Don't dispair will manners. You should be able to turn this light into a pretty serious thrower. The reflector is decent sized and the host looks like it can take the heat. Dedoming an xml2 alone will get you around 100kcd. Put the emitter on copper and up the current to around 7 (Or more if you really want to push it) and you will be cooking with fire. With 2S or 3S 26650's you'll get decent run time too.
What does that translate to in lumens? I have a app on my phone, can try to calibrate it xd See where the other lights stand- just ballpark you know doing a ceiling bounce. I was kind of scared to go with the mtg2 because of heat issues on a small head like this. I’ll decide later today and order from wights guy. My sisters husband does a lot of hunting and has a hunt setup for October. I might bring this and see what he thinks. He buys all his lights from an ag store, but they’re hid. I want to be able to hit things way out, wondering if the mtg2 is really made for that or should I stick to the stock emitter and dedome/ resistor mod? It would be funny to blind one of my cousins too, he’s such an ass (in a good way lol)
I don't think it can be translated. Throw is a measure of how well the lumens are concentrated into the hot spot. So you can have low lumens and big throw and vice verse.
A good HID will beat most LED lights with ease.
I agree with you that the head is small for an MT-G2. You won't get much throw with it in this light. You might be able to get decent throw if you dedome and really crank up the amps, but I don't think this host will take the heat.
I built a Y3 up for my cousin's son to use for hunting -- BLFDD17, UCL/p lens, fully modded but still with a domed XM-L2 U2 1A - it's impressively awesome 
. No HD2010 can compete with it - bigger reflector and takes advantage of it with focus tuned. Plus with the e-switch and custom firmware, modes are far more versatile - single click to low, longer hold to high, little longer hold and you get strobe, and always one-click to turn OFF. Tailcap switch eliminates parasitic drain, though it's pretty low. Combined with a 5300 mAh cell, it will last some, and the light can take the 5A-6A+ of heat pretty well.
Well I’ll give it a shot thanks. It can’t hurt to de dome and see how far it goes. This light only cost me 25 bucks after bill me later discount and I can always get another emitter.
Oh Tom, so you think it’s worth replacing the driver? It already has the right cree
The reflector in the Y3 is maybe 2mm wider in diameter, appears to be about the same depth. Not really significantly bigger to out throw the HD2010. Is it cut differently?
Will have to give that a closer look, maybe a side by side. Interesting…
The side e-switch on the Y3 is pretty nice, having the lockout in the tail switch alleviates any parasitic drain issue. The main problem I see is a soft ano. I mean really, it can’t even survive shipping!
Sounds very sweet Tom E. I remember you (or someone) talking about modding Johnny's code for strobe some time ago, but I lost track of that thread. Is your version of the code available for others to use? If yes, can you link us to your latest version of it?
EDIT: Is this it?
I totally agree with you. Mine was scratched and marred really bad when I got it. I am going to have to pull it apart and duracoat it.
Y3 is 3mm wider in the I.D. measure (where it counts), details here in the OP: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/28129. It ain't much but I'll take it! The MaxToch M12 is little more than the Y3 - similar form factor light, but at twice the price - dunno if it's worth it, but I can guarantee the anodizing finish will be better.
ImA4Wheeler - cant' get to that link - direct post links don't work for me anymore. I do have it posted in google drive somewhere... Should be here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1IxYZuk4DjcbzI2S1UyYVpjbGs/edit?usp=sharing
fellfromtree - absolutely worth the driver upgrade, but not replacing it, piggybacking to it, like my icon . You have to retain the stock driver because of the driver mounted switch. I simply strip all components accept for the switch.
Oh bout the SR51, $50 is a great price for that light because everywhere I see it listed, it's more than that. I haven't seen one so can't say too much. In a CPF review, the reviewer seemed to measure lower lumens than stated, but for throw - who knows. Really, really weird it's an OP reflector and XML U2 LED - I've never seen a so-called "thrower" with an OP?? What gives there? My Y3 throw measurements taken from 5 meters vary from ~52 to ~61 kcd, depending on the unit and batteries, etc... Maybe I include slight dabs of TLC (Nyogel, etc.) before I test, but usually my stock #'s are as stock as possible. Some say I'm high all the time - maybe? I wish...
How to contact this Ric? cnqualitygoods@hotmail.com is no good (no one answers). My 17track still shows “China: Not Found”.
Have you tried to PM him here. He does at times take awhile to get back to you. What was the question you asked him?
While waiting for new meds to kick in, I modded the Y3 to an MT-G2 with the original driver. Stacked a single R100 resistor beside one of the 2 R180’s. Replaced the wires with 20ga. Put an MT-G2 P0 5000K on a Noctigon in place of the thick aluminum star that held the XM-L2 emitter. Cut out the plastic disc to fit around the bigger emitter, very easily done. Widened the slots to clear the contacts. Put it all back together. Done
About 20 minutes. Really. Meds haven’t even kicked in yet. 
