This one may be a little better for comparison, as if you look closely in the first picture, the FW3A is further from the wall.
Is the optic pretty much sitting on the LEDs? Wondering if there is either a gap, or the LED larger than optic? How does it look straight on (not turned on). Wondering how a D4s beam compare?
I took the light apart and the optic does fit nicely on the domes of the LEDs. To me, it doesn’t look like it could move any further down on top of them. They are domed, and even though the domes are inside the optic, perhaps they’re just naturally floody and that is exacerbated by the short TIRs.
I wondered that too, about the D4. They do use the same Carclo optic, right?
I was thinking about how floody this light I built was. It was a beautiful, creamy tinted light, but I have been unlikely to use this light when I was outside, because to get any useful throw, the power had to be cranked up. So I thought: what’s the easiest way to get more throw? Slice the domes!
I clearly did something wrong, because once I sliced the domes off (actually, popped the domes off is a better term of what happened) and reassembled the light, that wonderful tint was now completely gone, replaced by something astonishingly bad…
Compare the two pics below. The first is with an EDC18 using XP-L HI 5000K LEDs and the second is the dedomed LH351Ds (that used to be 4000K).
To be fair… it is less floody!
Nice quad! Much cleaner than mine!
Oh that’s a bummer, at least you can fix it easily with a reflow or new board w/emitters mounted.
When slicing LH351D I only take off about half the height of the dome or a bit more, for a couple reasons but mostly because it doesn’t drop the color temp as much - the added benefit is that there’s less risk of cutting too low and damaging the phosphor.
Make sure you have a thin, sharp blade to use. Either a fresh razor or scalpel, or a well-sharpened knife with a thin edge. Work slowly and don’t use a lot of force.
LH351C are a throwier option as well, they’re basically a smaller LH351D and almost certainly could be sliced the same.
I was using a new x-acto knife, but the domes just popped right off with minimal pressure of the blade. If I had done an online search before attempting to do it, I’d have found out exactly what would have happened if the domes were removed. Whoops…
I have already ordered the 5000K LH351Ds to replace these. They’ll probably be as floody as the 4000K, but hopefully the cooler temperature LEDs will be brighter.
I’ve also ordered an S11 from Convoy’s AX store, that has an SST-40 and biscotti. It will be coming with a bypassed, reverse clicky switch that I will probably transplant into my build.
Today the new LEDs came, as did the S11 with the SST-40. The S11 was a pleasant surprise; I didn’t realize it was shipping from California, so I thought I would be waiting for China shipping. That thought was aided by the fact that the USPS tracking number never worked… I was waiting for it to make it to the States before that kicked in.
I put my quad build into the “blunish gray” host, with its reverse-clicky, bypassed switch. Crescendo really is more intuitive with a reverse switch, though now I have to unlearn the forward-switch controls. With the 5000K Samsung LEDS, the light is just as floody as it was before with the 4000Ks, but it does seem to surpass 3000 lumens. It’s probably not up to 4000 lumens, but it is brighter than it was. And the 5000K have a pretty rosy hue to them still.
The SST-40 S11 doesn’t seem to lose much power without its bypassed switch. Biscotti works fine with the forward switch too. The only thing that concerns me is the battery check. As far as I knew, four flashes for the battery meant it was full. I’m getting five flashes… Doesn’t that mean the battery is overcharged?