I made a topic of the MT-G2 F13 with some pics.
FWIW, the SS variant of the CUTE-3 has the highest light transmission. Medium and wide angle take a hit on the output, with wide causing a tremendous loss. I built an X6 for a bicycle riding buddy and had it screaming. He replaced the SS with a W and lost 1100 lumens!!! I griped at him big time, all that tedious work eliminating resistance to get the absolute most lumens and he squashes it with a lens swap. UGH!
I too like the result from the Honeycomb pattern. But Iām shallow enough to like the look of the polished lens more. Cāest la vie! (am actually torn, as I really dig the Honeycomb pattern too.)
For me, a large part of it is the build. The customization, making it something that isnāt commonly available. If WalMart sold triple X6ās with Ledil CUTE-3ās, mine would stand out with the polished lens. All about the build. But then, I have health issues and use the build as a relaxing meditation, an escape, going the extra mile is accepting a challenge, not necessarily to make more lumens or tighter hot spot or longer throw, but to be different, to be custom, to be DB Custom. 
I actually LIKE the challenge of hand polishing a reflector. Glutton for punishment, I know. But the machines that create a reflector do so with it spinning. This makes for very small ridges or lines in a horizontal layout to the transmission of light. Not good! So I use the first coarse grit from top to bottom, sanding the machine marks out across the grain. Then step up to ever finer sandpapers ending with a horizontal direction once again but ultra fine, only to polish in a vertical direction for the ultimate in light transmission, albeit not vapor discharge coated. The challenge. How can I refuse? (I donāt do this un-necessarily, but I donāt mind getting a fingerprint on a reflector Iām modifying to fit a new emitter)
Great big beautiful reflectors like the TN42 or Nitecore TM36 Lite? I cringe to see anything on em, even a bit of dust that will blow out. lol After all, well done and near perfect still hold top honor.
I havenāt the slightest clue on the degree. Itās the one that RMM sells. I havenāt fitted it yet, Iāve got a TI X6 host that should be arriving tomorrow and I think Iām going to like the polished look for that light a little more than the honeycomb. Iāve got a few extra Cute 3s just in case it doesnāt fit right or the beam pattern looks too bad.
This light was a freebie, no idea what it is called. Been used around the house for many years. Had one of those 1W LED on a 20mm star, 20mm driver. It started flickering about 2 months ago. I finally got around to āFixing itā.
Now it has a BLF A6 Fet w/ adapter ring, XP-G2 S5 running on 3X AAA Eneloop. Soldered the tail spring to the switch, to fix why I think it flickered.
Much better nowā¦ and cost less than $5 in parts
plastic Lens and reflector :confounded:
Just did some sanding on the tube and head ends to get it clocked properly and sit Flat.
unusual light, nice one.
Thank you Sir,
And it was black, stripped long ago.
Today I got my black Convoy L6 updated with running Narsil on a Texas Avenger 30mm triple channel driver. No working LVP yet, but thermal monitoring and control are working. Smooth ramping working from a ridiculously low 0.04 lumens (at PWM 2 on a 350 7135) to 5,749 lumens (@30 secs) on a pair of LK cells. tail amps on a clamp meter measured at 11.8A.
The ramping table of 150 entries goes across 3 output channels: 1 7135, 8 7135's and a SIR800DP FET, so it's got a pretty efficient range
This L6 has the N4 2A XHP70, which I think it was discussed might not be a true N4 bin. My N4 1C clear ano L6 does better comparing stock to stock lights.
I also tested on a pair of BASEN cells, but got slightly better results on the LK's (10.45A tail/5,661 lumens on the BASEN's, 11.8A/5,749 lumens on the LK's (good ones).
Over temp knocked down the output at 2' 38" into a test run, but the head temp was not that uncomfortable - needs more tweaking in this big light.
Throw, measured at 5m was 124 kcd on the LK's, 120 kcd on the BASEN's.
Congratulations with your birthday, Tom!
(I sand down copper boards the way you do it, but use a disc sander and hold the copper wire with pliers)
Two days ago I swapped the driver for the third time in a S2+ 18500 shorty with 4000K 90CRI XP-G3ās, it is my bike light and I want it to just work. I tried a Qlite with Nlite from Mtn, and a 8x7135 driver with TKās new firmware from Simonās store. Both were unstable, doing weird things, could have something to do with the combination of very low led voltage and not so high drain battery. Now I put in a BLF-A6 driver from BG and it is fine. AFAIC, the BLF-A6 driver rules in these hotrod triples.
Thanx! One more year to go til 6-0, scary... Weird the 7135 drivers were flaky. I noted yesterday I modded a ThorFire BD04 - same exact light as the Convoy BD04, and they used like a 1.1 uF cap for C1 instead of a 10 uF cap. They really screw up Biscotti, or any firmware not using an OTC cap, but persistent memory based off time - it really needs the full 10 uF to delay the loss of MCU memory. When I swapped the cap for a 10 uF one, mode changing problems went away, as I was hoping/expecting.
I will try a different C1 on them. I bought some tantalum caps, 1microF and 10microF from Fasttech a while ago, are they any good for this?
The 10 uF should be ok - probably will do fine. Once you remove a cap, you can measure it's capacitance, least I can with my DMM - might have used the old Fluke.
I'm lik'n Biscotti. Pretty nice.
I am having horrible luck with the Cute3 optics in my X6R. The first one I polished and decided I didnāt like, and a couple hours into using it developed some kind of internal fracture that I posted about earlier. So I ordered a replacement from Intl-outdoor, and because of the free shipping also one from Arrow. The arrow one arrived and it had the longer legs, so I sanded those down at low speed with my dremel. Yesterday when I opened it up to do some driver work, I noticed two of the legs had broken in the holes in the Noctigon. I was very lucky it didnāt dedome my emitters. So I swapped it out with the one from Intl-outdoor, which didnāt need leg trimming. I put it in and within minutes, the whole thing was shattered like a block of ice, both the cups and the legs (which just fell off at one point).
I donāt understand whatās going on.
Genius! Thank you. Maybe Iāll get my fingerprints back now.
Thatās really weird, PD68. Iāve mentioned before Iāve had some extreme fracturing with a khatod quad optic, but that was after I had ground away significant portions of it.
Seems like you are just having a bit of bad luck with these optics.
The only thing I can think of is that Iām compressing it too much? But it isnāt hard to screw the bezel down, and the o-ring isnāt even popping out.
Just last week I learned that Carclo optics are made from polycarbonate and Ledil optics from PMMA. Polycarbonate is pretty tough, impact resistant glasses are made from it, and PMMA can be quite brittle. But that does not explain why Dale has not had any problem with the Cute optic in his lumen monsters.
PMMA is aka acrylic.
I speculate that there are internal stresses in these optics and there must be some variation from piece to piece. I have not had any fractures in the 6 or so cute 3 SS optics Iāve used.
I sanded some off the bottom of my spacer, so weāll see what happens. I Just would have expected the oring to show signs of popping out before the optic blew up.
I think have my FW gremlins eliminated at least, Iāll just use the polished optic with the least breakage till a new one gets here from Arrow.
Thatās crazy, itās fractured in many different placesā¦even the legs. Are you sure theyāre not made by Corning, lol? Iāve had a few of their baking dishes shatter in my oven.