ARC-AAA-P Reflector Silver Coating?

I had this funny idea of polishing the reflector of my beloved ARC-AAA-P hoping to increase the light output a little more.

However, when I applied the metal polish, immediately some coating on the reflector came off the reflector turned to a dark color.

After polishing, the reflector finally became really mirror shining, but it looks kind of dark mirror compared to the original bright white reflector.

The light through the new reflector seems more intense, but the beamshot on the wall seems less bright.

I should have known what ARC did is already the best for the light and I regret trying to improve.

Let my experience serve as a warning to other newbies with itchy hand like me.

DJP

There is a AAA black head on ebay if it helps
Bryan

That's your metal polish attacking the outer layer of aluminum to more easily strip it.

To my knowledge, there is no "Silvering" of the reflector. The bare aluminum is all there is.

(I know, I polished mine last night!)

PS: It's not the easiest area to clean/polish, but that is because it is harder to get it, it's harder to damage.

Phil

[ QUOTE ]
PhilAlex said:
To my knowledge, there is no "Silvering" of the reflector. The bare aluminum is all there is.

(I know, I polished mine last night!)


[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for enlightening me, but I still hardly can believe that there is nothing on the reflector.

The original surface was bright white (appears to be a little rough), now what I have is a rather dark mirror shining surface.

When I polished with normal polish, there was no difference at all.

But when I applied this "Autosol" (I belive it has some petroleum agent), the surface just desolved and came off.

In fact the same Autosol totaly wiped out the reflective coating from the reflector of another light, leaving a clean plastic.

Since it is a 1D (or 4AA) light, it will serve perfectly as ARC-AAA candle when I get an AAA head.

DJP

Aluminum Oxide >IS< bright white!

And, it's reflectance isn't too shabby.

Actually, the AlO3 layer helps disburse the light. Fewer rings.

Don't worry. It'll come back.

I dont' understand this part:


Since it is a 1D (or 4AA) light, it will serve perfectly as ARC-AAA candle when I get an AAA head.



???

[ QUOTE ]
PhilAlex said:
Don't worry. It'll come back.


[/ QUOTE ]

I am no chemist, but sure I am glad to hear that.

The light I mentioned is a cheapo from a local store (made in China). At $3 (converted to USD), it is made for 1D cell and comes with holder for 4 AA which fits well in the 1D space. It even comes with 4 pcs of GP batteries.

It has a very good throw with large spill, but it is not edc. Good to keep one in the kichen, one in the store room, and one here and one there and ..., hey, I have an ARC!

I polished mine with a 3M 1500 grit polish and it came out looking real nice with a mirror finish shine. Does anyone know if the reflector is just a coating applied on the head unit or is it actually part of the whole unit. It never occured to me that polishing it too much could actually take it off.

I'm not sure since I've never tried it but I'm pretty sure that it should be solid Al for the reflector. It seems that it would be not worth Peter's time to place a coating on such a small little reflector when it only helps a minor amount in affecting the beam. I'm sure that the discoloration was caused by a chemical reaction between the polish and the Al. You would be amazed at how reactive Al is with stuff like that.
Jeff

Does that mean the whole head assembly is solid aluminum?

I'm not a machinist, but it looks to me that the head is HA coated / finished and then the inside is turned to remove the HA and leave a nice raw aluminum finish.

The LED is a completely self contained lamp / reflector / projector. The ARC head does very little more to add to the output than to shape the beam catching the very little spill available (I did not say it does nothing - just very little compared to the direct output of the raw LED).

If you did anything to affect the output, I would suspect that more than likely it was the epoxy lens on the LED itself that would have been "damaged."

Kitelight: I'm in total agreement.

BTW: When I was talking about polishing the reflector being a neutral thing, I was talking about the ARC AAA, and only the ARC AAA.

If you polish a silvered plastic reflector with metal polish, I don't know you.

(This is actually a real problem for car detailers, btw)

this shouldn't be a problem....i've used autosol on an arc AAA i have with no ill effects. up till now its reflector its still more shiny than that of a brand new arc AAA i have sitting in a drawer /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I was referring to the possibility of not only to the cleaner doing something to the epoxy lens, but also whatever probe, stick or whatever else might be used to poke and rub a rag into the reflector area, thus scraping or scratching the lens.

i use a piece of tissue paper crammed into the reflector to polish it, so there was no chance of the reflector or LED epoxy getting damaged /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif