I was mainly referring to its direct competitor, a Convoy C8. Similar size, output and build quality, and yet its twice the price.
Having not seen the emitter, mcpcb, back side of the driver, etc… I can’t justify the price without seeing what is “under the hood.”
M4D M4X, do you think we could get some pictures of the emitter, and the internals of the Mini GT?
A Fast Freddy’s burger is very similar to a McDonald’s burger, yet the price is not comparable. 
My cousin’s Cessna flies, but the resemblance to your ride stops pretty much right there. lol
Convoy makes a really nice light at a very attractive price, perhaps ruining the whole deal for a lot of people. Get a new C8+ if the price point is that unattractive, this GT mini is not especially adept at being an impressive light solely based on it’s performance. But for those of us that just love how much it resembles the cumbersome big daddy, it’s already on order. 
There are a lot of tricks that can be employed to talk someone out of something, similarly there are a lot of ways an addict can talk himself INTO something. Perspective rules. Me personally, I really liked the idea to minimize the GT, that got me right there as I’ve always been a sucker for a miniature version of a known larger product, especially if the miniature is well made. If they took it a step or two further and kept the full scale, so the lights look identical, but in a 10440 size light, yeah, I’d be all over that one too.
What’s wrong with this picture? A jet pilot, unable to justify a $35 price tag… I know a lot of people pay 3 times that for supper! For ONE!
I totally agree that there are much higher priced lights out there. And the price would be a drop in the bucket when considering my collection. I really wanted 2 of these, as I already have the GT. I just want to see what the internals look like so I can plan ahead on how I would like to mod it in the future.
I’m not trying to talk anyone OUT of buying this, by no means. I just need a little more info so I can talk myself INTO buying 2
I am glad to help out:
If you brake something because of the glue you have a second try.
Well, if it’s an XP-L HI running on a FET style Narsil driver then it should be performing at a nice peak value to begin with. Plug an XP-L2 in place of the HI and gain output with some throw loss, or use a Samsung LH351D for similar results with a purer higher quality tint. Slice and dice the XP-L2 to maintain throw, with some admitted loss in beam profile quality, or slice and dice an SST-40 for max power and still great throw.
Lot can be done, much more than those examples, but those are easy improvements anyway…
It’s using a buck driver with 4.5A max. The driver may also not be replacable.
Like I was saying, a few pictures of the internals would be nice…
I can’t fathom a Buck driver to run a single LED from a single Li-ion cell, doesn’t compute.
I mean, I really don’t care, I’ll change it, just don’t understand the why…
The driver is ALWAYS replaceable.
That clip is cracking me up, I must look pretty much like that trying to figure out the use of a Buck driver… ROFLMAO
Exactly. My wife and I pissed away the price of this light a few nights ago, drinking 2 manhattans, and 2 glasses of a good merlot. And that was before we got seated for dinner.
Justin used to always say “It is what it is…” Reckon we’ll see soon enough.
“4.5A” - Excited!
“…not be replaceable.” - Confused and sad
I think Al’s facial expression was my roller coaster of emotion :laughing:
This… is exactly what I was thinking… right before I bought one. 
If the factory driver has the switch mounted to it, your aftermarket driver would need to be custom designed to fit a switch on it as well or so I assume.
I mentioned this theory in post 393.
Be careful assuming things Jason, I rebuild em in all manner of ways.
Edit: I’ve piggybacked a smaller driver onto the stripped former driver, retaining only the switch and re-using it. I’ve glued a switch to a completely new contact board and piggybacked my driver choice onto the new contact board. Doesn’t bother me to put a mechanical clicky in the tail cap and fore-go the e-switch altogether. Usually depends on whatever notion I get while in the process of rebuilding a light. I tend to use parts that are at hand, whatever is easiest to grab or whatever can be modified to work. All part of the challenge.
And 4.5A is so 2 years ago. 6.7A to an XP-L HI, much closer to excitement producing.
On the other hand, buck driver is ideal for low Vf leds, like 219c or LH351D
One might would think that would be the case, but at 4.5A the LH351D is going to have a forward Voltage of around 3.5V, not a lot of headroom for the 4.2V cell especially for all those folks that don’t charge one up to 4.21V to begin with. So it’s pretty much a moot point to have the Buck driver, and especially so since the light comes equipped with an XP-L HI which are notorious for having a high Vf to begin with. Moot point. To my way of thinking, wrong choice.
Well, the 4.5A is turbo, 3.5A is top of the ramp and is probably meant to be the more practical use option.
When it comes to driver swapping, I have to look at the bigger picture, not just what one person is capable of.
BTW, I suspect Lumintops ODF30 of having a similar layout (no driver retaining ring and switch attached to driver). No one has been able to loosen the glue on the battery tube yet.
I may try to heat it up real good, but not so hot to melt the rubber button cover or discolor the finish, and see if I can use my leather welding gloves to twist that sucker apart.