out to be a LOT more labor and parts expense in getting the thing right.






At the business end of the light, I substituted a KX1 head for the stock L1 Cree head... other than being a minuscule bit longer, which in most cases is near-unnoticeable, the KX1 has exactly the same dimensions and styling as the stock head. Inside I shockmounted an Acorn 1.3 driver running custom firmware programmed for the project (it's a variation of the 'Bailey' firmware tailored to use on the L1 platform) plus custom-fabricated the battery contact points (more on that later). The head retained the SureFire TIR optic, albeit in focusable form, as that particular optic already does a great job with throw... the new focusability helps it do the job a little better.






The underside of the head needed new battery contact points to give the 17500 cell more depth in the body... for this I fabricated a flat contact board, with the negative outer ring in the usual place but the positive connection at the same depth in the head, no longer on a post as the stock positive contact had been... this in turn gave the battery upwards of 1/4 inch greater depth, enabling it to fit the body without need for any sort of extender.






How did the light turn out? Pretty well, if I dare say so. The beam profile shows the narrow-angle throw goal seemingly achieved, plus demonstrates a surprising amount of residual spill from such a narrow-angle optic...






Compared Legolas to a 303-lumen Creemator here in the Milky Labs. Distance to the far wall is perhaps 20 feet, and note there was already a decent amount of ambient light in the room. Still, the comparisons show Legolas' performance accurately... look in particular at how low beam is visible in the retroreflective roadside warning beacon toward the right of the visible area... also note how similar the beam is to the Creemator itself, both in pattern and output. In truth, Legolas on a fresh 17500 cell may be marginally brighter.






Same comparison as above, but this time looking into the basement. There was little to no ambient light for these photos, so all the light you see comes from the test subjects themselves. Tint as shown in the photo is pretty realistic, at least as it appears on my computer monitor. YMMV.






The final couple photos highlight Legolas' color rendering properties, which are pretty decent! The emitter in this build is NOT one of the high-CRI variety, but IMHO it still does a good job. These photos also give a sense of using the light in real world scenarios, showing both the hotspot and sidespill the light produces. Remember, Legolas is providing ALL the light seen in these photos.






All in all, this was a satisfying build. My own enthusiasm was dampened by my wanton destruction of some expensive parts, but somehow the finished product still managed to put a smile on my face. I sincerely hope the same was true for Crenshaw! Thanks for reading, everybody. :bow:


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## Crenshaw (Sep 16, 2008)

wow, i had not realised milky replied in this. Thanks for all the extra details!


i know im really happy with it. The only time i dont carry it is when im going somewhere im afraid ill lose it. 

Crenshaw


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## KDOG3 (Sep 16, 2008)

That is just plain sick. Now you got me scratching my head....


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## mudman cj (Feb 25, 2009)

Crenshaw - that is a unique and fantastic light! I would love to see beamshots with the LED defocused to different degrees.


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## Blindasabat (Feb 25, 2009)

Search for Milky's thread on the Creemator If I remember correctly, he did de-focused beam shots.


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## Crenshaw (Feb 26, 2009)

hmmm, i might do that if i get a chance.

Oddly, fully tightened, it isnt one tight hotspot, its still a smaller hotspot with spill..etc...unlike what you typically find in Surefire LED TIR lights.

Crenshaw


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## Blindasabat (Feb 26, 2009)

Crenshaw, are you still enjoying this light?


Crenshaw said:


> ...
> Oddly, fully tightened, it isnt one tight hotspot, its still a smaller hotspot with spill..etc...unlike what you typically find in Surefire LED TIR lights.
> 
> Crenshaw


I have a KX1 that came to me unglued from the factory, so I have played with the focus too. Fully tightened mine is just past tightest focus & has some spill. Just short of tightened it has the most throw. This is is likely what SF was going for because they appear to have the 'room' in the threads to focus it before the epoxy dries, then let it dry and stay focused.

Milky stated in another Creemator thread that he could change the optic height for best focus when fully tightened.

I tried to search for the pictures, but I can't view photo host site pictures from this computer (work) so I can't identify them.


