The taller pill, or the shorter clearances you mentioned are the same as on my Stainless Steel 26650 host. It works this way but again the body o rings are exposed. I had hard time soldering onto this huge pill, but it wasn’t impossible unlike an aluminum pill. When solder blobs occur the pill gets even taller. This is just an annoyance putting me back from using my light with pleasure. One really should file down the pill first.
"But I love waffles."
I knew you were going to be eating more waffles.
leggomyeggoFoy
Well I modified the Bezel tonight, by recutting and polishing the crenulations. All I can say is that the ano was very easy to remove with files. I use Nicholsen files and I have a set of small diamond files. Both the regular and diamond files cut very fast.
I also found that this aluminum is super soft!! I ended up using the diamond files because they left less marks in the aluminum. It was so soft that I had a time trying to get the metal smooth, even 1000 grit paper left marks and steel wool dug into it. Too soft for me. I ended up using an old piece of 1000 grit and saliva. Yes, saliva. It's better than water for wet sanding. Even after that and polishing, the surface looks Grainy... It looks grainy and nothing seems to bring it up to a really smooth surface. Needless to say, I'm not going to do a lot of polishing on this light. I will a little here and there and then I think I will sell it for what I paid for it, with all the components and someone else can make a finished light out of it.
I've been spoiled with Maglites quality and this is not even close. Soft metal, brittle ano surface, just not for me. If this is really HAIII, I don't want it.
no way that's HAIII imo - my nicholson files didn't remove the xtar ano any (noticeably) better than the cheap ones...I just wasn't going to try them long enough to see if it would damage them.
It will chip, especially on corners, but filing it off a flat surface is difficult.
True type III is very hard. Even good type II is tough stuff. I went at a Maglite head with a less-than-ultra-sharp grooving tool, and the type II shrugged off the blade.
I like this host, but won't try anything decorative now - THANKS !
Ok, I want to post my other findings and the summary of the issues with this light, before I sell it, so everyone knows.
Here's a few photos of what I figured out:
I can see the reason for a hollow heatsink. You are supposed to put your driver inside (17mm driver in a 21mm hole).
Then you use the board they provide and solder your + & - leads to it here.
Then you flip it over and press it in. Solder the spring to it and you have your circuit.
The tailcap switch contacts get soldered to this board.
Then it all would go in the tail and this side would be showing.
Put in the brass ring and solder on the spring and you have the switch circuit...
EXCEPT...........
Neither the Tailcap, nor the inside of the head have any bare area. If the set up is as I have shown, the threads of both the inside of the tailcap and the inside of the head would need to be bare, to make contact. Otherwise the light is not a complete circuit (not grounded) and nothing is going to work.
Agree? Disagree? There's no bare metal contact to the body anywhere. It can't work without the negative path being completed somehow.
So I see that something needs to be done to somehow make negative contact. The light should have been sent with that problem already solved.
Also the problem of the stack height of the pill needs to be resolved. If you file down the bottom of the pill to get the body to screw in far enough, you loose that bottom lip for the contact board and it will not fit in any more. The only choice is to leave it and not have the body screw in all the way.
Final issue. - Remember I put down dimensions in the first post. Did anyone catch the difference in ID of first body tube and the extension body tube?
Body tube number 1, does not fit this 26650 dummy.
Body tube extension fits fine.
The main body tube could be opened up, or it may be that some batteries will fit, but not all of them. Either way it's a mistake.
All in all, I just don't want to mess with this. I will put it up for sale in case any of you other modders want to play with this light, but I am done with it. I will stick to Maglites. Too bad, because I have another light host coming that I will not even touch when it comes.
Oh, here's photos of the polishing. I did the head, but I'm not touching the body. Aluminum is way too soft to do any rings on it.
All I can say is...............
Maglite, Try the rest, then mod the Best!
Quick question: Could you not file down the top of the neck by a few threads to reduce its length and allow the head to thread down onto the neck further? If you take off too much, you might also have to grind off the first few threads inside the head if you find that the relief for the o-ring isn't high enough inside the head now, and the head threads are making contact with the o-ring before the top of the neck makes electrical contact with the brass pill base.
About the ano on the tail threads causing electrical insulation - you shouldn't need for the brass ring to make electrical contact with the threads, as long as the exposed/de-ano'd end of the body makes flush electrical contact with the brass retaining ring when the tailcap is fully seated all the way. If they haven't done it for you, you need to remove the ano from the very end of the body tubes to contact the brass retaining rings for the driver & switch PCBs. If there's a gap between the end of the body and the brass ring, you can fill it by shimming beneath the switch board, allowing you do back off the brass ring a turn or two and still make contact to the host and the board.
Oh, one more thing... about the Aluminum being super soft... I've heard of Aluminum alloys that contain Pb - that's Lead! Wear gloves and a mask when filing!
There’s very little threads as is. If the neck were to be filed down 2mm, I would feel apprehensive about the threads holding the thing together. It’s an option. File the neck, file the heatsink, do a little of both I guess, it might work, but just not worth it to me right now.
Nothing has been sanded to expose any bare aluminum. It should have been done before the light was sent out. It could be done. I need to check to see if the body even threads down far enough to touch the brass ring. I don't think it does, but I can measure it. The body neck needs to be sanded so the heatsink/pill brass touches too and again it should have been done before sending the light.
