Get a SS washer the thickness that you want the Cu star to be, drop it inside (bore out the hole if probably needed), then sand/grind away. SS is harder than Cu, won’t wear away as fast as Cu, so you could probably grind down the Cu to that thickness without going too much thinner.
Going to try to sneak in my other hobby.
Flashed a smart plug (Sonoff S31) to use open source local firmware to control some (flickering LED 
) Christmas lights:
Solder jumper wires to USB to Serial adapter to flash ESP8266 chip
Flash and setup device, web page is the local device IP with all configuration options. No more phoning home to the “cloud” and works instantly with my home automation (Home Assistant) running on raspberry pi.
Costco LED garland the wife really wanted hooked up to re-assembled plug. My 3yo daughter asked “why does it blink like that?” I guess she is already one of us… 
Time to gut the driver on that garland 
Maybe bring along the little one along for a lesson 
“Driver” is a pretty loose term since they are wired in series to use line voltage. I did some quick googleFu and it looks like I could convert half wave to full wave rectifier but I would need to re-string at least half of the lights (I dont quite understand all this though). If I did that I would end up just replacing the entire string and get a warmer tint along with it.
I can probably live with it as is as long as I keep it away from our other lights.
Nice mod. I’ve thought about modding my E3, but a few factors have prevented it. First, the 5700K 219C is actually a good tint (if cooler than I typically prefer). No noticeable tint-shift and no green. Second, it was a gift. And third, the modes are excellent with NiMh. It does suffer from the typical AA/14500 light problem for me, though: it’s large enough that I often just grab the SC62w instead.
Looks great. Zoomies definitely have places and uses where I’d prefer them over reflectors or most TIRs.
Hey that is pretty cool. Especially preventing it from phoning home - my Pihole blocks so much crap these days…
If I may ask, how did you open it?
I am thinking of opening mine to put some GITD tape inside but I don’t wanna ruin it right away :zipper_mouth_face:
Thanks in advance :+1:
Nothing too exciting.
But I’ve decided to overhaul my UF-1405 aspheric thrower with an Osram LED. So I pulled out the de-domed XP-G2 that was in it today.
The Osram W1 LED is here, but still waiting on a driver for it.
However I did received a 3.04A Qlite from Int’l Outdoor.
I also found an old Convoy S4 on the shelf. It was missing a lens (think it broke) and I’d evidently pinched the driver and LED out of it at some point. Think it used to be an XP-G2. Not sure what happened to it. Anyhow it was bought as a host originally. I found a lens from a Convoy S2+ in the box, where I’d fitted a TIR lens previously.
So I thought I’d build up the S4 with the de-domed XP-G2 and Qlite.
The S4 host is ok, but fit and finish is a long way off the S2/S2+ models. But they do have quite a nice deep reflector.
I’m pretty sure the XP-G2 is an S2 1D. It’s on a Noctigon star from Int’l Outdoor. In the UF-1405 it had an amazing golden coloured tint after the de-dome (think Nichia219A).
With my XP-L HI S2
Sadly the tint isn’t quite as golden in a reflector, but it is quite a nice neutral white.
Seems to work really well outside. More throwy than the XP-L HI but somehow doesn’t feel short changed on lumens and spill beam either.
I have drilled optic and used hes to pry out bezel ring. Yajiamei 17mm TIR is the same dimension as this one in Olight.
Thanks for the information! I guess that would be too risky for me, as I intend to use the same optic.
I assume the bezel is pressed, not screwed, am I right?
Thanks again! 
Nice mod on the classic S4 Chicken Drumstick. I wish they still sold them so I could add them to my collection.
Mod with XP-E deep Red Led Skywolfeye E-522 AAA zoom
Think I have made the smallest zoom Red light.
I like very much, smooth and decent made for below 2$,but coming with cool white Led.
The base of the head tube was filed 2mm to bring the lens closer to the LED and have more flood.Also the pill was sanded a bit
Have you tried Skywolfeye B16? It’s a much better host.
Nothing much, been playing Lego with my son: placing correct color LED in it’s C01 hosts
660nm
450nm
595nm
530nm
OSRAM CSLNM1.TG
Nice. That really satisfies my OCD
That was my thought as well. This is how they should be sold!
No maybe I will,B16 seem is 3modes,press fit lens and a bit bigger than E522
do you have both two?
