Thanks DBCstm, shows what I know. Is that measuring across the longest way?
I’ve been working based on assumptions derived from the 20mm optics (which are of similar height to the 25mm triple)
They will be back here in about a week.
I'm not sure how much is lost, but there has to be a little bit. The issue is that the o-ring lands are there, so unless you can re-cut the groove or do without the o-ring, there isn't much. I've thought about opening it up a bit then using some silicone instead of the o-ring, but haven't tried it yet. I suppose that the easy way to test would be to measure the same driver/LED/cell combination outside the light vs. inside the light.
Wight, from the bottom of the cone to the top of the lens is 13.9mm, each round TIR within the triple is 17.3mm in diameter... near as I can tell with my cheap digital caliper.
Edit: I measured 17.4 across on the mounted one that I've polished the face of. You can see the optics better behind the polished top surface. The second measurements are from an optic that is loose but honeycombed on the surface for the diffusion.
I de-domed the XP-L's and put a stock optic on it.
Lumens is up from 2743 to 3326.
Tint suffers.
Hmm, seems like either a win lose or a lose win…
Wonder why lumens increased after dedome and optic change. Perhaps you could measure the lumens with the dedomed xpls but with the modified optic.
Probably shaving off the inside of the optic meant that some light hits the shaved portion and then diffuses. Instead of reflecting off the edges of the optic and then out the front, some of this diffuse light goes out the bottom of the optic and is lost … absorbed inside the bezel.
Light will only reflect inside a TIR optic if it hits the edges of the optic at the correct angle. If it hits the wrong angle it will transmit through without reflecting.
Even though modding the optic doesn’t look like it affects the beam, perhaps it really is causing a loss of lumens.
About what I expected.
Firelight2 is probably right, this is why I ordered the ball nose end mill bit...to get a clean cut and a rounded cut in the hopes of keeping the internal reflectors maximized.
I charged a 20R and ran the light in the light box with the bored quad optics on the now de-domed XP-L V6 2C emitters and got 2387.4 lumens.
Then I ran the light through the box again, immediately after and on the same cell, with the stock optics and got 2849.7 lumens.
So the bored optics lost 462.3 lumens. Fairly substantial, on top of the losses already accumulated from having to de-dome the XP-L's. Previous reading with the altered optics and domed emitters was 2742.75. So de-doming cost some 355.35 lumens.
In theory then, if domed emitters could fit under stock optics they should be making something in the 3200 lumen range in this light. Only theory of course, as the domed emitters just don't fit.
I worked pretty hard on this light, carving a solid copper pill/heat sink out of a bar of copper with basic tools. The BLF driver was already in this light before and running an XM-L2 just fine. So I kept it and put it in the copper pill with the quad re-flowed to the top of it.
I'm getting some flickering issues. The output in the light box is not steady, runs up and down. And I can see occasional flickering especially in low but it's there in every mode. I drilled a hole and forced a screw into the copper at the ground ring. It broke off. I soldered it to the ground ring in the light, with the solder in contact with the side of head. Same flickering.
Much as I hate to do it, I'm probably about to tear it apart and rebuild it with a new driver. Will more than likely put 4 XP-G2 S2 1D emitters in it when I do.
A Sony C5 fresh off the charger allows 14.61A to flow, while the lightbox says 2925.6 lumens. ?
That's 731.4 lumens per emitter from 3.65A to each emitter. That amperage should have the emitter up in the 1100 lumen range, being de-domed, 1300 with a dome on.
This is with a stock quad optic over de-domed XP-L V6 2C emitters. What am I missing? (Aside from 369 lumens 4 times?)
I’m not sure.
- How well does lumens/amp scale downwards? If you use a lower-drain cell and get current input down to 5-10A or something does it give you the expected output?
- How about trying the LEDs, MCPCB, and heatsink without an optic, lens, head, etc?
- Check with welder’s goggles, are all the emitters flickering or just some?
If I put a single XP-L in an Eagle Eye X6 and bump the resistors to 3.5-3.6A it makes around 1400 lumens out the front with a reflector.
Looking at the light while on, it will run stable for a while then drop, a semi blink, and be right back to stable again. All the emitters at the same time are affected. It's a sudden blink in the total output.
Heading off to rebuild it, putting a ramping firmware in it this time but I'll use the XP-L's so when my ball nose end mill comes in I can check with it and see how that works out. ;)
Took the light apart, pretty much started over.
New Quad board, 4 new emitters, new driver, ramping UI. Soldered a short wire to the extra ground via on the BLF17DD Ver 3.1 board and cut a notch in the copper pill so this wire could come through to the outside. Once the driver was pushing into it's bay this short wire was soldered to the outer body of the copper sink/pill, then filed smooth so the sink fits into the machined ring at the base of the head on this light. So the ground wire is soldered in and sandwiched between the pill and head.
Still has a flicker. :P Go figure!
The bored optic works ok as far as looks go, it has a bigger "hot spot" with bunches of artifacts around the periphery, like many petaled flower. Only really noticeable if you're close, like a wall in a room 8-10' away. With the domes on the XP-L V6 2C the color is white. Much better. Losses or no losses, I'm liking it just like this. The ramping firmware works well, can be turned off from any place you stop along the way and comes back on where you left off. Or a press and hold from off gives low. A double click from off goes to High.
Lotta light from this small no name cheap side clicky. Not even sure where it comes from. Manxbuggy1 gave me 2 of em and they're pretty dang nice little lights, with a very strong magnet in the tail that will still hold the light horizontal even with this chunk of copper in it.
Bottom line is, this method of fitting the optics works. There may be some caveat's, but it works. The better tint makes it well worth any trouble it is to make the bit from a torx 25.
Edit: Forgot, it's now making 2988 out the front with a low of 10.5. Same Samsung 20R I've been using.
Does the flicker happen when you bridge gate to bat+?
No doubt anything we do to these optics, polished or not, will hurt output. What we really need are some purpose built XP-L optics, but for now this and dedoming will have to do.
BTW, did you compile that firmware with the red/green indicators enabled? It’s possible that they’re getting toggled and diverting some of the power to somewhere else.
Just a thought; might be worth rebuilding with that part disabled (if you haven’t already), in case that might explain the flicker. I don’t think it makes any difference if nothing is connected to those pins, but it’s hard to say for sure.
Sorry if this is covered elsewhere. But where can you get the bits to build a triple S3?
Post #3249 through 3253 or greater. AFAIK RMM carries everything you need in his store - http://www.mtnelectronics.com/
If the alteration of the optics in this manner costs us output, then I wonder…
I got the ground issues solved in this PH-08 side clicky FastTech light. And now it’s seeing a little over 15A from an Efest 35A. The lightbox shows me 4147 lumens, from altered Quad optics! And it’s hotter than a $2 pistol on Bourbon St.!!
The 3/4” x 1” copper pill in the head gets the light too hot to hold in about 45 seconds on high. 
So how many lumens would the 4 XP-L V6 2C emitters be putting down range under pristine optics? Interesting…
If I understand correctly, dedomed XP-L has roughly the same beam pattern as domed XP-G2?
With the loss of modifying the carclo optics in mind, what would give more light at about 6A total for triples? Dedomed XP-Ls in unmodified optics, or XP-G2s?