A bit yesterday and a bit today, I modded my old Romisen RC-G2 flashlight, which for me is the mother of pocket throwers. At the time everyone needed to have at least one. It has a really nice and modest size-to-throw ratio and used to come with and XR-E led and its deep light-OP reflector made for a very nice throwy spot.
It received an overhaul now but I did not make pictures of the mod this time .
*the tail clicky asembly was replaced by a standard Omten 1288 switch. For that a retaining ring was sawn off an old alu pill that happened to have the same threads. Because I ran out of length (a familiar issue among modders) the switch itself had to be postioned completely inside the switch cover with the switchboard doubling as retaining ring for the switch cover.
*the driver was replaced by a 15mm diameter bistro driver (components of the BG bistro driver were transferred to a 15mm Oshpark board made by Warhawk, except the FET that needed to be the smaller LFPAK33 type)
*the led was a 3000K 90CRI XP-L HI, as sold by Kaidomain, this was the reason for this mod, to check this led out. It is on a 16mm Noctigon board.
*a led gasket was reshaped a bit (top sanded off because it blocked too much light, reamed and bevelled the hole a bit).
*a thin 1mm thick ring was added under the pill as a spacer because the XP-L Hi is thinner than the old XR-E, the pill had to move up towards the reflector a bit.
I first had only the 7135 working and found that the gate of the FET was shorting with the source (=ground) so the FET was always closed. Removed the FET and soldered it back in, now all works.
The beam is nice and throwy, just as expected, with a bit over 500 lumen at highest mode (could be increased with tailspring bypass, but it is ok for a high CRI 14500 light).
Now for the XP-L HI 3000K 90CRI, it is listed at KD for a while now but no one reported on it yet. I hoped of course for a surprise by Cree but it did not turn out to be one. The CRI at lowest levels is 92 with a R9 of 60, not bad, at highest level the CRI is 89.7 with R9 of 50. But alas the tint (of the hotpot) is above the BBL at all levels, and also the perception follows the measurement: compared to my high CRI SST-20 EDC the tint is more yellow/green. Very ok, as many high CRI tints are ok, but it does not make this XPL HI the jewel I hoped it to be.
I think this light will be waiting for a next best throwy high CRI led. I may add a lighted switch as well then.