Certainly worth giving it a try since it should match better than black.
Here’s a great post on baking flashlights: Baked / Heat Colored Convoy Pictures
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Looking closely I see that the green shade comes out on SC18 and WK03 around the edges and not in the center.
It seems more for the TIR that’s why you see in the photo a greenish ring and the white center where the TIR is.
It is only a hypothesis.
I always see the green no matter the light level.
But I don’t care because in the middle of the forest you don’t notice it.
The doubt was if they are fake those used in the SC18 and WK03 to reduce costs.
If they are really fake (they aren’t) then every single original SST40 should be replaced by these fakes. Reflector geometry can also influence the tint, I’ve had 5000K SST40 that looked alright when installed on my SP36 but the same LEDs looked terribly green on my SC31 Pro because on the SP36 the green was spread through the beam while on the SC31 Pro the green was condensed on the hotspot. That might be the case for the SC18/WK03, and a purely FET driver can hide the green at lower levels (don’t know if that’s the case for the SC18/WK03 as i never disassembled one of them).
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True, except, well…unless it’s really green. I literally have a post on here somewhere from like a year ago of a picture I took of an sft70 in a forest, complaining that it was making the trees look too green lol
Im still mad about it. It was literally greener than the trees. It made the trees greener. It out-greened trees. Trees!
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An experiment: remove the TIR from the WK03 and put it on the SC31. It may not fit so you might have to just hold it in place with the bezel off. You should be able to get an idea if the TIR is causing the improved tint.
TIRs can definitely improve tint, but there are lots of variables. I think one reason why is many TIRs don’t capture the extreme side emissions of certain LEDs like a reflector can.
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I recently got a stainless steel FW3A from JLHawaii. It came with an old, original, 1+7+FET driver and Anduril 1, so I decided it should be modded with a more efficient Lume1 driver and Anduril 2. To get hold of a Lume1 driver, I had to get hold of an FW3X.
The FW3X came with Anduril 1 installed, so the first step was to upgrade to Anduril 2. Problem was that two flashing pads were the wrong way around, so I had to modify the pin layout on my Hank flashing kit to be able to use it to flash the FW3A Lume1 Anduril 2 hex.
After unsoldering the various wires, I was able to remove the Lume1 driver from the FW3X and the 1+7+FET driver from the stainless steel FW3A.
I wanted to add a Lume1 AUX board, but unfortunately I managed to damage the red AUX pad on the Lume1 driver board, so that it was impossible to attach a wire to it. Therefore, the stainless steel FW3A mod is only a driver upgrade without adding AUX. It was very, very fiddly and took many hours, but I finally managed to get the Lume1 driver installed in the stainless steel host.
Put back together, it all worked and now I have an efficient stainless steel FW3A.
I also had an aluminium FW3A with a degraded driver (Lumintop put in an inferior driver in later production runs), so I decided use the 1+7+FET driver left over from the stainless steel light to “restore” the aluminium one to a more original condition.
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Hi @Jeffgoldblum. Curiously, what did you use to ream the reflector opening larger, and was the issue caused by a lack of sharpness?
FYI: you can add single channel aux to this driver with a firmware update and a tiny bit of soldering.
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Ya that probably didnt help. User error, impatience, wrong tools, etc.
I don’t have a tool that’s perfectly sized for this and I’m not going to buy one, I have lots that are close enough, but I wasn’t careful with them.
Not saying it’s the best tool for the job if youre going to buy something specifically for this, but I ended up having the most luck using a countersink drill bit (one I used looks exactly like these ones) on a die grinder, full speed, 20k+ rpm, going just a little touch at a time, with a pinhole in a water bottle for coolant, to remove most of the material, and just cleaned it up by hand at the end.
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I like knowing which tools and techniques that others have successfully used for increasing the size of reflector openings, so thank you for the detailed information @Jeffgoldblum!
