A shot of the XHP-70 in the LUM 5-90 illuminated with an LEDEngin 365nm UV light.
I’ll pick up some small boxes and get a postage on these tomorrow. Didn’t get out today, the wife is sick. 
Get well soon Mrs DBC. I hope Dale is as good a nurse as he is at building lights. If so your in good hands.
I’ve got these boxed up, ready to go out, but my USPS online account only allows for 2-Day Priority mail at $6.02. So I’m taking them to the Post Office in the morning to see how much cheaper they can do it from there.
If y’all want to split the difference on that shipping, I’ll cover half and you can pay $3.00 and get a tracking number, see em by Wednesday. What’dya say?
Sounds good to me. I think you will be pushing to get mine to me in two days though but go for it anyway. Thanks.
hahaha, I wonder if they do an Overnight Express to Australia? Should be pretty cheap, right? I mean, it’s not like you’re in the Outback or anything….
You haven’t seen that box with Cutter written all over it yet? That box will have some serious mileage on it!
payment sent for mine :)
Oops! I need to go PP! :shy:
Edit: Ahhh! I feel better now! :bigsmile:
Payment Sent (Unique Transaction ID # 8TE64456GC333513U)
Mine shipped, thanks Dale
No box yet my friend. The quickest post is usually 5 or 6 working days.
Dale, I see above that you said the reflector is easily cut with good scissors. But, what about the opening at the back for the mcpcb? I want to open it up just a little, but I’m afraid that I might warp the reflector messing around with it, since it is just sheet aluminum. Is there a sure-fire way to widen the opening at the back without ruining something? :~
The opening at the back is made for a star mcpcb, like a SinkPAD. It fits perfectly, with a 20mm star. A round mcpcb like the Noctigon doesn’t fit.
The aluminum sheet is actually thinner than I’d like, making it difficult to open that entry without a higher risk of messing up. You can use a round file and cut it that way, probably the safest. Or a dowel, something like a round pencil, with sandpaper taped tightly around it. That would also work. You could tape sandpaper tightly wrapped around a drill bit and spin it with the drill, slower would be better.
i for got to ppost but i got my package fast 2 days :) thanks dale
Thanks. That’s what I thought, but I was hoping there may be a chance that you’d opened one up and knew how best to do that. I’m still waiting on my MT-G2’s that I bought from IOS a couple weeks ago. Two of them are on 16mm boards, so they should fit. But, I was trying to test the reflector with LED’s I already have on 20mm stars, and it wasn’t fitting very well. But it almost fits. That’s why I asked about opening it up a little. Maybe a small file will work. I don’t have a round one, but I have a small triangle file that will probably do the trick.
I’d say use a rotary grinder (Dremel, etc.), but be sure to mask the inside of the reflector from the swarf. Something cup shaped like a bottle cap with a little hot glue or putty to keep it in place would work well to mask the inside of the reflector during the process but without touching the inside surfaces.
I used a dremel, (rotary tool), with a #115 bit and opened mine up with that. Speed, (1-5), was on 2-1/2 I believe. It was easy to do and I just blew out the filings with compressed air. Held the reflector in one hand and used the dremel with the other. It doesn’t take much to open it up.
Would it be safer to mod the star itself rather than the reflector?
If the reason to increase hole clearance is to raise the height of the emitter in the reflector, that doesn't seem necessary. The emitted light won't hit the bottom for the reflector even with the reflector resting on the star. It should be slightly higher than the star so that more of the reflective surface is used.
The hole almost fits over the star. It’s just a little too small of a hole to fit around the star. A little bit of reaming out with a file or some sandpaper will probably work fine. Or, I could use a smaller star so it fits. I suppose, since it is made to sit around the base of the star, the parabola is probably optimized for that arrangement, too, so if I did set it atop a star, it would be out of focus by that much.
^ I don't know what is was designed for but when I was playing with mine it focused best above the star. Check out the portion of reflector not being hit by the emitter's output in the below pic (very awesome pic, by the way) from Post 12. The emitters we use don't emitt 180 degrees and most reflectors are designed for that.
EDIT: My reflector is in storage at the moment, but my recollection was that the curve of the wall appeared to be parabolic all the way to the drop off to the bottom flat area.