b2eze, not sure how far. My setup is flat HS flush with the body tube, emitter on top of that, then head screwed on. Your're right your setup probably won't work too well for that. But for multiple emitters and using 20mm reflectors in a Mag D head this probably allows better heatsinking as you can have a thicker HS.
I still want to see someone mod a 50mm optic into a mag!! with beamshots of course... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
As far as cutting the mag reflector, here is what I do. I get a hack saw and cut around the cam leaving about 1mm extra, so I don't cut into the actual reflector. I will cut until I'm almost through (look inside the cam, you can see it turn white when you're about through), then go back with a razor blade and use that to finish seperating it, as a razor blade makes much a smaller cut than the wide hax-saw blade.
Then clean it up with the razor blade around it. You should have cut off the cam and left all of the shiny part. If you don't have a pedistal heatsink and want optimal focus from an emitter on a flat HS, then take sandpaper on a flat surface and rub the backside of the reflector back and forth until you have sanded down the thickness of the plastic to where it is very thin, but not yet through to the reflective part. You're just thinning the plastic. This allows it to rest further down below the emitter. Doing this will even let you focus past the tightest point and it will widen out again, so I know this works for getting the best focus and you don't need to go further. I have done this on both 5W emitters, and 3W emitters. Should work for 1W as well because it's the same as 3W die size. Red-orange-amber I think will work too even with out sanding but I have not tried it this way because I had to raise the emitter on my 2C mag with a pedistal because it's and older mag and the head didn't screw down far enough to get the reflector close to it.
I don't know about the new 3W red-orange-amber ones. I would assume it's possible with a flat heatsink too.
When getting the dust out of a cut reflector, compressed air works good. If you have sanded the reflector, the finner the shavings of plastic from finer sandpaper, the harder they are to get rid of. Use high pressure air compressor. Don't touch the reflector! I've heard some have used water with success but only do that after air dusting, and getting rid of water spots is sometimes a problem.
Hope this helps, it's a lot of text b/c that's all I know!
