Now that the £10 AA Tesco Torch is down to £7.83 I bought another one. I was going to make up a small remote battery battery pack. Firstly I was going to cut them both down to around 3″ long , and retain the clicky switch, then solder onto the existing tabs a twin wire. To keep continuity some chemical metal glue sticking both halves togther.
For power 4 A cells 1.2V 4500mah paired up, so 2 batteries run each Led.
Runtimes should be 2 hours or so. Cost £26.80 excluding charger. Hopefully the battery will sit under the stem, its weighty as its NIMH at 250gms but the cable run will be minimal. Cells link here from Batteryspace $3.90
http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2260
Will be paired up with a Mte P7 on my head.
OK, so its not going to win in the lumen wars against Trouts cnc block light , but should be reliable and cheap way to 200 ish Lumens
Worth the effort? Or a waste of time, other ideas welcomed.

Twice the price but twice as easy and probably better quality of torch and of output: Fenix TK-11

It is the perfect helmet torch to go with a P7 – which is better on your bars than on your helmet (flood on bars, spot on helmet) IMO

If you do it, could you take some photos along the way?

I don’t have much skill with electrical stuff but this one sounds almost like a homebrew method I could actually do!

i did it with the deal extream ones (Q5, 240lumens) but they have a removable center section so no need for the cut and stick technique.

Just driled into the side of the shortened body (used a 1mm as a pilot then went crazy with a 2.5mm), fed wires through (salvaged from an old MG midgets wireing loom), soldered one end tot h back of the LED (DX ones are a CNC’d heatsink which threads int the body, with the LED circuit board mounted on the front and the +ve terminal on the back). Twisted and crimped the -ve wire to the spring. Re-assembled the two halves (add enough opposite twist befor hand to accound for the screwing together of the two halves.

et voila, 1 58g light unit. 2 of them mounted as far back on my helmet as possible is near unnoticable (mounting them further forewards seems to make them more pendulous). best bit has got to be the fact that the switch/regulators are all left intact so they function perfectly.

Got 2 more to play with at some point, would like to mod them to make the central spot beam a bit wider, anyone got any usefull advice for that?

The only downside of the DX lights is they have overheated and dimmed occasionaly, but that seemed to be only o the first ride, they havebeen finr since and withthe mods its never happened.

Light units weight 58g including a 2cm section of grip pushed over the hole to shield the wire from any wayward branches/rain.

don’t see why you’d bother modding a tesco when you could mod a P7 and have much more light for the same effort and only a minor cost difference.

Exactly what I fancy doing but with 3 NIMH batteries per torch to keep the voltage/lumins up or utilising a 7.2v R/C pack I have.
I have seen quite some variation in the beam shape with these. 1st one very tight, 2nd tight but with a nice corrona and 3rd one much more spread!
Which component/s cause the variation I don’t know,yet.

allyharp.- Yep will take photo’s along the way. If I can persuade someone more IT literate than me to help might even do it as a blog or photo sequential story.

Twice the price…

Ummm… several times the price..?!

OP stated the cost as £26.80. TK-11 is £52. Looks like twice the price to me 😉

(TK-11 has the same runtime and lumens as the mod he is thinking of doing to the Tescos specials)

Whoops – my bad! Thought he was comparing it to the Tesco one!

Muchos kissassiness.

LOL. That would be several times. Tescos torches are undoubted value but I’d pay the extra for the TK-11 just to avoid the DIY hassle or as someone else has already said, get another P7 and mod that. The TK-11 is a better head torch though – its spot is noticeable against the flood of a P7.

Tescos torches are undoubted value…

Indeed. Now that they’re cheaper still I’ll get another one (or two) for house, car, etc. It puts the weighty 6D cell Maglite I keep in the car to shame, certainly for light output, but then the reason I keep aforementioned Maglite in the car and close to hand isn’t for lighting purposes – if you catch my drift… 😉

🙂 I have the same torch for the same reason.

my adapted helmet ‘tesco torch’ now with quad Q5 led’s

Run through a 750mAh driver and powered by a smudge 15V 2.6Ah Li-ion battery

why not save the faffing about with a wonder torch ( yes I have one to good but not a patch on the P7) and just get another P7 or a MCE which apparantly has more of a spot to it, which I think would be better on yer bonce and the P7 on your bars for the flood

Heres my take on the same theme. 2x Tesco rear ends threaded on my lathe to fit front ends, switch internals removed & buttons epoxy glued in place ( makes wiring far easier), 4xAA holder from Maplins ( rewired to give 2.4v )useing Vapextech 2900 AA’s,battery sheath from innertube,remote switch useing one of the original switches in an old remote electric horn button bar mount, torch bar mount £2 from CRC flood sale. Can’t realy justify the time spent bulding it, but it’s far more satisfying than watching some of the cr4p on TV every eve.