Hmm… after seeing the innards of yours I’m inclined to follow suit and do some tweaking. Nice looking head, too. Did you rub off the coating and will it patina now?
It looks like we are looking at nickel. All Noctigons are very thin coated gold on the outside, nickel underneath to help the with the gold bonding, and then the solid copper under the nickel. Around the indentations, you can see all 3 layers.
The gold can be removed practically waving super fine grit sandpaper over it, while the nickel takes a little bit of rubbing. I've sanded down many a Noctigons over the years.
CRX, what battery are you using? It must be 16340 or cr123? I just took about .005” off of each end of the battery tube to square it up and improve contact. I don’t think I can go any shorter and still take a 18350. Also mine is a S41 but I doubt there’s any difference.
Yes the coating came off mostly with acetone, should patina nicely now
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Yeah i think Toms explanation is right there
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C’mon, give it a shot like i showed, you can do it
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It’s just a thin layer of oxidised copper so would imagine it’s only slighly less conductive and would need cleaned before soldering
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Thanks
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Yeah i think it does look better now
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That’s why i trimmed down the driver retaining ring and replaced the spring with a copper stud so as to leave plenty of space in the battery compartment.
Here’s mine with a flat top purple Efest 18350, still space for a button top