funny design of the driver...
I’ve seen many pictures of nitecore flashlights and there reflectors many of them looked the same as this one.
I think it’s just the way how nitecore makes the reflectors.
And whatever they did to it, it clearly works great, so idk why people are complaining 
Unique driver design for sure. It actually makes a lot of sense for large head lights like this one, otherwise that would be just empty unused space.
Many of us here are modders, Enderman, so any opportunity to break in and “fix” a light is just an opportunity that can’t be passed up. 
The sense resistor is a mere R010, not much room there to find gains. Some drivers the sense resistor can be bypassed, some can’t. Usually the way to find out is to look for the smoke after the fact. If it smokes, there’s a perfect chance to stuff an FET driver in! This has an e-switch, perfect set-up for ramping firmware, HooooYaaaah!
For better or worse, my P30 reflector no longer has lines in it. Well, not readily visible lines anyway. I now have a defined hot spot. Battery is charging to put it back to equal footing, then I’ll get lumens and lux readings…
At least now the bond wires and dots on the phosphor are visible on the die. 
Looks good. How did you polish it?
Do you think it was purpousefully only semi-polished to give the beam a more uniform/fuzzy look?
“Smooth beam and transition hotspot to spill” ==> read: reduced production cost and QC.
I started with 220 grit wet-dry sandpaper, ran in and out (top to bottom if you will) to cut across the circular lines and remove all trace. Then I went to 800 and went round and round, crossing my first direction. When it was uniform at 800, I switched to 1500 and ran in-out again. Then I used a newspaper, kept it flat, with Mother’s Billet Aluminum Polish. Buffed with the inside of a very old soft shirt. There are micro scratches, they’ll show when the light is on, but it’s shiny as all get out and directs light out quite well. How well remains to be seen by the meter…
Yes, this is about an hour of using one finger inside the reflector, turning it slowly and precisely in the free hand for uniformity.
I’ve polished more than a few reflectors and I know the end result is never as bright as a Vapor Deposition layer, normally it’s a “save” exercise, either from a fingerprint or a scratch or whatever. So, I knew I was likely to lose both lumens and lux, which in fact I did. But for me the hot spot being defined was worth it, and seeing how they made the light internally.
Down from 1048.8 lumens to 855.6
Down from 115.25Kcd to 82Kcd, from 678.97M throw to 572.72M.
I’m perhaps a little disappointed in the losses, but I like the beam profile enough to be pleased anyway. And that is how the cookie crumbles in the world of modding flashlights.
Edit: I fine tuned the polish a bit more and now have 928.05 lumens, 97.25Kcd for 623.7M throw. Close enough for government work.
wow, that’s a bigger impact than I was expecting.
Look at the edit, I fine tuned the polish with the soft cloth, cleaned it up some more.
In testing that last time, the cell went down to 4.13V, enough to skew the result, so the cell is back on the charger for a direct comparison, full charge vs full charge. I think it’s really shiny now, but of course you just can’t polish bare aluminum to a perfect no scratch surface finish, or at least I haven’t figured out how to. I’m betting it’ll be at or over 100Kcd though on a fresh charge.
Pretty sure there are some other special polishing products for aluminum, I know there is a 3 formula product that works great to polish acrylic to a perfect mirror finish, but idk about metals.
No dice, I got 99.75Kcd. Still, I can accept that. The beam profile is much more to my liking.
So now maybe I play with the output level a bit, see what happens. lol
I used to have a black polish that was like black water, very fine, that would probably gain me some shine. It was an auto finish polish, from the auto paint shop.
This is fine, actually exceeding specs but with the improved beam profile. It was something to do…
In the name of research (something to do) I went ahead and took the P30 apart. Completely apart. The contact board was glued in, had 24 ga long leads going to the driver. The driver also had 24 ga leads to the emitter. So I put 18 ga leads from the contact to the driver, bypassed the R010 sense resistor with a “0”, and used 20 ga leads from the driver to the emitter. I glued the copper mcpcb down instead of using thermal paste. There are double springs in the tail cap, so, so far, I’ve left that alone.
I’m seeing 4.45A with the cell at 4.13V, 1052 lumens. Cell is, once again, topping off…
Edit: Final result
4.46A on Turbo for 1072.95 lumens
High makes 597.2
Med makes 307.4
Low makes 80.7
Moon makes 1.24
Lux is 110.75Kcd for 665.58M throw.
A bit of a long way around and it’s pulling more amps but it’s pretty nice and once again, the difference in beam profile is much to my liking so all in all I like it quite a bit. And it’s scarred, like me, so we’re a matched set. lol
I used to make soapstone stuff
Your steps in samdpaper were to big, the rule is basicall max double the grain each step
I got for it car polish sandpaper down to 6000 its almost perfect with that
If you use very fine polish afterwards you can get the reflector almost perfectly polished
With a soft polish set for the dremel you may get a result like vapor coated reflector, as it does way more polish than you can do by hand
I won the GAW for the Convoy L6 SMO reflector, may try it on it when the dome sliced XHP70 and stock light arrives here
P.S. to avoid donut hole its better to leave it, but I may try on my C8
That’s some very dedicated work there Dale, very nice :+1: .
I really like this light : relative compact, big reflector and a side switch. All the Nitecore lights I have I changed the emitter to something neutral : EA41, EA45S, EA4S, EC21, and EC11, the last one I found the hardest to get open. I might buy it now that you showed what can be done with it thanks.
I tried to open my P12 but even with force damaging the anodisation I couldnt get it, is there a trick?
Probably its best to remove all anodisation from head and polish it?