Well, unfortunately you may be stuck now with the China/Repair route - sorry if that is the case.
As a “bright” moonlight mode collector, I bought an Olight S15 which also had “abnormal” output, but the reverse of your situation with the two lowest modes (my most important and often used) being a fraction of spec. Immediately disappointed me and went right back to the dealer - Selfbuilt later encountered the same thing with his 2nd [purchased] sample, and our dialog is documented in his review of that light. I almost returned the SC52 for the same reason, except that it has so many closely spaced mode options, that the next higher mode (also way below spec) still satisfied for my purposes.
Now reading further into your review and reasons for your “mod” - I’ll +1 on Chloe’s comment:
It is the secondary light bounce off the internal AR coating, and all my D25As have it - but it is really not an issue at all - it disappears in normal use and only catches my eye in the occasional reflection (which personally, I sort of like in that it’s a very cool neon-blue color). Your photos also reflect that well - you cannot see the blue in any of the normally exposed (ie, were you can distinguish hotspot from spill) photos. I was wondering why many of your photos look so odd (pure giant hotspots) and now realize that you have massively overexposed the beams - so hotspot and spill blend into one white giant white spot - to bring out that blue corona for the camera. The human eye, with it’s natural auto exposure, simply cannot do that.
The “X” of the emitter in the beam when inches from a wall is (from my understanding) what you get with smooth reflectors - orange peel smooths that out. Here’s an old photo with one smooth reflector thrower (far left) among a bunch of OP reflector lights:
Also not an issue in normal use, and having a smooth reflector helps with the throw and hotspot definition, from what would naturally be a very floody light (tiny head).
Your PWM points are well taken, I know how to visually detect PWM and now do see something on the same modes you specify, but it looks much faster than my 47s Mini and Malkoff MDC AA, which I understood to be high frequency. Not so sure it’s true PWM or some sort oscillation in the current regulation that the LD12 is known for. I don’t have any equipment to test it, other than to sweep the light across a DSLR on time exposure - three lights held together would be the most telling (D25, a true PWM, and true current regulated). Maybe I’ll get around to it.
My knurling on my ’14 Ti is clean and has a much nicer tactile feel than my ’12 Ti’s - it’s actually nice and smooth without being too slippery. I could file my finger nails most light’s knurling, but not this one.
I don’t have anything to measure color temp, but I have 4 Nichia N219A lights and, as usual, each has a slightly different tint. My ET version is the warmest, but I looks quite close to the others, and the L10 I posted in the pix above. I know ET states the N219B but someone at CPF pointed out that it is actually an N219A - at least my early model is. I can’t be sure what yours is with the light on in your pix, but here’s the post that identifies the difference.
Clicky
Hey ToyKeeper, now that I think about it, perhaps your excess lumen problem stems from a transition from the N219A to the N219B! The later emitter is supposed to be more efficient, so if ET set the specs based upon the early versions with an N219A, then swapped to the more efficient emitter, without a corresponding driver re-program, it might very well produce the excess lumen outputs on your example. That would also mean, your light is NOT an anomaly, and all N219B emitters will have the problem until (and if) they decide to reprogram the driver (or revise the specs :D)
(Awaiting to hear your emitter version).
EDIT… Nah, thinking more about it, there’s no way a more efficient emitter swap is going to yield a 8x/4x lumen increase on ML/L for the same current draw - there has to be some re-program [error] in there. If it did, I’d glad take a AA light that could do 4 lumens for 150 hrs :bigsmile: