how strong is this setup? I mean mechanical strength, durability, toughness, sturdiness, whatever you call it. It has a few new connections, a big reflector and the flashlight is quite heavy. How is the reflector secured and how is the 77mm hood attached to the flashlight? Can it survive a small fall or a hit?
BTW, what would be the throw with a dedomed xp-g2 running at 5 amps???
The first hood is going to be anchored by threading on the cut down bezel of the original light back onto it’s original thread. Thereby clamping the first hood firmly into place. That’s pretty bullet proof.
The rest and how it deals with a fall I wouldn’t like to say. The hoods are certainly very rigid/hard aluminium but still fairly thin. The reflector is going to be tightly held inside and pressed between the uv filter ring and the pill. I actually planned to use an o-ring in between the lens and the reflector rim but I don’t think I have the clearance spare now that it’s together.
The weakest part is probably the front lens element, it’s pretty thin glass held in a thin rigid metal ring. Any major impact there I suspect the glass is going to shatter.
In general it feels very sturdy in the hand and I’m confident it’s going to handle a few decent knocks. But I’m not going to do any drop tests on it 
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No idea on the throw, I may test a few different emitters before I stick the sbt-70 in there.
Yes please test some cree emitters for max throw in it, before you finalise it with the sbt-70, like DD a dedomed xp-g2 or a xm-l2 class emitter so we can know what kcd performance we can get with cheaper led’s.
I really like the look of it, and it was funny you mentioned that ugly white text on the converter rings, i had been searching ebay for similar part a while ago & all i found was these kind of filter adapters.
I don’t know camera equipment so i didn’t know about these plain black nice cheap lens hoods.
I was pleased as punch to see these lens hood adapters all listed out until I started searching for them on eBay. Dude, vague descriptions is a super understatement. You wouldn’t happen to remember from which venders you purchased would you, Linus?
Looks great. Can't wait to see beam shots.
Is these 86mm reflector the biggest out there for cheap or at all? Or is there something even larger hiding somewhere for reasonable money,
If we can find larger reflectors, this concept should be able to accommodate it with progressively larger lens hoods.
My favorite flashlight modder strikes again, great as always.
This looks very interesting….
I’ve modded several Courui’s for friends, & I’m sure some of them will want this treatment done to theirs when they see it.
I’m off to fleabay to get me some camera parts!
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I managed to locate all of the camera parts, including a snap-on lens cover, from the same seller, for AU$22.75.
2 more questions:
The bezel of the courui has a single groove on the outside, you can use that as a guide for where I suggest cutting it to remove the front crenelations. A messy hacksaw job is fine as it will be hidden, just needs to leave a threaded retaining ring. A couple slots to help tighten it down will also be a good idea.
On the lens. Sure, you could try a number of other things. A second option I have been playing with is to stick a third hood stage on and use a 95mm filter step down ring to retain a matching piece of UCLp acrylic flashlight lens. That combination would be more sturdy (and doesn’t require machining the reflector OD) but it makes the light a bit bigger and longer than it needs to be. It also requires raising the emitter on a pedestal to make up the gap to the pill. Not ideal.
That’s without the filter ring adapter in place
The 2 hood setup is more elegant and compact so I’m going to try and make that work for myself. The tolerances are too tight to fit a thicker lens though, unless you extend the front with something slightly.
I look forward to seeing people come up with other cool approaches to this kind of thing.
how about using a custom cut AR UCLp lens from the flashightlens.com ? Cut to fit your flashlight. They say ” ALL ACRYLIC MATERIAL (IR, Acrylite, Hardcoat, and AR Acrylic) CAN BE CUSTOM CUT TO ANY SIZE OR SHAPE!! ” so it is worth a try! It would be tougher ( since this material does not shatter like glass) and you would not have to mount an extra hood to attach it.
Sure, just be aware that with the parts I listed…
Clearance required by the reflector between the lens and the top of the pcb surface (provided you’re using the stock shelf or your custom pill matches the stock shelf in elevation, which mine does) is pretty tight already so a thicker lens and the required adapter ring may not work. I’m happy with the thin UV filter configuration personally so you’d have to try something else yourself and see what works.
Even with what I’m doing I’ll probably have to keep the head of the courui unscrewed a little (clamping a larger o-ring into the gap to keep things sealed and rigid) to give me the clearance needed to focus the reflector properly, it’s a tight fit! That has benefits in that it makes the whole package look really compact and like it’s intentionally designed that way. But also makes things a bit tricky as well. I won’t know if things really line up properly until I get the centering gaskets in place and have a go at focusing up the reflector.
You have to rely on a bit of luck sometimes with this kind of modding, and if that fails you need to have an alternative approach up your sleeve 
I did not know it was such a tiiiight fit… Good luck with that and keep us updated, I am sure this forum has enough ideas to help you make it work!
Are there any beamshot of this build? Thank you!
Not yet, haven’t installed an led yet. Busy with other builds at the moment
BTW, just update the OP with a link to the 77mm hood available from dealextreme. That’s the same part I have here, provided the photos are correct.
77mm Fotga Hood from Dealextreme
Unfortunately they don’t also have the 82mm hood but I’m sure we’ll be able to track down a reliable source for that one too. This is another option that looks about right.
Fotga 82mm from Amazon
If you check out pinkpanda3310’s thread from the OP, you will find some beamshots of the same reflector + a very interesting kcd test
A few more pics and details in the OP
I have an idea( maybe)
How about a custom copper pill by NikolaS that is machined so that the emitter and the star sit deeper? That should enable you to use 2 hoods and even a proper AR lens. The pills he sells are massive, a few millimeters that will be filed down should not cause problems with the heat transfer.
Is it a good idea???
Sure, that would work as well. Though personally I think it would be nicer to have a design that works with a completely stock Courui pill/shelf. Would allow more people to carry out the mod and keep costs lower in general.
But really it’s up to the person doing the modding what preferences or specific requirements they may have, it’s also fun to try and figure out something different.
I haven’t tried it but you could probably find some way to sandwich an AR UCLp lens at the front between two filter rings, that would also give you some extra clearance. Like a step up and then a step down or something like that. May not look too great but it would work, even give the option of having an oring in there and some better sealing.
The options are fairly endless with something like this but until someone tries it and works out the kinks that’s all they are; Options
A slightly taller 82mm hood is what we need then. The current is 25mm high, so we need at leas a 30mm one. This one is 36mm 82mm Tele Metal Screw-in Lens Hood for DSLR Cameras | eBay, probably too tall, but I havent found anything better. Maybe, with 2 o-rings ( one betwen the reflector and the lens, another betwen the lens and the retaining ring), it can be made to work. This setup should work even with a bone stock pill. I will try something like this when I finally have some time and access to tools.
What I dont like the most is the ultra thin 0,5mm glass your current lens is made of. It is too fragile for a normal use.