Titanium with copper would be amazing. Still want the purple aux leds in to match the side-switch.
I’m okay with the cut portion for the side-switch. It will probably make it easier to find the switch by touch, while the majority of the heat-sinking is handled by that big shelf behind the leds.
You say that like you can only get one. Remember when you were a kid and your mom only let you choose one piece of candy? Now you get revenge and buy all the candy!
Maybe polish it before anodizing. (make it shine, round off the sharp edges a little)
Or maybe just don’t anodize it at all, keep the rich natural aluminum gloss.
This looks bead blasted:
That looks cheaper i.m.h.o.
Listen FF folks,
This is not the first time that a “fresh from the machine” body looks better than the final product.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an anodized surface retain the machine finished look of metal. The best way to have a machine-finished flashlight is to… not anodize it. You lose mechanical lockout without it though.
Fireflies, have you considered rotated LED pads like Emisar quads?
You laid the pads under 3 angles, clockwise 0°-30°-60°-0°-30°-60° + centre of 0°.
Doing 0°-30°-60°-15°-45°-75° would result in a slightly rounder beam. Not that I expect your current layout to be bad, it’s just that such change in the next MCPCB batch doesn’t cost anything extra and may make some snobs happier.
Where does bare aluminum tarnish? It might oxidize in a high salt environment but otherwise it’s not likely to change IMHO. I have bare lights I machined from scratch 3 years ago that are exactly the same today, I have reflectors I sanded down and polished by hand nearly 5 years ago that are still brilliant.
All our road signs are aluminum, bare on the backside, and I don’t recall ever seeing one “tarnished”, oxidized either for that matter.
And yes, as I already showed, Convoy makes an L2 with machined but anodized finish, no bead blasting. It’s gorgeous!