Thanks to a fellow CPF'r I finally got my hands on a 5W LS- a V3T at that . A few weeks ago, I bought my first new Surefire in many years- an E2e. Love the styling, except for the, well, you know . Try to picture it in matching or mismatching HA, which it will become after I finish a couple other projects to warrant the $50 Lot minimum charge my anodizer gets me:

I started by breadboarding the Star and a BB750 board from Wayne Y. According to my Fluke, it drew .95A. Next came a 30mm optic from Wayne J, which I turned to .905" dia. and shortened to .425." The beam had a "squareish" corona, but the outer ring artifacts went by by. It was also a very bright white .

As thermal management was going to be a big issue, I filed a small aluminum sink to sit on the IC and diode that came to the same height as the inductor on the BadBoy and thermal-epoxied it down. Got some copper bar for the main sink and cut a pocket for the LS and a counterbore for the BadBoy. I lapped the bottom of the emitter and Arctic Alumina-epoxied it down. I also completely potted the BadBoy into the counterbore. (That was after determining its polarity. The sink assembly weighs 33.3g- that's over an ounce of copper.

The front O-ring is from a m*ni m*g (not a standard dash #) In fact, the lens bezel is almost a clone. Bezel and body are 7075 T6. Lens is glass from Otto Frei. The sink is a light press fit into the body. The bezel will be sealed to the body with RTV.

I rubber-banded a thermocouple to the head, put in a new set of SF123s, twisted the tail cap and started the stopwatch. Beginning ambient was 74degF. After 5 minutes was up to 101deg. At 10 min, was 119deg and it felt kinda hot so I shut it down.

My first attempt at a beamshot. I unconverted my ancient 9p (converted from a 6R/6P) back to a 6P and put in fresh SF123s.

This is from 5 feet and the 6P beam looked orange in comparison

This puppy is definately a keeper!

Larry