getting the bezel out was challenging, so was putting it back in .
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I reused the stock Tir… .
it works OK, not ideal, but good enough for now.
There is an artifact, a dim shadow in the center of the beam at about 3 feet away…
Some people might not notice… .
see that shadow in the middle… aargh! .
the light is 10 feet from the wall, at 190 lumens… sad beam for that distance
the beam works fine for closer than 2 feet… to see things in my hands…
there is still an artifact in the center, but instead of a shadow, its a small bright spot (very picky I aM)
novatac on left, ti s mini on right, 4” away, at 4 lumen output .
That slight donut hole would bug me until I tried everything to remove it. Have you thought about frosting the top of the TIR lens with some sandpaper?
Interesting. I guess that’s what makes modding fun (at least for me), you never know how things are going to turn out until the end. And if it doesn’t work out the way you intended, seems there’s always another option.
If you do find the right optic please let me know because as much as I like these little guys, they have been sitting on a shelf collecting dust because as my eyes have gotten older I just can’t stand the cold white light of death they emit.
:+1: for tint improvement. I think the hassle of open ’er up was worth it.
As for the dark spot, could be emitter sitting too high into the optic. I recall the original MCPCB being thinner than off-the-shelf 1.6mm and required adjusting.
I tried to replicate the photo taken at 4 ft from wall and my Ti S-mini SW30K SW45K doesn’t have dark spot.
I ground down a utility blade to create a gradule thicker bevel. The problem I had when trying to remove the bezel is the sharpest part of the blade hits the inside of the bezel ring then stops. This only moves the bezel off a small amount. By increasing the size of the start of the bevel each time the bezel moves further and further out each time hammered down around the bezel ring. By the time you get all the way to the end of your ground down bevel, the bezel should come off. Start at the sharpest end drving it down until it stops then move about 1/4 the way down the blade and go around the bezel again and then move another 1/4 down the blade etc….etc…
In order to minimize re-focus issues when modding I usually try to duplicate LED surface height in hopes duplicating original optics/reflectors geometry. Similar to approach illustrated in this old photo where I was swapping a first gen Luxeon emitter (or course in that case I was stacking MCPCB’s for added height.)
In the case of the S-Mini, I thinned the 3535 MCPCB before mounting the 219B. I’ve tried thinning PCB’s with pre-mounted emitters and the failure rate is not worth the trouble.
Also, the S-mini’s are designed with no wiggle room, the outter gold retaining ring might not seat flat otherwise.
thanks for your thoughts
since I did not thin the mcpcb, the retaining ring does not seat flat, but afaict, you just got lucky, cause we are both resting the stock Tir on the mcpcb, around the 219b…
IF the problem is that my 219b sits too high into the xm-l2 Tir, then a plastic centering ring could be used to lift the Tir… I might test that if I open the light again… I agree the bezel ring would sit too high, again… but my first mystery to solve, is how you got a good beam, and I did not, (yet). And I think the height of the LED can definitely play a role…
That would be my first guess as well. When I swapped the LED in my Baton 1 to a 219 C I used one that I pulled from a Convoy T2. The new PCB was the same thickness as the stock.
In another mod I tried shaving down the base of the TIR to fix a height issue with bezel clearance. You might have some leeway to do this but it could make the focus worse. Considering you probably only have one stock TIR, maybe try to adjust your PCB thickness first. I’ve had luck sanding them down on a belt sander but it’s a pain and hard to keep flat.
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