Reverse polarity protection diodes. I guess not altogether a bad idea, considering they seem to have designed everything on this light to be as complex as possible for no good reason! lol
oh yes, with your track record i would assume you put it back to stock to bask in its crappy engineering 
Yes I checked that out with a meter, but they do add resistance, so they are history and copper is in place of them. No resistance now.
Yes I checked that out with a meter, but they do add resistance, so they are history and copper is in place of them. No resistance now.
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Pure copper is a terrible diode, but in this case I would have done the same thing. It’s monkey-proofing that is eating precious wattage. They didn’t have it on the EA$, so I dunno why they added it here.
I’m surprised you dont have led’s in your boxes and boxes full off parts. The hardest thing in modding is waiting for the slow boat from China.
OMG, I'm not the only one who feels that way :P
The light is finished. See the OP for the rest of the story. Beam Shots tonight.
My thoughts on it;
I know the taskled driver is a well made driver, but that UI is absolutely Frustrating! If you are an old school guy like me, you probably won't like it. It was a major (2 hours+) task, for me to even figure out how to get through the 30 page instructions. I still am not sure how to set things. I did get the max output set to 3000mA, but that's about all I could figure out. I wore down a set of 8 batteries getting that far.
The MT-G2 with this reflector looks like it will have a fairly good spot. Darkness will tell. I can only run the reflector down till it touches the die, not below the die and I suspect that it needs to be just below the die face. I see a couple of tiny dots in the beam and typically that means the reflector needs to be just a hair (or a few hairs), lower.
As far as brightness?, well, at 3000mA it's bright, but not terribly impressive. Of course, that's just in the garage, so again, Darkness will tell that story.
Overall? I really need to stick to Maglites. I feel much safer working on them and I did not like working on this light, but I did get it finished and it's a nice looking light. The heat transfer seems to be working well, as the whole body gets warm fast. Tonight I will do beam shots and do some testing at work, where I can try it out at longer distances.
I admire your thinking outside the square with your novel star, switch and driver mount/mounts. What happened to the copper mount for the led? I’ve commented before that I reckon those drivers would do my head in. It must be nearly time for night shots as its nearly sun up here. Thanks.
I think I read above that you put a 4000 tint emitter. Is that one of the emitters that have a min CRI of 80 or of 90?
Thanks to comfychair, I found out I was going the wrong direction with the height of the MGT2 in my reflector. As he noted in his P60 thread, the MTG2 seems to need to be placed lower than you would expect.
Amazing build as usual. You made that light very sharp looking too.
EDIT: Even if it’s not one of the MGT2’s with the high CRI’s, it well render color way better than most XML2’s. My MGT2 renders color way better then even my XML2 T6 3C’s. Especially after mounting on copper.
Well, the problem I have with these home made copper stars is getting the wires to stay on. If I went the whole way and made a complete star with solder pads for the wires, it would be ok, but I tried the pedestal thing again and that just never works right. After stripping off some of the negative strip on the underside of the led, I realized that it was going to be the third MT-G (G2) that I have ruined, so I gave up and put it back on the regular star. I just do not have much luck with the MT-G (G2) leds. I have ruined all but one, so I just quit before the swearing got really bad.
Great job as always, Justin! Looking forward to the beamshots. :bigsmile:
I hear you. That must off been when my brother was knocking on the front door. I hope the wheelie marks go away soon 
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WOW! WOW! WOW! That is one danged nice mod. I am stunned at your talent and the asthetic improvements are phenominal! Can't wait to see the beam shots. NICE Justin!!!! SUPER NICE!
Dan.
The tiny dots seem to be normal, at least on my two builds. Both have two or three small slightly dim spots in the center. These are only noticeable when white wall hunting. I think it is something to do with the honeycomb emitter surface.
Yep, my MT-G2 has a donut-hole effect too at very short range, like 3-4 feet, but it's completely utterly unusable on HI at that kind of distance, so it doesn't really matter. The hole disappears when the range moves out to about 7-10 feet.
MT-G2 focus/reflector positioning does not follow the old rules of thumb you learned with the XM-L!! Base of the reflector needs to be lifted up a good ways above the square substrate, though I haven't seen one in person that's been de-domed so I can't say if that's down to the height of the die in relation to the substrate, or something else. Mine are happiest with the inside base of the reflector about .060" above the substrate (spacing from the backside of the reflector will vary depending on the base thickness of the particular reflector). It goes completely crappy if you move the substrate fully into the base of the reflector. This holds true with every reflector I've tested, something like 8 or 9 so far.
Mine focused best with the reflector down on the substrate. I think it would be better if it was a little lower. I thinned the bottom of the reflector, to get it as close as possible and the beam got smoother. Just very tiny spots now and I have to look for them, to see them on a wall.
Beam Shots are up, in the OP.
What size hole would you recommend in the base off the reflector?
I’ve just looked at your pictures. Very nice. I take it from a light you started out hating that you may have warmed to it. The pictures look fantastic and I dont recall seeing the tree in the lake this bright with this amount off spill. Personally i believe you have excelled here especially with your setup at the front end I previously commented on. Unless I missed it how is the tint. This is the 4k led. After your nichias how does this compare? Mate, what a job extremely well done. Cheers.
I have seen hundreds of mods and i have done maybe a hundred too.
So, i can simply say that,
You are a modding king!