This is a mod sent in by Yitah W. In his
own words:
Here are some pix. My two updates were:
1) Use a dremel cutoff wheel to grind down
the epoxy on a 5mm LED.
2) Use a piece of wood dowel with a groove
cut into it for the dropping resistor.
In the main picture, you see the 3 mm Nichia,
5 mm Nichia, and two ground down 5 mm Nichias. I screwed
up on the first LED and cut the leads just a *little*
too short.
I was originally toying with using 2 or
3 of the 3 mm Nichias, but the brightness and uniformity
of the light was not nearly as good as a single 5. Current
draw with the single 5 mm LED and the 75 ohm resistor
is about 45 ma, while the 3 3mm LED's draw about 15 ma.
Might still be worth looking into the triple as a longer
burning (?) option.
Grinding down the LED takes some patience
and dexterity, but eliminates the issue with the reflector
wearing down or a washer. In fact, I can re-install the
original light since there are no mods to the solitaire
itself.