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The coating is so delicate eh? I used a cotton buffing ball on one to try and clean up a little scuff I made. It’s a thing they use for polishing watch faces and jewelry. Huge mistake. Instantly destroyed lol
The more annoying upgrade(?) in a long time! Added a PM1 and Convoy 8A buck driver to my throwiest light.
The retaining ring didn’t fit over the 17mm to 20mm adapter with the tiny amount of solder used to attach the driver. At least I had a butane torch to heat the brass ring for pre-soldering. The inserted battery is enough to maintain the ground to the host. I can measure over 7.3A on a Molicel 21700 but it’s difficult to get up to 6A on anything else.
This PM1 is ringy in the L2 but outside, it’s ok.
The MCPCB from Kaidomain was something different with built-in insulation…
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Do you need the solder? If you have the adapter? Should be ok without it, no?
Sanding down the gasket, if you can, should help with the ring I think
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It’d be nice if I didn’t. The come-with retaining ring (which has a lot of wear) will hold the adapter but the driver slips through necessitating the solder between the ring and driver. I tried a few other adapters but they don’t fit the threads. I suppose I wound up with the same scenario of the driver just ‘floating’.
I’ll see if RMM has any extra retaining rings or ask Simon for the same. Perhaps I’ll just order a 20mm bucker.
I’m having trouble picturing this. You have two pieces with the adapter, right? And you have the driver between them like a sandwich?
Oh, is it just the wrong size adapter? Like a 20mm to 22mm? I don’t know what size driver the L2 uses
I usually hit the reflector on the table, full force, like if i was trying to destroy it, and the dust comes off of the reflector surface. When it’s something that got stuck on the reflector coating, like fog or oil, i spill detergent, then i rinse it, then i repeat this cycle until the reflector is clean, and to dry the reflector i use compressed air. Nothing remotely solid shall ever touch the reflector surface.
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The L2 fits a 20mm driver. A 17mm driver sits in the adapter which sits in the host driver pocket rim. When I place the threaded retaining ring over the adapter, the driver, if not soldered or friction fitted, is free floating because the retaining ring has a larger ID. I should have just put it altogether without soldering the driver to the adapter.
I treat my glasses the same way. Learned it from reading Costa Del Mar’s lens care instructions. I will never use a cleaning cloth again. I have foaming dispensers that have simple dish soap. I apply the foam, gently rub with my fingers and rinse with, if available, filtered water and then use a air hand dryer. I haven’t had a scratch in over a year.
Ok I think I understand what you’re saying. I don’t understand why the new retaining ring that came with the adapter would have too large an ID though. Unless you were sent the wrong one. You got two pieces with the adapter, right? The washer it sits on and the new retaining ring with a smaller ID?
OHHH, you have to use the original retaining ring because the threads didn’t match up with the one that came with the adapter. I didn’t see that before. Ok. I understand now.
Thanks, ya normally I wouldn’t, but sadly something solid had already accidentally touched the surface (impatience) but it was just a little scuff, barely noticeable…then the buffing ball just absolutely wrecked the entire thing instantly lmao
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I finally finished building my first mule after what seems like months of trying to find the right host. I eventually settled on a stonewashed Maeerxu XT4, with a Convoy 22mm 12V 2.5A driver and a 5700K/3500K mix of Bridgelux Thrive 1W 2835 emitters. I initially was going to use a mix of Optisolis, but the difference in Vf of cool and warm emitters made that impossible. I had also tried some 6V Seoul SunLike leds, but they didn’t seem as bright.
The tint isn’t as rosy as I would’ve liked but it’s still q bit below bbl. I may end up trying a 6500K/2700K mix in hopes of lowering the duv. I figure with each emitter getting just over 200mA it should make 2000ish lumens, unfortunately I have no way of verifying that though. I took inspiration from Clemence and used his method of using 100% Indium solder, in hopes that it’ll help with the temperature as there’s no thermal pad.
I didn’t take any beam shots as it’s like any other mule, just a big wall of light.
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