I recently finished putting an SFT-40 in a brass FW3A with an OP reflector and stock bezel (with a 2mm spacer). This is a last minute entry so I’ll keep it brief.
I didn’t take any good before pictures but first step was to remove the triple PCB and drill two holes for the single emitter.
One of the reasons I took up this hobby was to practice soldering. So I’m a little embarrassed of this next photo but it feels wrong to leave it out.
There’s so little space under the OP reflector that it took me a couple tries (as you can probably see) to get the wires/solder low enough.
It took a bit of grinding on the sides to get this reflector to fit.
Once I got it to clear the reflector without shorting (RIP my original driver) it was simple to put everything together, using a 2.5mm TPU printed spacer to take up the extra space from the OP reflector. There are plenty of threads engaged I think.
I threw the original triple Nichia 219c in a beat up S2 host I had sitting around. I really like this paired with a 5A convoy driver. Seems almost as bright as it was with the FET driver.
And finally a quick beamshot. Lots of spill but with a nice defined hot spot.
It’s a 22 x 8.2mm reflector from Kaidomain, the only 20+mm reflector I could find that was less than 10mm tall. Stock optic height is about 6mm.
I forgot to mention it in the original post but I did have to ream out the LED portion of the shelf slightly to get a 20mm pcb to fit. At first I thought it was just the Convoy pcb but the KD one needed it too.
I also did the tailswitch mod while I was at it. This has the updated switch with a different nubbin design and a retaining ring, but the same size o-ring works fine.
Thanks guys. I know the contest is closed but, just for fun, I have a few uodates below.
I spent a solid couple of days playing with this after I finished it and managed to drop it pretty hard, damaging the driver. At anything less than turbo it was flickering, and it wouldn’t turn off completely. Rather than troubleshoot the issues (seems like I broke some chips) I reached out to Lumintop and they shipped me another driver for $5!
I had ordered two SFT40s from Simon so I put on the spare when I switched drivers. The soldering is not great but it’s a lot cleaner than before.
This time I put some high temp electrical tape over the terminals. They don’t contact the reflector but there is very little clearance, so this makes me feel a little better.
I ended up installing a 2mm lens. Initially I thought I was going to need a fresh lens and ordered the closest thing Kaidomain had to stock. I scratched the original pretty well with all the test fits and thought hey, might as well use the thick one.
I’ll need to print a 0.5mm thicker spacer to make it snug. My Ender 3 is in need of calibration right now, as always, so I’ll do it when I get time. Also pictured is the bezel damage from the drop. These things are pretty tough!
This lens is in much better shape but the extra distance between reflector and bezel is noticeable.