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## milkyspit (Feb 26, 2009)

Blindasabat said:


> Crenshaw, are you still enjoying this light?
> I have a KX1 that came to me unglued from the factory, so I have played with the focus too. Fully tightened mine is just past tightest focus & has some spill. Just short of tightened it has the most throw. This is is likely what SF was going for because they appear to have the 'room' in the threads to focus it before the epoxy dries, then let it dry and stay focused.
> 
> Milky stated in another Creemator thread that he could change the optic height for best focus when fully tightened.
> ...




I don't recall which thread had those photos, either!  But I can say the focus isn't full flood to full throw, but rather allows for fine tuning of what is basically a throwy beam. It can be focused down to a narrow, mostly spot beam... or defocused enough to make a more classical beam consisting of a moderate hotspot plus modest amount of sidespill... can even be defocused right to the brink of losing an excessive amount of photons, where (right on that edge of things) the beam becomes a much larger but proportionally less intense spot. The fine tuning also allows focus to be optimized for a particular distance, so the beam converges at the desired range; and/or to tune out various artifacts for overall a cleaner beam. The top part of the head can also be unscrewed completely for temporary use of the light as a pure, mule-style flooder. IMHO the range of functionality, while not perfect, is still pretty handy.


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## Crenshaw (Feb 26, 2009)

milkyspit said:


> I don't recall which thread had those photos, either!  But I can say the focus isn't full flood to full throw, but rather allows for fine tuning of what is basically a throwy beam. It can be focused down to a narrow, mostly spot beam... or defocused enough to make a more classical beam consisting of a moderate hotspot plus modest amount of sidespill... can even be defocused right to the brink of losing an excessive amount of photons, where (right on that edge of things) the beam becomes a much larger but proportionally less intense spot. The fine tuning also allows focus to be optimized for a particular distance, so the beam converges at the desired range; and/or to tune out various artifacts for overall a cleaner beam. The top part of the head can also be unscrewed completely for temporary use of the light as a pure, mule-style flooder. IMHO the range of functionality, while not perfect, is still pretty handy.



+1
yup, im still enjoying it, its still in my bag everyday, and in my pocket when im not carying a bag. The ease of a Low mode with a soft press, and a higher mode just a harder press away.....its really its really why People buy the L series in the first place, coupled with the lower low, and powerful high, its still a great light that i think will only become outdated when Emitters jump in efficiency. Or else, in terms of aesthetics, perhaps when the new LX1 comes out, i may look into geting one of those done up..

Crenshaw


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## xcel730 (Feb 27, 2009)

Hey Crenshaw ... long time no talk :wave:

Is this your second ML1, or did you mod your old one?

I've disappeared from CPF ever since I got my Milky modded L1 8 months ago, and it's still one of my favorite lights. I called Milky today and blamed him for my disappearance from CPF because he built such a great light for me. I also spoke with him to discuss about a unique Milky build :devil:. My ML1 is going to have a sibling .... well, more like a cousin.


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## black06 (Mar 2, 2009)

Milky, how do I contact you to discuss making one of these?


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## Crenshaw (Mar 2, 2009)

xcel730 said:


> Hey Crenshaw ... long time no talk :wave:
> 
> Is this your second ML1, or did you mod your old one?
> 
> I've disappeared from CPF ever since I got my Milky modded L1 8 months ago, and it's still one of my favorite lights. I called Milky today and blamed him for my disappearance from CPF because he built such a great light for me. I also spoke with him to discuss about a unique Milky build :devil:. My ML1 is going to have a sibling .... well, more like a cousin.



hey, yeah its been awhile....well this was my second L1..i bought it on bst and had it shipped directly to milky. i actually sold my ML1 after getting the legolas, i couldnt justify keeping both financially. cant wait to see what your new build will be. give us a peek? whats the host?

black06, email is usually the best way.. you gotta be patient though..he is a busy man..
you can also try to pm him over at market place..

Crenshaw


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## milkyspit (Mar 2, 2009)

black06 said:


> Milky, how do I contact you to discuss making one of these?



My PM inbox is often full lately, though you can try that. Or you could send me PM on CPF Marketplace. Or (maybe the best way) send me an email...







If you put "CPF" and your username somewhere in the subject line, it makes things much easier on my end. TIA!


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## black06 (Mar 2, 2009)

Crenshaw thanks.

