I must say, beware of baking cheap lights I had a cheap C8 bezel catch flames and deform rendering the light even more useless (and no cool OP/SMO combo reflector to play with 
)
Hmm… on a decent MCPCB (DTP) they’re great on 6x 7135 = 2.1 Amperes.
Not that much difference between brass and aluminum.
As long as it’s not a hollow pill it’ll be fine.
But even a hollow pill with 1.6 mm thick copper DTP MCPCB (Like Noctigon) will be fine.
By the way, those plastic reflectors are usually fine too.
The plastic reflectors are probably fine usually as you say, but this one has some nasty rings and artifacts. I swapped in a reflector from a Convoy C8 and the beam was just fine (tiny and dim, but fine). So while I will keep the light, I will swap the lens and let the old plastic one collect dust somewhere, it won’t go in a light for now.
I’m going to keep the light and try out a de-domed XP-E2 on Noctigon, with 6 or 7x7135. Maybe XP-E2 Torch. Probably just leave it at that.
I should have mentioned that I have several other C8’s in various configurations, so this one doesn’t need to be a do-everything perfect light.
I have to take some exception at that comment. Is it really abuse to return a product that has intentionally been built using knock-off components, and then was marketed and sold as authentic name brand components? Are non-flashaholics the only ones allowed to do so?
If your concern is that I am “abusing” Amazon unfairly for the acts of the flashlight seller, that would not be the case. I happen to know enough about how Amazon works, and the cost for a return (again, which I won’t be pursuing) is dealt to the seller (the seller of a counterfit product in this case), not Amazon.
Thanks all for the input.
Like I said, I don’t push my lights too hard. Diminishing returns, and all that.
Point is, in a cheap C8, you can get a whole variety of craptastic LEDs on 20mm stars in all sorts of colors to play around with. Doubt they’d come on DTP stars.
Thicker, beefier, more threads, bigger “lip”… all points of more physical contact so hopefully better thermal contact as well.
I’ll take whatever edge I can get. Especially with standard Al stars, I want better thermal contact elsewhere to help it out. If I get an edge with a thicker brass pill, I’ll swap it.
Doesn’t mean I’ll be pushing the LED with so much current that it screams, but if I can keep it happier and cooler, I’ll do it.
As I mentioned, the difference between the same batch of XP-E2s, one at 1.05A and one at 1.40A, is, to me, negligible. A little brighter, but not all that much. 33% more current, and, what?, maybe 20% more light? (Remember, standard Al star, not Cu DTP.) So its light output is already flattening out. Pushed beyond that to ~1.7A may already be in the range of decreasing light output. Pushed to 2.1A, almost definitely so.
And I’m not going to reflow an E2 to a Cu star. Too much bother. 
If I want to go whole hog and make a super-thrower with an E2 on Cu DTP star pushed to 2A, I’d sure as Hell put it into a real type 2 C8 host, not some throwaway race-to-the-bottom clone.
if you think it isn;t working correctly, or if it was not properly described, you can initiate return, sometimes they will refund without returning the item
wle
Use DTP boards. :+1:
The main thermal conduction bottle neck is between LED and MCPCB, even WITH DTP.
LED itself usually has a ceramic substrate between chip and thermal slug.
None the less, of course, if it’s efficiency you’re after it’s better to keep current low.
But then you shouldn’t be using an XP-E2 in the first place, but an equally driven larger die LED like XM-L2 or XP-L
If it is not as described, you can for sure send it for a refund. No one would consider this an abuse of the return policy.
I don’t mind a fake LED’s in a $5 Zoom light but an ugly beam in a thrower is not something I could live with
Nah, I know. For simple 1-mode lights, I want to be able to keep it on indefinitely (or at least ’til the battery’s spent) without having to worry about burning hands or cooking LEDs. 1A through an E2 is about perfect.
I’m not looking to light up the moon, but make a decent (jacket-)pocket-carry light with decent throw, and lots of runtime. Ain’t meant to try to be a jack-of-all-trades EDC or anything of the kind, just a simple compact thrower.
Now that I have some XP-Gs to play with, I might try a few of them, maybe on a DTP if I can score a few.
But having all sorts of 20mm stars with red, green, pink(!), UV, IR, pretty much the entire spectrum covered, I can throw together a light in one sitting.