When I was stripping the anodization on my SP36 the color started to fade as the dye was leaving the oxide layer, but the color changed depending on the piece. Tailcap and bezel turned dark green while the head and battery tube turned dark blue, so, two different dyes, and these dyes behave differently when they are heated to the point where they start to degrade and change colors. I suppose these parts were anodized in different batches, and if I were to bake this light the tailcap/head color would have changed differently than the color of the head/tube.
Another factor that might make the color change differently is the rate at which the heat rises on the piece, the dye might degrade in unpredictable ways if heated for a long time instead of being rapidly heated (I’m not a chemistry master but I know how to boil an egg, and that’s how a boiled egg behaves)
With the dyes used for printing color photographs, the color black is mostly just very dark shades of greens, blues, etc. Sort of much like what you were seeing with color being removed from the black appearing anodizing.
Oven cleaner might be easy to use than lye. You just spray soak the light in a container, for a few minutes. I didn’t have to disassemble and patterns making kind of works with masking tape.
Partially removed anodizing on the left (scuff marks unrelated)
The Bezel, Battery Tube, Clip, Clip Oring, 0603 Ice Blue LEDs and Driver Retaining Ring were given to me for free at different times by a friend of mine.
The Head I found via the Buy/Sell Thread and was also free!
I did it again, another victim of the caustic attack, this FC11 was a little worn out, so i decided to strip it completely. The dings and scratches disappeared and the light looks new again.
LED was swapped for a 6500K 95 CRI Yinding round LED, and the switch LEDs were also swapped, PC yellow for the standby aux and amber for the charging indicator. It was already using the SC31 Pro driver.
The nice thing about PC yellow LEDs is that they are brighter than direct emission amber and they behave nicely at low brightness (direct emission amber gets so dim it looks like it’s turned off).
Just before I went the caustic route (would have if I had any) decided to try to redo the tube again over an open hob flame but for much longer. Took a bit of time but I’m ok with the final result. Also took a bit of fine grit sandpaper to the bezel for a slightly shiny chromed brushed effect. Think that’ll do for now as any more and it knacker it again.
I try to make a phone pics today…or tonight. Yes,its stock driver and new xhp 16mm from kaidomain.Nothing else.Its a wall of light i have to say.Dont want to imagine concidental work mode in my pants…Its HOT after seconds.But its worthy for me:))
Having done my first FW1A mod two weeks ago and still having an SFT40 left over, I wanted to repeat the mod with a different coloured host - this time a green FW1A host.
Other than the host colour, the only other difference between the two mods is that the green one has orange, yellow/green and ice-blue AUX LEDs, instead of the orange, purple and ice-blue AUX LEDs in the grey host. The yellow/green goes nicely with the green host.
For some reason, which I haven’t diagnosed yet, the FET on this driver isn’t working. Must be a bad solder join on the adapter board. I didn’t want to take everything apart again to fix it, but I’m not happy with this. I’ll have to fix it one day.
After my FW1A mod this weekend, I wasn’t ready to stop and went ahead with another FW3A mod. This time a TiCu FW3A I acquired recently.
This one got a lume1 transplant, 4000K 519As in place of the 6500K XPL-L HIs it came with, and a Tri-LED AUX board with orange, green and ice-blue LEDs. Unfortunately, the ice-blue LEDs are quite dim with the lowest-value resistors I had (120Ω) so I’ll be getting some lower-value resistors to fix this.
Converted my SC31 Pro to triple 519A 5000k. I Machined a copper spacer and trimmed a 20mm triple MCPCB down to 18mm. Drilled a hole through the shelf. Swapped the stock window for a KD 20x1mm AR window.
Yes,its stock driver and new xhp 16mm from kaidomain.Nothing else.Its a wall of light i have to say.Dont want to imagine concidental work mode in my pants…Its HOT after seconds.But its worthy for me:))
with the FW** mods!