Since the 26650 or sub C batteries will not fit in the first length of the tube, due to it's undersized condition, I wouldn't even bother at this point. I sure don't want to do the brake hone thing to open up the body for that, someone else, but not me. I've done enough of them.
TJ - thanks, your ideas on this are right on the mark. I'm just soured by the way it came. $25 bucks and I could have bought a 2D Maglite for $16. With all the modding I would have to do to this one, it's no worse modding a Maglite from scratch.
TJ is spot on about the tail cap contact. I'm guessing that the head end is the same way. The issue of the brass pill being too long will be addressed when I make my own copper pill for it (I'm purchasing this host from Old Lumens). That only leaves the matter of the undersized bore of the main body section. I'll have to see how my batteries will fit that section of body tube and go from there. The current plan is to use the XM-L and KD 2.8A driver from my old pre-D Mag that I'm going to rebuild some time this year. If OL doesn't mind I'll update this post with my progress on this light. I'm also planning on flipping this light (build it, sell it because I have too many lights as it is) so if anyone is interested in it and wants a different configuration than my current plans please let me know and I can accommodate your requests. Hmm, I have a spare C-Mag head that's not being used right now, too...
Feel free to post or do a whole thread on it, fine by me. It would be interesting to see a copper HS in it, are you going to thread it or try to stuff it into the threaded head? Time will tell. Good luck with it and let us know the progress. I gave it up, because I just don’t want to do drivers any more. I haven’t done one that worked right yet, mainly due to my inability to solder to those tiny solder points with my shaky hands.
OK, now I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I have had this host for a while and have never gotten to it, so I'm concerned about what Old-Lumens has found.
But they did sell these as working flashlights, not just the host. So I'm assuming that somehow, these hosts do assemble correctly.
They sold them as working lights, but of course they did the necessary things to make the light work. I am guessing those things were not done to the bare hosts, to cut back on labor/price. Maybe, maybe not. I imagine the easiest way is to do what TJ said. I just did not want to mess with it any more. Let us know how it turns out.
It'll be threaded. I can cut standard 60 degree threads and have done so in copper. I can't cut ACME threads, yet. ACME threads are commonly incorrectly called square threads.
Ryuken, since I'm making one for me I can very easily make one for you, too.
I am glad that I do not have a lathe. It would bring fear into the hearts and minds of many people, if I had that kind of capability, (and my wife would put a bullet in my head). 
I have tired to answer what the "f" means in "BLF" but it doesn't accept those four letters.......
And here I thought I knew everything. According to Wiki (knower of everything and is never wrong) (!) an Acme thread is cut at an angle? While square threads are not? Rare is the day I don't learn something new around this place. I thought "rouge" was something my mom used to use until Chicago got me going with Greased Lightining. (hadn't heard of that either)
threadgateFoy
I learned that one because my ThruNite T30 has ACME threads almost throughout and, like this host, they claim that a piece of brass is a copper heatsink. I was originally planning on making a C110 copper heatsink for it, but, the 1.5A max current it pushes to the emitter doesn't warrant it. That brass heatsink is threaded with ACME threads. In my humble opinion, copper is only warranted when you are using an undersized heatsink or you go over 2A.
If it's a gold color, they call it "copper."
Foy
It's very kind of you, I may not have a better alternative, so I'll be watching this thread with anticipation.
The host arrived today. I've been busy so I barely got a chance to open the package then I had to run. I'll probably get started on this in a week or so because I have other commitments that I need to get out of the way first. Stay tuned...
I finally got a chance to look at this host a bit more closely (after my morning coffee has kicked in) and these are my findings:
Pros:
Nice styling
Nicely cut threads
Fairly well thought out layout
I could not duplicate the problem of the heatsink preventing the head from screwing down far enough to cover the O-ring and I had placed an XM-L on a 10mm star on it. I got about 1.6 turns of the head past the point where the O-ring groove disappeared before it contacted the heatsink
The tail cap guts appear to be compatible with Solarforce L2 reverse clicky guts, though the button cover appears to be 16mm across
Comes with a glow in the dark O-ring (at least it appears to be) and Viton (orange) O-rings
Cons:
Threads are a bit loose without the O-rings in place (sloppy tolerances)
The extender does not have a chamfer at its edge where it screws onto the main body so it'll shave the O-ring unless you screw it on partially then force the O-ring under the hard edge (look at the fourth picture down on the OP) with your finger nail
The "copper" heatsink has ACME threads. What the ****? This is the only place on this host that has ACME tthreads. Gee, I wonder how well it's going to transfer heat from this material that's not too good at transferring heat to the outside world through minimal contact because you've got a near square cut thread in a 60 degree angle normal thread cut?
The "HA III" is as soft as type II anodizing
Thw main body tube is smaller in ID than the extender. I'll need to get a pair of 26650s to ensure I get the ID bored to the correct diameter
There's an extra O-ring that came with this light (large orange one in the OP's picture) that has no apparent place
Il'l be addressing the heatsink issue as well as the extender's lack of a chamfer on the lathe. I'm considering converting it to a forwards clicky ala McClicky, but, I'm not sure, yet. Also, three sub-C batteries fit in this host if I make a sleeve for it so they don't rattle around.