@CRX: I have always liked 4sevens lights, that triple looks sweet! .
I feel a familiar pain with everything you mentioned going wrong.
I cut the triple reflector to fit. Several dimensions kept it from fitting into the head of this F3X so I carved it until it went in. There was a lip at the top edge that also had to come off, standing proud of the reflective flats. Cutting this off let the aluminum shavings rub on the top flats and scratch em up, but thankfully they stayed out of the reflector cups.
I bought a bunch of flashlight kit from Justin (Old-Lumens) and this triple reflector was in the stuff. As such, I havenāt a clue where it came from.
Beam is nice, maybe a bit smaller hot spot than the factory one, but I really like how the cups are evenly cut, the emitters are on a wider radius than the original. Plus, the base of each reflector cup has a little protrusion, they left about 3mm clearance on the bottom where the OEM was flat and really tough to mod without an mcpcb that fit all 3 emitters.
I just came in from doing a little fine tuning. I beveled the bottom edge of the reflector so I can try to use teflon 20ga on the negative leads around the outer perimeter (all the Noctigons have the positive contacts at the center for a piece of copper plate to lay on them, the positive lead comes through the plate and solders on top). I also tweaked the areas that were holding the reflector up a little high, now Iāve gotten rid of a ring caused by the emitters not quite being inside the reflector enough. Now I can see the 4 flat sides on the XP-Lās, reflected in the cups. 
Also cut down the brass retaining ring on the Cu pill above the driver so the big contact on the 26650 has less chance of touching. Iām using an insulator cut from a sheet of stencil material, but still, it has more play now and is surely safer. While I was at it, I put a spring bypass in at the tail.
This thing had a fixed distance convex lens and cold white circle spot for a beam.
replaced with S2 lens and OP reflector swapped 20mm board with unknown XP pull thatās warmer tint. Driver is integrated on the board running under the electric lighter. Has micro usb charge port and can be used as a USB power bank. Itās a flashlight, powerbank and lighter.
Aluminum housing was Gold anno but aI couldnāt stand it. Stripped and polished now. Installed a fully charged pulled 18650 and tried the onboard charger, led went green drawing no current. Hope it actually charges to 4.2V, no more.
Maybe yāall have heard me talk about the LiNiMnCo cell from Powerizer in the past, I got Tom E on them and he loved em, both of us wish weād bought more while they were availableā¦ theyāve been discontinued for a couple of years. Anyway, I got the Efest 3500mAh cell charged back up and tested the F3X again, this time I got 7.06A for 2701.35 lumens, better with the reflector down onto the emitters, but still relatively low.
So I charged up one of my last remaining LiNiMnCo cells from Powerizer (Battery Space, but like I said, they no gottee). With this particular cell, the F3X pulls 9.95A and makes 3256.8 lumens. A 555 lumen increase by swapping cells! I do believe Iāll take it! 
I donāt usually buy lights I canāt mod easily as I donāt have a huge need for them, and really only enjoy modding and building them. That said, I did get a Lumintop tool TI recently because I couldnāt resist the incredible price that gearbest was selling them for. I knew the head was glued and the e-switch, according to Rey, wasnāt going to handle a linear driver swap. I thought I could live with the MLH mode order, but quickly realized it just wasnāt for me.
I cracked open an Astrolux A01 and started doing some measuring. Itās a tight fit as the A01 uses a 2 board stack for the driver, and the tool uses a single board. The driver diameter of the tool is also much smaller than the A01. It look some time with a file, but Iām very happy with the result. I now have a Tool TI with the mode order I wanted and a brilliant moonlight level.
My girlfriend went out tonight and left me at home alone 
so i decided to mod cheap P60 host with quad Nichia 219C 
with orange illuminated tail switch
Got most of the work on the giveaway light & diffuser done
.
Looks awesome CRX!!! :+1: :+1: :+1:
Iām surprized by seeing the difuser going all the way down! :exclamation:
Thanks, yeah iām just experimenting, i thought it would be cool if i can basically fit the whole light in the diffuser and have it lit up that way for compactness.
Still working on it.
If I donāt win it :disappointed: in your 1000 posts GAW, please consider if youād be willing to make me a similar one. I really appreciate the unique personality of DIY handmade flashlights (& stuff in general) and love brass/copper (and wood) as material.
That is a very nice compliment, thank you, i will keep that in mind :+1:
Was about to finish a 3up XP-E2 Convoy S3, but my cheap china-programmer refused to workā¦
Connection test gives me : ācould not find USB device with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc vendor=āwww.fischl.deā product=āUSBaspā ā
Itās strange because I didnāt change anything. Had it working on Windows 10 some days ago. Tried two different drivers, both with the above resultā¦ Donāt know if I need a new programmer or if itās a software/driver related problem.
I get that from time to time, usually just unplugging/replugging the usb programmer fixes it for me.
I have been tweaking my light canon, and Iām ALMOST at 1.5Mcd!!!
Sooo closeā¦ 61000 lux at 4.9m = 1.46Mcdā¦
I will post pics when I get to the magical 1.5!
I tried that a couple of times. Donāt know what else to try. Will ask google, hopefully right questionsā¦
Nice achievement Enderman!!! :+1:
USB 3.0 ports give us trouble with printers and such at work sometimesā¦especially with Windows 10ā¦Iād make sure itās plugged into a 2.0 port.
Itās USB 2.0. Donāt have a 3.0 port on this machine.
thanks!
I am very excited lol
Iād be quite excited too, Enderman! Must be a crazy beam you got thereā¦ :smiling_imp:
OK. I managed to get my programmer working again. YAY!!!
Iāll explain the steps I went through in case someone has a similar problem it might helpā¦
- Opened the device manager, found two USB Universal Host Controllers show the yellow exclamation mark sign (Code 43 error)
- Right clicked and deactivated (not deinstall) both of them
- Restarted my laptop
- Went back to the device manager, right clicked and reactivated them again
That did the trick. So if you experience similar issues, I hope this helps and itās as simple as that for you.
Gonna flash some drivers now. WOOHOO! :partying_face:
1.5Mcd!!! :exclamation:
Waiting for the pics! :+1: