Thanks again for doing this review that gave me the push to order and mod this light.
I'm almost done modding mine. A few things I noted.
As expected, the driver was the hardest part.
Like your F13, mine has a LED centering ring that blocks a lot of light. I tried removing it and seeing if I could get the LED to sit deeper into the reflector, but that didn't seem to work. And again like you, I installed a lower profile centering ring. EDIT: I ground the sides of the bottom of the reflector, and now it sits down all the way. The beam is now very ringy.
The reflector was shorting the emitter wires. I was using 18awg leads and a 20mm Noctigon MCPCB. I'm currently putting plastidip on the bottom of the reflector. EDIT: The leads were ripping through the plastidip. I taped the bottom of the reflector with kapton tape, and that worked.
With a floating 12*7135 Nanjg105 behind a 21mm contact plate and those burly 18awg wires, there wasn't room for adding thermal mass. I had been hoping to add 2-3 copper pennies, so it's really disappointing to add zero.
The contact plate doesn't sit in the pill very well because it's 1mm too small, but the retaining ring seems to do a good enough job at holding it in place and grounding the contact plate.
I added wire to the tailcap spring, but skipped the other spring because I just wanted to get done for now. EDIT: Added the other spring while waiting for the plastidip to dry.
A Trustfire flames protected button top 26650 fits. It's my longest cell. That's a good for any light, but especially one with springs that don't compress as far/easy because of added wires.
The tailcap end of the battery tube has some anodization. I'm going to grind it off to ensure full contact with the tailcap.
It doesn't warm up as quickly as I thought it would. I don't think I'll like the reason. I may have screwed up stacking 7135's, or MCPCB isn't sitting flat, or I didn't connect the driver and contact plate well enough, or the thermal path isn't nearly as good as I thought it would be. At best it's pulling 4A, but I'm not appreciating the output without the reflector installed. I'll try to determine the tailcap current later. EDIT: It warms up now. I think the MCPCB wasn't transferring heat effectively until the reflector was installed and pushing down on it. Or maybe it needed that other spring wire installed. EDIT 2: 3.44A at the tailcap, but battery was only charged to 4.1V.
I'm going to order 22mm copper washers to directly mount the nanjg105 driver to. This will reduce the driver stack height and allow some thermal mass to be added. Switching from 18awg wires to 22awg should provide even more space in the pill. Screws will also be added to hold down the MCPCB...no Fujik for this light.
