How to: Recon light to laser !

DISCLAIMER - I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY IF YOU, OR YOUR MATE, OR YOUR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR, OR WHOEVER SHINES THIS IN THEIR EYE AND BLINDS THEMSELF OR ANYONE AROUND THEM - MOD AT YOUR OWN RISK

DISCLAIMER - SOLDERING IRONS CAN GET EXTREMELY HOT. DO NOT TOUCH THE SOLDERING IRON WHILE IT IS CONNECTED TO THE POWER OR FOR AT LEAST 30 MINUTES AFTERWARDS AS IT GETS EXTREMELY HOT AND REMAINS HOT AFTER THE POWER IS UNPLUGGED. SOLDER AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Thanks to whichgrep for assistance, ideas and use of equipment (soldering iron)

MATERIALS: 1 Recon Light (Obviously)
1 Laser Module (Jaycar has them)
1 Soldering Iron (Not consumed)
Solder
Safety glasses (Optional but EXTREMELY recommended. Kmart has them for about $7. I use the same pair for eye protection at wars) (Not consumed)
Some random wires - whatever you can dig up.

Well, lets get started.

First, take your recon light apart. The battery case should be off, then take 5 screws out. Be careful when you take it apart - the side with the screw holes in it is the side that everything mounts to. Caught me off guard the first time.

Your internals should look like this:

Picture shamelessly stolen from elsewhere. AKA I forgot to take internals pictures beforehand.

Undo those screws you see in the top right.

Take the piece out - lense, orange bit, grey bit and black bit.
On the back of the black bit, there are two tiny screws. Remove these. Save them for later. Take out the circuit board and cut off the wires leading into it. Chuck this circuit board away - we have no use for it.

Strip the ends of the wires leading out of the battery case. Now grab that wire that you found lying around and strip it for a length of 5cm. Wrap this length around the casing of the laser module - that is, the gold-looking bit. Wrap it around the small screws, too. Screw those screws back in to the grey bit were they were before - without their circuit board. Solder the positive wire to the random wire you found lying around. Solder the negative wire (the black one) to the laser's circuit board as shown below.

Random burn marks on the scrap newspaper? Yes please.

GETTING AROUND THE BUTTON ON THE CIRCUIT BOARD.

Through a bit of experimentation, I found out which contacts to short.

The image is a bit blurry but you can see it all right.
Solder the contacts together - the big blob below the button is the one I'm talking about. Also see the handy negative wire.

INSULATE ANY EXPOSED WIRES. DUCT TAPE OVER THEM SHOULD WORK.

Reassemble your recon light.

This laser will be diluted by the lense in the recon light, thus making it less of a risk at wars. THERE IS STILL A RISK. DO NOT DELIBERATELY AIM THIS LASER AT PEOPLE'S EYES.

VOILA !

More pictures tomorrow.

Strangely enough, although this laser claims to need 4.5v to run, it will run on 3v. Beats me.

NOOB you want to blind someone.

Anyway i think i'd bee more efficient to have it's recommended voltage..

And why would you use a recon for anything? And the light looks ugly mounted on most tactical rails.

Next step is to add the light into a longshot scope.

I bought the light seperately - from TooBz. Thought it would be a handy tactical rail source. I figured why not.

Looks like a nice idea, might try it. I used the other useless Recon accessory: the flip-up sight to clamp a torch to it :D.

Nice work!

Yeah I got a mate who did something like this.

Totally useless in a war but in a hobby that's all about 'dick wagging', as I like to call it, this is quite impressive to have. Plus he went around bragging to gullible fools like myself that he could burn stuff with it hahaha

You could stuff a torch down a longshot scope.

Good Job!

Just one thing, try not to breathe in the fumes from soldering, as it is a mix of tin and lead, it can get pretty nasty.

- Brad

1 Soldering Iron (Not consumed)

Pish posh I'll eat my soldering iron if I want!

I've thought about doing somehting like this myself but really it's just a novelty and probably dangerous to be waving around if you are firing at a person.

When I first saw this I thought you were going to be refocusing the light using magnifiers. Which would probably be a good alternative to put a new LED in and a magnifier. Less dangerous to be actually using and would still work pretty well.

Psykka wrote:

1 Soldering Iron (Not consumed)

Pish posh I'll eat my soldering iron if I want!

I've thought about doing somehting like this myself but really it's just a novelty and probably dangerous to be waving around if you are firing at a person.

When I first saw this I thought you were going to be refocusing the light using magnifiers. Which would probably be a good alternative to put a new LED in and a magnifier. Less dangerous to be actually using and would still work pretty well.

Wouldn't work. The light would disperse too much and you'd have to vary the lense depending on distance.

Xoenz wrote:NOOB you want to blind someone.

1. It's a Class 2 laser, 1mW, eye-safe.
   
2. He's doing this under adult supervision
   
3. It was done as a proof-of-concept; not something that can be used regularly at wars
   
4. Refer his disclaimer, aka get a grip!

The entire point of using the lens is to spread the beam so that it's not coherent. At a distance of 1 metre, the beam is spread to about 5cm; at 2 metres, about 9cm. Because the spot is really bright, it's still useful as a sight, but because it's not coherent, it's more eye-saferer than it would be if it were uncollimated.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety#Class_2 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety#Laser_pointers.

Essentially, he's turned a laser into a narrow-beam torch.

Brunius wrote:

Psykka wrote:

1 Soldering Iron (Not consumed)

Pish posh I'll eat my soldering iron if I want!

I've thought about doing somehting like this myself but really it's just a novelty and probably dangerous to be waving around if you are firing at a person.

When I first saw this I thought you were going to be refocusing the light using magnifiers. Which would probably be a good alternative to put a new LED in and a magnifier. Less dangerous to be actually using and would still work pretty well.

Wouldn't work. The light would disperse too much and you'd have to vary the lense depending on distance.

Indeed. The recon site already has a slide to do that.

Psykka wrote:

Brunius wrote:

Psykka wrote:

1 Soldering Iron (Not consumed)

Pish posh I'll eat my soldering iron if I want!

I've thought about doing somehting like this myself but really it's just a novelty and probably dangerous to be waving around if you are firing at a person.

When I first saw this I thought you were going to be refocusing the light using magnifiers. Which would probably be a good alternative to put a new LED in and a magnifier. Less dangerous to be actually using and would still work pretty well.

Wouldn't work. The light would disperse too much and you'd have to vary the lense depending on distance.

Indeed. The recon site already has a slide to do that.

I still think you'd need the lense to vary too much.

Psykka wrote:

1 Soldering Iron (Not consumed)

Pish posh I'll eat my soldering iron if I want!

I've thought about doing somehting like this myself but really it's just a novelty and probably dangerous to be waving around if you are firing at a person.

When I first saw this I thought you were going to be refocusing the light using magnifiers. Which would probably be a good alternative to put a new LED in and a magnifier. Less dangerous to be actually using and would still work pretty well.

Yeah I thought so too, you might as well duct tape one on