I ordered a 26mm and a 30mm from Mtn. I took a guess after simply popping the reflector out to look (but not measure) the day I got it and ordered what was available.
I’d prefer to use the 26mm board and extend the contacts out with insulated copper strip like I’ve done before vs filing 2mm off the 30mm board cause of how close the contact points are to the edge, I always have bad luck shorting the pads to GND when I try that…
I’m sure I’ll have it working in no time, mods like this are fun!
Okay, gotcha. I was picturing it like AlexGT’s picture, but this is upside down.
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YYEEAAAAHHHHH
Purple AR:
You want a tighten them just a little so they don’t wiggle loose and cause a short. There it’s not much space for the MCPCB to move around. I’d just center the mcpcb. The reflector should move to wherever the LED is. You might try different things to make sure the led is centered. Things like moving the wires to the outer edge of the pads and using less solder (no big blobs that might interfere).
I was letting you guys run with this theory of the thermal paste making the sounds. I’ve never heard of such a thing, then again, I haven’t read the E07 thread.
With the GT you get that tink sound from the big glass lens, but only once.
Maybe the sound will go away with the bezel a bit looser?
I heard these crack sounds from even Convoy C8 and Astrolux MF02. I think the reflector and head heating up and the pressure is changing what pressing the glass against the bezel. OK it has an O-ring but sometimes the glass side maybe touches the bezel inner side.
This is what I was thinking too. Maybe they need to use a tiny bit smaller diameter lens. Maybe the edge of the lens can be smoothed with a diamond file? I imagine a acrylic lens like the UCLp would eliminate the noise completely.
Looks like the mid-Feb orders are starting to show up in AUS .... got my NW today
Yep, 15th Feb our time I ordered, and arrived this morning. Had a quick play with it with a 2C 18650, can’t wait to get it home to something decent (and at night obv).
Huh?
same here, still waiting this order, no arrive until today. 
An old 18650 that’s running 2C at absolute most - ~5A.
I know there’s a lot more to it, but was more meaning that I found something lying around at work to briefly test with.
I ordered mine on the 7th of April and it says processing at Sydney facility i think Banggood sent them to there AU warehouse and reshipped from there.
I bought mine 14th feb and it just arrived today. Oh well. I notice most things end up with Fastway, but they come from Tamworth…… who knows.
Ive never had a package from Banggood with Fastways they always use Auspost for mine. Fastways is an Australian only shipping company so id say its from the new warehouse.
Yeah, who knows. All my orders are from this year, so they may have changed their supply chain.
I'm in Melbourne and got mine today delivered by Star Track
Just to confirm AlexGT's results, from holding the modded FT03 in one hand, and the unmodded in the other with comparable cells, it's amazing how hotter the modded one gets.
Does make you wonder though is this a really good thing or not. For example I find the D4 Cu/Ti light pretty useless at high amps - instantly gets uncomfortably hot in the hand. If the produced heat is the same, the unmodded light would bottle up the heat more but it should still eventually get out, just takes longer. So does that extra initial heat hurt or damage anything? Are there losses in output as a result? I can't seem to measure any difference in the first 30 seconds - nothing much different in lumens output. Would probably have to see over several minutes what's happening.
Well if it’s drawing the same current then that means the heat is getting out faster. Isn’t that a good thing?
Yes, it's what we were taught and sure made sense for the old XML's the tests were done on originally. You can't bottle up too much heat, otherwise the LED will de-solder itself like what used to happen on the old alum MCPCB's with the insulating layers, but I wonder now if it's that important to have a very conductive heat path to the outer surface since we know the LED can take more heat than the hand - wondering if there's a better point of compromise.
Guess what I'm saying, is perhaps in stock form, this FT03 isn't soooo bad. With the heat path mods Alex and I made, now all the heat goes to the not-so-efficient surface, meaning poor finning, not that much mass for the amount of heat to shed.