The clamp meter shows me 4.2A off the pair of EVVA 26650 5200mAh cells, .92A on med, .12A on low. (These are tail cap readings, not emitter readings this time) Hi gave me 1577 lumens at start, 1308 at 30 seconds ( bouncing around some so the driver is trying to figure out this new load, lol) 424 lumens in med, 66 lumens in low, which is about what my new meds cost. Crazy.
The big emitter looks good in the reflector, beam is decent with the characteristic little wigglies in the hot spot from the little dies.
Much better now. 
White light, decent beam, decent output but not staggering. I’ll take it.
The MT-G2 that I put in this light is not new. I have had it in at least one other light and it’s been a bit mistreated. In the last light, a Solarforce M3, the reflector hole fit it quite snugly around the dome and I managed to ground the reflector on the substrate and fry the driver and switch. I tested this emitter and it seemed to still work.
But, I noticed a flickering in this light. I double checked the connections, the ground, all is well. So I viewed the emitter through a welders lens and found an interesting dilemma. The 72 dies don’t necessarily all work in unison. They may every one actually function, more so in low, but in high they dance around a bit, with some of the dies blinking out, and turning on/off sporadically. Not all the dies are affected by this, maybe 8% of them. And it’s a seemingly random on/off in those affected. Switch it to medium and more are lit but there’s still some dancing.
Do I have a bad emitter after the trials and tribulations it’s seen?
Undoubtedly it needs to be replaced with a new one.
Hmm de domed mine. Put in new 20 gauge copper wire to the emitter. Soldered new wire to the springs. Then I bridged the resistor xd I have to say it does throw farther, but the light on the wall has a black spot in the middle now, especially up close. I might have to try your method dbc, see how the mt-g2 goes. It just doesn’t seem bridging the resistor did much domed. De domed a little better (fired up the emitter off the sink, took it off with a xacto blade- it all came off pretty easy)
Oh well, maybe I bridged the wrong resistor. I like the light but it just seems like I have it running around stock still with more throw from a de domed u2.
fellfromtree, Did you play with the focus? Sounds like the emitter is too high into the reflector.
If you’re looking for throw the MT-G2 is not for you. The big die has a much more floody profile, by very nature of it’s die.
Most of these lights don’t like the sense resistor bridged. You need to use a value closer to the actual one already there, might have to play around with that. But usually the buck drivers are sensitive about going too low and it messes up or completely loses the lower modes.
I used an R100 to keep it a milder mod, knowing the 6V emitter was going to be closer to the 8.4V supplied by the 2 cells. Seems to have worked, 4.2A is pretty good in this size light…the pill get’s hot for sure, don’t know if it’d take much more actually.
This shot is at full High level, don’t see the dies switching in a still of course, but you can see here there’s a larger percentage that aren’t on…
Not sure this will work, but here’s a link to a short video…
I’ve had dies on XP-G & XP-E debond from the substrate they sit on, so pressure on the dome was required for them to light up. Recently I ran into the flickering you describe, but with an XM-L. It only happens at higher drive currents. I assume that this problem is due to the dies debonding like I ran into in the smaller emitters. Nice photo BTW!
EDIT: and of course with the XM-L there is only a single die, so I assume that the entire die was flickering on and off. I did not look at it through wielder’s goggles though, so I do not know for certain.
It’s a buck driver, do not bridge sense resistors. No discussion needed, if you never bridge the sense resistors on a buck driver you will not miss anything. There is nothing good that bridging can do which resistor mods can’t. I assume you’ve bridged the wrong ones or you are running on 1s. In order to properly fry your LED, bridge the larger R150 and R180 resistors. This should poof the emitter immediately on 2s. My suggestion would NOT to do that and instead calculate new sense resistor values and do a resistor mod. Use this formula to establish the total resistance you need:
R = 0.250 / I
So for 5A drive you would have:
0.250 / 5.0 = 0.05 Ohms
And in turn you can plug that into a reverse parallel resistor calculator in order to figure out what two resistors will allow you to achieve your desired sense resistance. In this case there’s no need… for 5A you’ll just want a pair of R100 (0.1 ohms) in order to generate 0.05 ohms.
Ah thanks guys. That helps wight. I’ll give it a shot. The amps at the tail didn’t change much, so replace them both to smoke it. Yeah I am running 1 side then. That shouldn’t be a problem to fix =] I like the formula it’s simple. Should work good in future mods too.
Thanks… Appreciate the help
4wheel- I’ll have to play with the focus. Maybe make a little bridge on top of the centering ring
I’m not sure what you mean by “I am running 1 side then.” The notation 1s is for “one series cell” in this case. Are you running a single cell or two cells? Did you bridge either of the two parallel sense resistors? I would have expected bridging either resistor while running 2s to poof an XM-L2. The given formula only applies to QX9920 based drivers (those drivers which include a SOT23-6 chip marked “LEDA”). Other buck controllers will use different sense voltages. The formula is easily adapted in that case - simply replace 0.250 with the sense voltage, so a 205mV sense voltage would be 0.205.
I’m curious to hear how the focus works out.