Yes, I have both.
A few days ago member Nbabu send me a parcel with a lot of spare parts and lights. Some of them were working, others not. Two of those were hosts, as he called them, and they intrigued me a lot.
There was a “vintage” Convoy C8 (model with a pill) and a FandyFire STL-V6. And I started legoing a bit. And lo and behold what I got. For the time being I will call it a Fandyvoy. As you already guessed it: left is before, right is after. The “silver” Convoy C8 is only shown as a reference.
Though only 99% (give or take) matching, I managed to swap the tubes. And the Fandyvoy looked a lot more sexy than the ConFire (not shown) 
Then the entrails: the package also contained a matching pill and driver.
(pictures “borrowed” from a thread in 2014 by member G0OSE)
The pill had room for a 25mm ledboard, and those are hard to come by. But in my box of parts I found a 25mm brass shim of wich I enlarged the inside diameter from 16mm to 21mm. Soldering it in was done with a frying pan. I laid the shim in the pill and when then temparature was high enough, I just put a solder wire in the gap (temporary fixating it with screws, afraid the shim might float away).
The led I used is a 1mm² White Flat I got from Neven. Since I had no centering ring that spanned the gap between the 3030 emitter and the rather large opening in the reflector, I made one myself. Found a piece of round nylon somewhere that I flattened, and widened the opening a bit. Then I glued it onto the ledboard and made it black with a felttip pen. The centering stub only takes care of the centering. For focussing I use a plastic ring around the centering stub. It serves two purposes: the thickness permits me to fine tune the focussing, and it prevents the reflector touching the solder blobs on the leads. Atm I use a “shim” I cut out of the bottom of a plastic coffee cup.
Then the other side of the pill. Since I hate soldering a driver, I filed down the rim of the pill that holds the driver to a fraction less than the thickness of the driver. So the driver protrudes a bit. But it is firmly held down by a 3mm Nylon shim I filed down until it exactly fits the inside of the head. And it is pushed against the pill by fastening the tube of the light. The driver itself is left intact. I was afraid to stick my soldering iron between the two PCB’s so I refrained to shortening the leads by some 50% and bypassing the spring with 20AWG.
The outcome is rather surprising: With only 1.5A at the tailcap, from two Efest 18350’s, the hotspot has more impact than that of a White Flat with 5A in the silver Convoy I used as reference. I have not measured this, it was done the redneck way. Both lights shining on a white surface, and looking wich beam prevails if the hotspots touch.
No beamshots. I have ordered a “Green” Flat 1mm², and when that arrives, I’ll organize a shooting match.
Quick and simple mod tonight:
O-ring mod to Noctigon KR4.
The KR4 is a great light, but the switch is a bit too easy to depress. I had done the o-ring mod on every FW3 series light I own so decided to give it a shot on the KR4. Here’s what I did:
- Unscrew the tailcap retaining ring. It was stiff, but not glued. Needle-nosed pliers in the retaining ring coupled with some 3M grip tape on the outside of the tailcap for better grip and it came right off.
- Remove the switch mechanism. Unlike with the FW3 series, the switch mechanism did not fall out of the light when the retaining ring was off. Fortunately, this mechanism was also quite easy to remove. Just grip the tailcap and press the button quite hard to push the switch guts out. The switch board wasn’t glued. It just had a stiff press-fit.
- Pull the brass nubbin off the bottom of the switch boot.
- Insert the o-ring. I used the same size o-ring I used for the FW3 switch.
- This worked, but wasn’t reliable and required an unacceptably hard press. The o-ring itself didn’t provide enough pressure on the switch to actually cause it to cycle. Perhaps a thicker o-ring would work. Or maybe fill a bit of the switch boot with filler, such as a few layers of tape, to make it shallower.
- I might try that later, but what I ended up doing was cutting a single tiny square of gaffer’s tape and sticking that on the end of the rubber post in the center of the switchboot where it depresses the switch. This provided just enough extra reach to make the switch reliably cycle. It now requires noticeably more pressure than before. I still have the extra o-ring in the switch, but I’m not sure it’s actually doing anything.
- Note however that a piece of tape on the end of the thin rubber post doesn’t provide nearly the support of the original brass nubbin. The stock build will be more durable.
Guess I’ll give it a shot like this for a bit and see if it lasts and if I like it.