I’m wondering what is everyone’s thoughts on this. I just got my Nitecore P23i yesterday. Lovely overall. The issue is that when I turn on the light, it the middle of the Hotspot there is a slightly dimmer dark spot / artifact. Contacted Nitecore and they said this is a shadow of the SFT 70 and not considered abnormal or a defect. Some other’s calling this on light forums a “Donut of Death” is this something that can happen on deep reflector lights. Any advise if this is normal or acceptable?
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It’s possible any photos, any beam shots… !?
I’ll have to head home for lunch and swap the Mini Pineapple for it.
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2 photos off Amazon and on both you can see the dimmer middle of the hotspot.
This is “normal” for many lights due to how the reflector was designed and placed over the LED.
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Normal for flashlights or normal for the Nitecore?
It’s not a good design but sometimes it’s just the way the LED and reflector combination is.
Whitewall hunting results. A bad thing if all you use a flashlight for is illuminating white walls ( or fences ) from a short distance. Quickly forgotten in most real world uses of a flashlight.
Like, at 11PM, in the rain, you have a flat. The quality of your flashlight beam will be the last thing on your mind as you change the tire on the side of the road.
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suggest you NOT try to deal with Customer Service
if you bought with Amazon Prime, they offer free returns… do that
if you did not buy from Amazon, or dont have free returns
file a paypal dispute for full refund of a defective item… And contact the email address that paypal provides, to give them the opportunity to refund you, before paypal has to rule on the dispute.
and do not buy a light with that LED again, no matter what company is selling it
Or, if you like the light, except for this artifact, just ignore it and be happy.
I mean, how much is this dark spot going to impact the things that you bought the light for?
I guess only you can answer that. But this seems to be a sort of tactical light. It has a pretty unique set of switches for this purpose (maybe a duty light?). If you got it because of this functionality, and it works for you, how important is the ultimate beam quality?
Personally, If I had returned every light that I got that had some kind of beam imperfection, I think maybe half of them would have gone back.
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For me, “normal” finding, because it’s seen in many of my single emitter lights, especially one with smooth reflector. Orange peel reflector such as in Convoy GTFC 40 lights seem to hide it.
IMHO/IME it’s seen in white wall hunting, and not noticeable IRL, especially when shining on nature scenes and not another white wall of a big building 
.
That said, the brightness difference between the dark middle area and the whitish/bright surrounding should not be too severe. If it is, then it might be visible and annoying even IRL, such as the case in my new Wurkkos TS30S Pro (the worst difference in my collection). If you think it’s too severe in your light, then if possible return and order another light. Keep in mind, the new light might be better, or worse.
Below just random beamshot from that past of 3 of my lights , and they all have it. Olight and Sofirn have TIR, Nitecore has smooth reflector.
I understand that SFT-70 is prone to this kind of behavior. That’s why Simon from Convoy didn’t want to use it and Pioneman warns about that effect in their lights with this led.
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Yup, that was one I was thinking about when I mentioned returning lights with beam imperfections.
But for what I got it for… a cheap long distance thrower… It is just fine. So I just kept it and put up with the donut hot spot.
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good info
imo the shadow is caused by the LED design
https://i.imgur.com/FVHcpVU.png
Is it worth keeping the light? Opinions will vary.
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Yes indeed, but the only one that counts in this case is the opinion of @JadeGeminiM390.
Do the rest of the features and qualities of the light make up for the perceived lack of beam quality…