Thrunite TN 42 ,a new record in Throw

Not sure about the amp draw on the TN42 but my K70 draws 2.6A from 4x 18650 in series, and the LED is being driven so hard there is noticeable tint shift in turbo vs high, about ~700k cooler and it gets hot quicker than the nitecore TM16GT with 4 emitters. I don’t expect that XHP35 to last very long like this…

Judging by the beamshots I would say the K70 has more lumens and brighter spill but less throw, although the 150kcd difference is hardly noticeable in the unzoomed pictures.

I bypassed the springs in the carrier with 20ga Turnigy wires. It didn’t impact output any at all but should be making life a little easier on the cells… run time should be a bit longer. Still seing 702.5Kcd on the meter.

Question… I don’t want to spend a lot of time lining up the light for the one mile beamshot and have it start ramping down or anything (not sure how all that works on this light yet anyway) so what I’m thinking is to use the accessory clamp I have on my tripod to clamp the green laser, this will let me line up and true the stance of the tripod such that the clamp is pointing straight at our downrange target without even turning on the TN42. Removing the laser from the clamp and replacing it with the TN42 should still see direct linear output downrange. Does this make sense? Mind you, the green laser hot spot will be significant at one mile as well, most likely some 10’ in diameter at that range. I’ll be on the phone with my wife so she can help me line it up centered.

Here’s the clamp on my secondary tripod. This tripod will be downrange, I’ll be using a carbon fiber model capable of over 60 lbs weight attachment.

The clamp is an Impact (Impact is the name brand, Adorama.com) Double SuperClamp, model CC128, make to attach lighting and accessories to poles in photography. The set-up in this pic is how I normally take beamshots, Canon G1X at ISO1600 f/5.6 1/2 sec exposure with a 2 second timer and all manual focus settings.

Only in the name of scientific research do we get to point lasers at our wives. :stuck_out_tongue:

(she’ll be wearing eye protection, of course, even at a mile away.)

Good idea with the laser

I’ve cleared it with the local police, plan to get this tonight. Y’all know how it is though, a guy can lay out all kinds of intricate plans and cover every base, but then the wife has a part to play and in the end it’ll be her getting the pictures that prove you can read by the light at one mile. My odds of getting the shot I want, even with both camera’s set up by me to begin with, are probably not as good as I would like them to be. She’ll have to remember to set up certain things on the camera that reset when the camera is turned off, so, I’ll be relying largely on her and she’s not as disposed in either camera’s or flashlights as I am to get it right. Lord help me… lol

How can you have a 1/2 second shutter speed and a 2 second timer at the same time?

Dale,

At least you have a wife who is willing to help you with this experiment. Look at it the other way around, would you help decide which shoes she has to pick out 100 favorites. You also will be not very interested :slight_smile:

Of course I’m interested in helping with her shoes. If I pick the ones she’s comfy in, we’re good at the end of the day. If she picks the one’s that hurt her feet but look good, the end of the day is a BEAR! :slight_smile:

The timer is a delay for the shutter to activate. Setting a delay allows vibrations to stop through the tripod chain to help ensure a clear exposure.

Sorry, no the tripod doesn’t have a chain on it. The parts of the tripod, the legs, joints, ball head, all the components of the tripod that carry vibrations from a touch or movement, such as activating the shutter and then letting go of the camera. :wink:

Ok, tell me what y’all think… I used the Thrunite website and re-created their TN42 information pages to fit one sheet of typing paper, I’ll print this out and it will act as the target to be illuminated from one mile away….

Do y’all agree that this will suffice?

Looks good. :+1:

I like it!! Good idea and good luck.
You have a good ‘wifey’ if she is willing to help you in these matters and you don’t have to wear ear plugs. :+1: … :smiley:

This is very cool. While ur at it, why don’t you bring one or two more of your best throwers just so we can see if it’s possible to read with those lights?

My L6 de-domed XP-G2 does 439Kcd (1325M throw), simply won’t reach a mile. The L2 with XHP-35 makes 332Kcd (1152M throw) , again, just not putting anything out there at a mile to see by.

Light travels in an exponential manner, it takes 4 times the light to travel twice the distance. Numbers get thrown around a lot in the forums, but achieving in excess of 600Kcd is just not easy. Wouldn’t surprise me if my 3 watt blue laser would’t reach a mile. Yet my 200mW green one easily does twice that, virtually all about the spectrum and the power it takes to push it.

