Thank you, Lumen9000. Do you know how it could be done without damage to the flashlight? If I quickly wipe the flashlight with the sodium hydroxide and rinse it with water afterwards? Just asking because I have been looking for an easy and fast method to remove the anodisation to make a flashlight silver.
I must say that after I got SP35 NO ATR I got spoiled by High mode and Turbo. Everything with ATR or timed stepdown is a no go for me and that's why I just couldn't buy IF22A although it intrigued me a lot.
@Barry: I hope you'll reconsider this driver option in the future.
The process is simple but has a lot of precautions. It needs to be done outside and heavy gloves. Aluminum and sodium hydroxide create an exothermic reaction and can cause burns on the skin or inhaled.
So with that said it is easy and straightforward. I used a gel based drain cleaner which I found much easier to control than the crystals that get dissolved in liquid. After taking out the battery, I painted the flashlight with the gel and put it in a ziplock. The anodization came off in several minutes and was very quick. The o-rings, rubber boots, glass is fine (although I avoided the lens because I wasn’t sure of the coatings in the glass. That particular flashlight is pretty water resistant so there was no ingress with the gel. I rinsed the light for several minutes in water. I did the inner threads and any spots I missed by painting the gel and and repeating the process.
I like using the gel, other people have had success and like using the liquid or the crystals that dissolve in water. I use lye to strip cast iron pans and restore them so I am comfortable enough with it. I won’t use any of this stuff in my plumbing and honestly I have no idea where the bottle even came from. IDK how your drain cleaner selection is in Europe or access to chemicals is, but I used the Prof Amos with success.
The best option would be to have a programable option in the UI to turn ATR on or off. Or you could add jumper pads to the back of the driver that toggle ATR.
I would probably buy the IF22A if it had the SP35 driver. I’m actually surprised that it doesn’t. Too bad.