About an hour south of the shop there is a small town that is home to an awesome coating company. They specialize mainly in automotive and industrial applications but in recent years they have added Cerakoting to their product line and started working with knives and firearms as well.
Unlike powder coating that generally must be oven cured at 400 degrees for at least 10 minutes, Cerakote offers select colors in an ambient temperature cure formula. The Zebralight SC52 seems like a perfect test specimen for this process since curing at such a high heat is not an option for a light you cannot disassemble.
I might be a bit biased since this is my favorite EDC light already…but I think the results were spectacular!
I just picked it up this morning, so I have not had a chance to test it out. It will be a bit less durable than the baked cured Cerakote but it should hold up to daily wear and tear of coins, keys etc.
I suspect it will add some insulation as it is on top of the original anodizing. I will run it through some battery cycles to get a better feel for it. Right now after 3 minutes on high the light is only nominally warmer than room temperature but then again I have never thought this light ran hot either.
Are you running it off of 14500, Eneloops, or regular AA?
Mine tends to get hot if I start it off on a 14500, and leave it running. Warm after a long while on eneloop, although really has to run a while to get there.
Good point, I use Eneloops 90% of the time. I will run a few tests with both Eneloops and a Zebra 14500 and take some readings with an IR thermometer testing the standard vs the coated and see what happens.
