This is a mod of a budget light I've been working on. The original light is an Aleto N8 that I purchased on Ebay. I purchased it because at 108mm x 25mm it was the smallest 18650 zoomie I could find. I made the following modifications:
1. Used Greased Lightning to remove the gold anodizing, then polished up the bare aluminum with Blue Magic.
2. Removed tailcap clicky switch and shortened tailcap.
3. Filed down inside of pill, top and bottom of body, top and bottom of bezel.
4. Used checkering file to convert vertical lines on bezel into square cut knurling. Also added matching square cut knurling in a ring near the tailcap.
5. Replaced stock 6-mode driver with a Nanjg 105c with DrJones lumodrv electronic switch firmware. (lumodrv has shortcuts to min, max, 25%; and it has 2-way ramping with 34 visually linear steps; also hidden strobe, momentary mode and voltage meter)
6. Performed Comfychair's FET mod on the Nanjg 105c. This should enable the driver to pull upwards of 6 amps on a fresh IMR 18650.
7. Installed electronic side switch and wiring to the driver.
8. Filed down inside of lens mount to make room for larger lens.
9. Stock lens was 18mm wide with around an 18mm focal length. Currently I've replaced it with a 20mm wide lens with a 15mm focal length, but may replace that later with a fresnel lens.
10. Pill was hollow. I built a copper heatsink to to go under the star.
11. Replaced stock aluminum star with direct copper star from Illumination Supply.
12. Replaced stock cool white XML emitter with a dedomed XM-L2 neutral white. New tint is fairly warm yellow-orange, with no noticeable green.
13. Replaced head and tailcap springs. Solder-braided the replacement springs.
Overall, I'm fairly pleased with the mod. In its current form its 97mm long x 25mm wide. It's nearly the same size as a Sipik 68, but is MUCH brighter and throws much further (My meter showed 48k lux on a fresh protected 18650). In flood mode, the beam is 82 degrees wide, which is far wider than any stock zoomie... and is wider than the spill of most lights with conventional reflectors.
The fresnel lenses I've tried so far are nice and thin, but have disappointing throw compared to the 20mm aspheric. I have some new fresnels due tomorrow and will give them a shot. With a fresnel lens I can get a wider floodbeam (over 92 degrees), and a can reduce the length of the light to 92mm. I haven't decided yet how much throw I'm willing to sacrifice to get those benefits.
