I’m not sure if this is anything new or not, but here it goes.
This all started when I made my first 3A XP-G2 P60 drop in. I took it outside and compared it to my Mark I G25C2 NW. The P60 threw damn near the same as the ET. I immediately began thinking what I was going to do about this. My answer? Throw in an XM-L2 on a Noctigon. The ET requires a 14mm board… Out comes the dremel. Once I had the board just about to drop in, I scuffed the dome pretty bad when I slipped with the grinder. (Insert profanities here). So naturally the next step was dedome. Not a big deal. I’d been wanting to do one for a while. Here’s where it got ugly… It was late at night and I was already in trouble with the misses for not coming to bed, so no time for patience. I whipped out a razor blade and an old centering ring and let it rip. First attempt was terrible. So I made another cut. Not bad, but I thought that with just one more slice I could make it right. I did. But not without cutting the bond wires. |(
Believe it or not I got it working again with a few pokes at the remaining silicone. That is were it remained for a few days. Fast forward through a few more bad judgement calls which left me with a direct drive single mode light, I performed a tailcap test with a fully charged 20R. 3.8A is all it could manage. I had seen 6 amps plus on my bench tests. I presumed that only one bond wire was actually working. So I continued to poke and poke and no 6 amps. So out she comes for more mutilation. I cut the rest of the silicone off, including the bond wires and phosphor. The next step is why I’m writing. I hooked it up to 4S eneloops and threw on a blob of solder. Bam. I’m blinded with blue. Current measured at 4.3A.
Unfortunately, I’ve totally destroyed it since. So no good pics. :_(