Some classic modding is happening in this thread, even a T20 mod, haven’t seen that one modded for years!
Today I modded my GT Nano with a new led. In fact I ruined what the Nano is famous for: the throw went down from 21 kcd to 7 kcd after the mod. Still this is how I want my Nano to be. I ordered a 10440 tube for the Nano (was shipped out today :party: ), so that will complete the mod.
I have plenty cool lights with amazing throw that have the Osram KW CSLNM1-TG, so although the Nano does amaze, I have always wanted a throwy AAA size light with a great tint. So the led was swapped with a sliced 4000K SST-20 ( it had supposedly a JA3 tint bin before the slicing).
This was not straightforward because the SST-20 is 3535 size while the stock led is 3030 size. I decided on a new MCPCB, a 10mm DTP copper board that I bought long ago from vestureofblood’s shop. The edge needed trimming slightly to 9.5mm diameter with the disc-sander to fit in the slot in the shelf in the flashlight head. The board is a bit thicker than stock but I needed that extra height because the reflector hole was reamed and the reflector became a tiny bit shorter because of that.
As said I reamed the reflector to fit a 3535 center piece for 6.5mm hole. The reaming was not strictly needed because the stock reflector did fit a “butterfly” type of 3535 center piece but it had a bit of wiggle room so the led would not be really centered and I hate that. So I went for the gamble of reaming and hoping the 6.5mm center piece would fit before too much of the reflector was removed and it became too short with the led out of focus. I was lucky, the reflector was kept long enough and the focusing of the led appeared perfect, the hotspot is as crisp as it gets
The outer edge of the center piece was trimmed a bit to make room for the solder blobs of the led wires.
Although everything was rather tiny, I did not destroy any crucial parts luckily and the mod was succesfully finished. The light is still pleasantly throwy, although it has not the same wow-factor of the stock light, and the tint turned out as nice as I hoped: the CCT is around 3750K, at medium setting CRI is 98, with 0.0005 duv it is right on the BBL, at turbo the CRI is still 95, with duv –0.0011.
Now wait for the 10440 tube to finish it, not only will it make the light look much better, the 10440 battery will get a bit more lumens out of the SST20 too, the 220 lumen it does now corresponds to about 1A, the 10440 battery will definitely do better than that.