Ironic considering the sources of the statement. AFAIK, DrJones is the only person here with much expertise in this field, and I recall the BS he had to put up with from the wannabes at CPF.
The request for the real thing still stands. I’m still trying to put it all together. :bigsmile:
Maybe I shouldn’t be this confused? Hahaha
Well I de-domed one of my Small Sun ZY-T13 and now it won’t even work. And I was real careful. This one is going in the trash. My de-doming days are over.
That’s what I get for trying to mess with something that worked perfectly.
Now I got to buy another one. I don’t recommend doing this.
Frankly the pretense at CPF was much worse: giant threads of nothing but “I’m a ‘respected’ member so what I have to parrot must have value BS”.
The problem is that even though a college level of basic physics and perhaps some of the material from “optics” is adequate to understand what’s going on, there some engineering specifics we have to figure out. None of this is magic, though.
I nearly posted before to say i wonder how long it takes till someone posts on this thread saying they’d wreaked a light!..… i sensed one would go wrong……
Sorry to hear that anyway ILF 
Maybe it just needs a new emmiter fitting.
ady
Don’t you already have 2 or 3 of that light? LOL
And now thanks to you we have to change the title to 98% success rate. :p
After reviewing some other posts about de-doming, it seems that it’s harder to de-dome Cree LEDs because the emitter wiring arches up into the silicon. This being the case, obviously some people are pulling it off with better than decent results. Not sure I’d give up yet if you can get the increases detailed in the OP - as long as you have a few cheap XM-Ls sitting around to practice with.
In my case, I detailed my efforts specifically so I could be educated by anyone who identified a need in my post. Sounds like the very fact that I only removed 50-70% of the dome and haven’t attempted to take any more is maybe why my uneducated attempt to de-dome a Cree XM-L succeeded and yours didn’t.
I’m still watching for some more definitely explanations as to exactly WHY de-doming works like it does, when it does. I am tempted to try it again with a higher-driven drop-in, since I have a few of them.
I’d also like to hear from someone who has de-domed the XM-L in their HD2010. 
I’m pretty sure they don’t study the same kind of “optics” in photography as in physics. Even then, intro to “optics” (ie EM physics) as a course doen’t teach field-specific phenomenon as etendue at that level.
In any case one of my other interests is photography and I find that most pro photographers aren’t familiar with the science or engineering of a camera. This isn’t a knock on the profession as they don’t need to be for the artistic pursuit, but it’s simply not a STEM field.
My profession is slacking off, on a computer, and I’m excellent at both.
Thats why I stated “close to 100%” in my OP … covering my ass 
But in all seriousness if this is done carefully I don’t see how there could be a problem.
Yeah, this is one of the better methods I’ve seen. Do you “slide” the razor as you go across, or do you only push?
My previous “attempts” (ie often accidental, lol) left a pretty bad taste, and the only reason I’m kind of hesitant on this is because I feel as though it’s going to leave a rough surface. I really suck at polishing anything; what’s the least accident-prone way to go about that?
Yea I had 2 of the Small Sun ZY-T13. But I was careful as all get out and did what I conidered a perfect detailed job of dedoming. Now I just wasted $24.
But at least I can say I gave it a try.
You would be wrong, as with most of your assumptions.
The physics (at when I studied, chemistry) is a central focus of a science-based degree in photography (pun intended.)
agenthex,
LowLumen details what seems to be the cleanest, safest way to do it in his post #23 here . Nice Idea!
As for polishing i’m not sure what else to use other than a dremel.
ILF,
I’m interested to know what went wrong, did you nick below the dome at any point? If you didn’t then I can’t see how the de-doming itself could have affected anything really.
Here’s some attempted beamshots of the standard Trustfire Mini-01 vs the de-domed mini-01. Both are on a fresh AW IMR16340.
Standard Mini-01
De-domed
Standard Mini-01
De-domed
Thanks HAL so I don’t have to repeat myself….
I think you have one chance to get a smooth surgical precise, parallel to the emitter cut with the sharpest, thinnest razor blade. Maybe oil the blade before the cut too.
The issue of color separation on the XM-L is well covered in this thread on CPF:
long story short, the light emitted straight out the top travels through less phosphor than that emitted at oblique angles.
It appears from the evidence that de-doming increases the amount of scattered light, and reduces the light ‘focused’ forward by the dome, thus increasing the amount of light focused by the reflector into the hot spot. Makes sense.
From my de-domed mule light, the color separation problems are improved. Not sure why that is; more diffusion mixing the light from what is left of the dome perhaps.
I want to cut my XM-L dome but don’t have a razor. Will a butter knife work? If not, I think I have a piece of a brick around somewhere that is pretty sharp. Could just throwing the emitter at something sharp like a rosebush work? Yeah, probably. That’d what I will do. I’ll let you know what happens.
Thank you, HAL and LowLumen. You both have cleared up most of my confusion.
Matt, nice job with the Mini-01!!! Looks great. Now, if only I had more than just one, I’d attempt the de-doming as well. Man, I am still so tempted.
As HAL mentioned, a Dremel works well to polish - start with a hard polishing tip, careful not to grind it down too much, then finish off with a felt wheel or tip. At least this worked for me. I don’t have a tiny razor blade, and made my initial slice with a very small pocket knife blade. This cut was parallel and done carefully, but it wasn’t as smooth as it could have been. This, I believe, doesn’t matter so much if you are going to finish and lightly grind/polish with a dremel. I corrected the imperfection of my first cut with the dremel actions.
Also, as an extreme de-doming noob, I find it important to suggest that with the Cree XM-L, the emitter wires could be protruding further up into the dome on some of our LEDs. This would explain why it works for some so well, and not so well for others. I started with a slice of only 50% of the original dome removed, and obviously missed any wires, which gave me a little more room for polishing. It makes me wonder if we can accurately assess the depth our cut should be by very closely examining our LED from a side angle. I don’t have a magnifying glass or anything, and my 41 year old eyes are having trouble spotting emitter wires arching up into the dome of any of the LEDs that I’ve examined in the last ten minutes.
Also I wanted to note, again as an extreme de-doming noob, that I did mine on an under-driven drop-in. The results are impressive, but still not as great as it could be on a well-driven emitter. I just managed to improve on an otherwise crappy drop-in.
Thanks Jaffo
See post 31 here for more beamshot comparisons Olight S10 Baton & S10-Ti
Once i had polished the dome down to about 0.5mm with the dremel, i held the pill and rubbed it against a glasses cleaning cloth to give it a final polishing.
Cheers
Matt