How does this affect the beam (bits of the reflectors sitting behind the bezel)? Less throw, less spill or less of both?
Do you know how much the light loss is?
Don't have it assembled yet. There's some extra meat in the bezel inboard of the o-ring that doesn't need to be there, I'm planning to bore it out.
I’m loving the Noctigon boards, they’re so neat and clean cut, unlike the rather sloppy edges in the masks of the SinkPADs. Maybe it’s just because I take Macro images, but the Noctigons are far nicer in my opinion. The red and gold combination is also a winner in my book! 
What is the diameter of the inner hole?
The old IS alu board has cables possible on the side. Which is what I did 
So using this one means making a new copper spacer with a central hole and probably having more space on the driver side to get the cables to the center.
Unless cutting the board from the side to make cable grooves…
Which seems kind of the easiest to do.
Hole is .147", or ~3.7mm.
+ and - don't have to go to the dedicated pads, they can go to the bridging pads used to select parallel/series, if those spots are more convenient for wire routing.
But, there is a benefit to using the center hole. You can use paste instead of epoxy and leave the board floating on top of the pill, so the plastic lens doesn't bind up and possibly break when the bezel is screwed down or the pill is tightened into the head, depending on the light's design.
Jack, that might seem so but keep in mind the solder pads are very small and towards center, not spaced out to the edge to avoid the reflector like single emitter boards.
The solder pads being so small are a little bit problematic, but not really a big deal as they still work fine. Sure are close together though. The center hole diameter is sufficient to get 2 22ga Silicone insulated wires through, with room to spare. This was my first experience with a triple, kind of nice really! Bringing the driver wires together in the center is easier than running 2 holes on the outer edges. Or I found it to be easier, your mileage may vary.
Thanks it seemed around 4mm from the picture.
Yes I can make the electrical connections anywhere as long as the lens fits 
There is an o-ring on the lens side. The lens gets locked into the MCPCB.
With my two wire design it stops the whole thing from rotating so it rotates against the outer shell and o-ring.
It should fit two 0.50mm^2 silicone cables I have. Right on spot.
Will see, might redo the spacer and more cleanly now that I know how to do it better.
Spacer = 20.6x11.5mm of copper. Unless I decide to shorten the light muhehe
Triple Nichia 219. Have the alu PCB but waited for this direct copper.
Dunno if it’s really worth it but it seems so for a triple more than for single emitters.
It’s a D4/Xiozhi, the one I reviewed and am slowly rebuilding for a triple, waiting for things like this board :bigsmile:
Yes, I was just looking at that myself. Convoy S2 could have the head shortened by nearly a full inch(!) and still fit the 3XP on top of the stock pill. That would be one compact light...
Here’s a pic with the 22ga wires, it’s perched on top of the driver side of the heat sink. 3 ounces of copper should help it run cool.
Yes the 115mm long light with the very compact switch and not high board and long reflector can be insanely cut down. Maybe 14.6-15mm spacer. With O-ring and protected batteries. But it’s something you have to really measure on exact light with everything put in. I don’t know how high my direct driver is going to be so I still have some reserve. I know I can fit a glass in front of the lens no problem due to enough space left.
The problem when cutting it down is how to remove the thread so you can make it flat for the o-rings on the inside of the head. Dremel it by hand out? If my dremel would dremel aluminum that is…
The spacer is hefty and copper, heatsink FTW.
Too bad they don’t sell the triple boards per 1 piece, who needs 2 pieces…
Anybody wants to sell 1 because they bought 2?
Guess not, coz of shipping prices 
If I remember from descriptions S2 is 124 or 125mm long, yes you can cut that 24-25mm off if you have compact internals and low profile TIR optic. 18650 light can be made 10cm with a TIR.
I saw that picture DBC, I hope the top side of the copper spacer is the driver side.
That’s the cut-out for the driver, the top is filed flat and sanded smooth.
If the threads are far enough into the head to allow the pill to move forward to seat the TIR against either the lens or bezel, removing threads at the o-ring location is easy-peasy.
There's two guide pins clamped in the vise so the part can be turned and end up with a cut that's concentric with the OD. I do it that way for opening the ID of bezels, cutting a new step to locate drivers, that entire Mag pill was made from 1-3/8" (35mm) AL bar stock using that fixture on a drill press.
(yes, there's a 1/8" radius at the base of the pedestal & outer ring) :party:
How about one of these with the 3XP? https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/20003
Both the board and TIR need to be shaved down on the OD by around .045" (stock lens is something like 18.7mm), AND the head would end up way too long here too, so it can be shortened a bunch like the S2.
Sure but what is the use? Small battery, small capacity and power, small heat sinking, it will just overheat quickly. Even the single cell 18650s go warm when over 2A current. It will be hot when maxing out a triple. Isn’t it better to use just 1 emitter and drive it the same current? Cheaper for sure, easier to build. For tiny lights it will be better than putting there a triple.
Ordered, can’t wait Been pushing this months ago, almost gave up to check again anymore, now they finally are selling them. Light still not built so I hope it will be worth it and the build will be better.
Convoy S3 pill with a P60 pill stuck on the back:
There's an AL 16mm star with the top layer filed off JB Welded into the top, a copper sleeve and a flat disc in the driver compartment, and a copper tube inserted and riveted to tie all the crazy layers together...
Tools to expand the tube, there's a chamfer on the top & bottom of the hole in the pill to lock the tube into place after it's riveted:
Riveted:
Rough cut with a hand file:
...and lapped & polished, ready to assemble:
Damn you do some awesome work!
I just filed the brass off so I have flat pill where the emitter normally stits, it’s nice to have more threads by combining pills for sure. Although I wonder why not copper instead of the alu board. Looks well in the end
With a brass pill, a copper disc under the copper 3XP board would make, if anything, a very very tiny difference. And the AL star was already the right size to drop right in, I would have had to make another copper disc, and I don't have any copper here thick enough to do it without using 2 layers... in the end, AL might come out better given those limitations. Even crappy brass pills don't show much difference in performance than excellent copper pills of the same design, the surface area/mass of the pill is so much greater than the LED's thermal pad it's much less critical than what the MCPCB itself is made of.
For this first build with the 3XP I'm just using a plain boring 2.8A driver running the free version of luxdrv...
I have both clear & frosted optics, something I'm curious about is the dimples in the front face on the clear 10507, where the frosted 10508 is flat. I want to try polishing the frosting off the 10508 and compare the beams. Also, if using a glass lens in front of the optics, does it help to use a layer of clear silicone grease between them to eliminate the transition between the two?
Light passes through air far easier than any liquid, clear or otherwise.
Yes and no.. there's a loss when it leaves the TIR, and another when it enters the glass. Silicone grease would eliminate that and make it appear as a single unit.
edit: It's better without the lens, so that's one mystery that's now irrelevant. :p