Scott e-mail sent.


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## black06 (Mar 10, 2009)

Scott, have you had a chance to take a look @ my e-mail?


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## milkyspit (Mar 10, 2009)

Black, yes, and thought it best to call you. Will do so as soon as feasible.


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## black06 (Apr 10, 2009)

Scott, please give me an estimate of when you will be able to talk/work on this light.

I have a base L1 already.

Thanks


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## milkyspit (Apr 30, 2009)

black06 said:


> Scott, please give me an estimate of when you will be able to talk/work on this light.
> 
> I have a base L1 already.
> 
> Thanks




Black06, I tried to contact you at the phone number you provided but there was no answer. Please contact me at your convenience.

Crenshaw, I'm curious after you've had some time to use the light.. how is the firmware working for you?


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## Crenshaw (May 31, 2009)

Hi Scott, Sorry i didnt see the question earlier....

Its still one of my easiest to use lights...the firmare works fine, I hardly use the Miser mode actually as most of the time i have access to power, and am more in need to of a very bright light. I think the simplicity of the modes work very well for me. 

The one thing i am wondering about though, is why the optimum (meaning most hotspot, less spill) beam isnt when the optic is screwed all the way down? its not a problem, although i do remember Surefire optics being that way when thier locktited.

Crenshaw


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## milkyspit (May 31, 2009)

Crenshaw said:


> Hi Scott, Sorry i didnt see the question earlier....
> 
> Its still one of my easiest to use lights...the firmare works fine, I hardly use the Miser mode actually as most of the time i have access to power, and am more in need to of a very bright light. I think the simplicity of the modes work very well for me.
> 
> ...



Crenshaw, as far as I've been able to tell, SureFire designed their TIR optic and the head itself so tightest focus would happen somewhere close to, but not quite at the bottom of the threaded range. I suspect they did that so each head could be adjusted in the factory to optimal focus before the Loktite dried. Taking this approach allows for some variability from piece to piece without adversely impacting the beam.


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## Crenshaw (Jun 1, 2009)

milkyspit said:


> Crenshaw, as far as I've been able to tell, SureFire designed their TIR optic and the head itself so tightest focus would happen somewhere close to, but not quite at the bottom of the threaded range. I suspect they did that so each head could be adjusted in the factory to optimal focus before the Loktite dried. Taking this approach allows for some variability from piece to piece without adversely impacting the beam.


 
I see..okay that makes sense..thanks!

EDIT:

Scott! i just did somehting relaly stupid to the light....the LEDs dome came off, i sent you a pm about it....GAH  

Crenshaw


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## Buck-O (Aug 8, 2009)

Crenshaw said:


> I see..okay that makes sense..thanks!
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> ...


Crenshaw--
Just wondering what the fix was for the dome.


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## milkyspit (Aug 8, 2009)

Buck-O said:


> Crenshaw--
> Just wondering what the fix was for the dome.




I don't believe Crenshaw has fixed it yet, and his light has not reached me as of yet, though it is en route at the moment. When a Cree XR-E dome gets sheared off the emitter, in most cases there is no acceptable fix... could try epoxy and gently reattach but in most cases the output won't be the same as with a stock emitter... in many cases the emitter will no longer light at all!


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## Crenshaw (Aug 13, 2009)

The Legolas head has been shipped back to milky. Looking into fixing AND doing some small upgrades. watch this space!



Crenshaw


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## Crenshaw (Sep 30, 2009)

Its BACK :devil:






Its the same formula, but now with Q3 5A tint!











beamshots to come!

Crenshaw


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## nanotech17 (Oct 6, 2009)




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## Crenshaw (Oct 6, 2009)

whoops, forgot about those beamshots....here they are...

Quark 123 Tactical Neutral White Turbo on left, Legolas Q35A on right












Malkoff M60 on left, Legolas Q35A on right
















This thing is BRIGHT

ill try and find somewhere to do outdoor beamshots if possible

Crenshaw


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## nanotech17 (Oct 6, 2009)

it's bright .


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## napalm-2002 (Nov 1, 2009)

hey milky

what could you do with my e2? add an led and more than 2 brightness levels?

any ideas? 


mike


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