Giving a quarter lux at a given distance, or the equivalent of a full moon, is difficult to read anything unless it’s in your hand. Looking back at a light source one can see the source from much further out than said source can lay down visible light. A reflector will light up far beyond where you can tell there’s light being made, for example, which is why people should remember to dim their high beams when driving… while the light being made doesn’t seem to reach far, it can cause the oncoming driver to lose night vision and quite possibly run into the one that failed to dim… just sayin. Everyone’s eyes are different of course, and while 90% of the folks here might call BS on what I just said, my daughter’s eyes are hypersensitive at night and she can be night blinded from quite a distance away. Many women suffer this phenomenon. My daughter says an oncoming cars lights pierce her eyes like needles, causing physical pain and making her look away. Obviously potentially dangerous.

My point here is this… tonight if my wife looks at the TN42 at a mile off her eyes won’t be able to see the paper illuminated as well as if she refuses to look at the light directly. At a mere 1/4 lux, the sheet of paper won’t be lit up brightly and will be difficult enough to get a good picture of. I’m planning on using my normal beamshot settings of ISO 1600 , f/5.6, 1/2 sec shutter. I haven’t done anything like this before so I’m not exactly sure what settings to use. I know if it were me on the target end with my main Canon camera I could use settings to make it look like daylight, but of course that’s not the point is it? Imitating what the eye is seeing, that’s the objective. So I’m fairly certain the first attempt will be bogus, would almost bet money my wife will somehow get the camera settings wrong. To that end, I’m debating switching ends with her, let her turn the flashlight on and point it at me, but that brings a whole new set of alignment issues into play.

This just isn’t as easy as it might would seem.

Granted, we are “only” a mile apart, across the lake. But the marina my wife will be at is in a small community, it’ll take some 10-15 minutes to drive between the two spots. The place I will be stationed is a pretty much abandoned loading ramp and dock, trashy, difficult to access, and with a less than desirable public that uses it more for drinking and what not than fishing or boat launching. So it’s got to be me at this site, my wife at the nicer marina. But there are some parking lot lights at the marina, she’ll have to traverse some rocky lakeshore area to get away from the lights, it’s gonna be somewhat tricky. All’s we can do is try, right? :wink: (while watching out for critturs, both creepy crawly kind and vertical ones)

Stepped it up, have 3 tripods now, one to hold the printed target sheet, one to hold the camera taking a picture of the sheet, and one to hold the light and my camera. I printed the sheet on 300gsm Museo Rag photo paper, it’s like cardboard. :wink:

New moon on Friday, so tonight should just have a sliver of moon visible, we have almost zero wind, a storm system just cleared out yesterday so the air is clear, should be perfect conditions, the lake will be glassy smooth, gettting excited! :smiley:

I will go to her site first with her, set up the double tripods, explain what I’ll need her to check and maybe adjust on the little camera, then travel to the other side of the lake and begin the sequence.

Also, I have a honking big “20 Million Candela” spotlight, 12” lens, big 12V sealed lead acid battery, charging at the moment. I’ll give it a go, see if the Automotive H4 bulb can do a mile in that big reflector. I think I have a Phillips Silver Eagle or something like that bulb in it, supposed to be the more pure white higher output car headlight replacement bulb. (It’ll be pathetic, I know) Supposed to be 55W on high beam, it’s got low and high beam, just like in a car.

Now, if only my wife is up to it… fingers crossed, hunting for a rabbit to borrow a foot. :stuck_out_tongue:

Got my fingers & toes crossed…… good luck! :+1:

(Thinking I might just have to take the 3 watt blue laser to shine across the lake and get a photo of that plasma looking beam over the water. :wink: )

Looking forward to your test Dale, it’s crazy how stock lights are now surpassing modded lights.

When we start hacking the status quo, engineers are forced to pick up their game. :wink:

Um, added a trit to my TN42. I had this big fat pretty blue trit sitting here that didn’t fit what I’d ordered it for, and the TN42 is such a go-to light I figured it needed to be seen in the dark, ya know? But how to add it without mucking anything up? So here’s what I did… I drilled a proper hole through a 1” bar of polycarbonate, then I cut off a thin disc after machining it down to fit on the center raised section of the tail cap. (23.5mm I think it was, reduced from 25mm)

Then I glued in the big trit with NOA61 and cured it good. Then I placed a single fat drop of NOA61 in the middle of this tail cap, pushed the polycarbonate disc down onto it so it spread, then cured it. Sorta. As it turns out, polycarbonate blocks UV rays. Ugh! So it took me a lot LOT longer to get a cure around the outer edges so it’s stuck good, don’t know if the middle section will ever cure.

But now I can find my TN42 in the dark. :smiley:

Did I say it’s fat? It’s 3mm x 19mm :slight_smile:

I did get it a little thicker than I intended, it stands proud of the wings on the tail cap. But it’s still capable of tail standing. (I don’t ever do that with a light this size though.)