Incadescent or HID does not matter, lumen output does. I don’t think you have seen what 100W incadescent philips in a 20cm reflector can do. Don’t even venture into HID land, where 200W HIDs live for 100$+battery. Those millions of candles are EASILY attainable. And the “top” led thrower has 700k and people are talking like god is walking among us.
The point is, they want to milk money. All they do is put few mm bigger reflector and claim the “top” performer. Look at the Courui01 mods with 82mm reflector. Think of what an xpg3 sliced 150mm wide and 150mm deep reflector can do to this poor TN.
Not as much as all that, I haven’t seen a sliced G3 do so well.
What it boils down to though is the bird in the hand thing. I HAVE this mile thrower TN42. I don’t have anything nor have I in 3 years seen anything that will best it.
Edit: I’ll also add that while HID’s are capable of impressive results, the only ones I’ve seen had horrible tint and took forever to warm up to peak output. Not practical, they have a place for sure but it’s not something an average user would put up with.
Interesting, isn’t it? How can Simon sell the wonderfully made L6 for such a low price while other manufacturers sell at 3 times the price and don’t really do much of anything all that much better? Ok, so they have a fancier proprietary driver, but it that alone worth well over $100? I wouldn’t think so! Having been working at learning the machining on my own lathe, turning the aluminum and anodizing it is a pretty basic part of the equation, for the most part the better lights are all the same in that regard and one shouldn’t cost more than the other. Same thing with the AR glass, Chris has the ultimate AR coatings at flashlightlens.com and his lenses aren’t ridiculously priced, so again the market should be fairly equal. With a decent reflector common to most all of em, it really boils down to the driver, and I’m building my own drivers for a while now with the most complex of them not being over $20 or so to produce, this a big custom designed driver for high output at that. So, is it the warranty? The overhead of a bigger fancier face online? Or just more greed?
I know some people will buy a like/same product for more money because they’re trained to perceive the costlier product as having a higher quality by default. Perhaps that’s the target audience for some of the big names, just mark it up to appeal to those with fatter wallets and run with it. Could be that’s all there is to it.
We could have Richard and ToyKeeper design a driver for Simon, he could build a 120mm boss hog light, and he’d probably sell it for $100 or something, now wouldn’t that go over well? Reckon he could build a de-domed XP-G2 1Mcd thrower with that kind of help? Maybe we should get JDub to push in that direction, see where it goes…
Well, Richard already makes a Buck driver that will run the XP-G2 at 5.5A, I have one in an L6 making 439Kcd. So if it just takes a bigger head/reflector set-up, I can see upgrading the L6 to an L10 and using 32650’s for run time. The TrustFire 32650 is awesome, and at 6000mAh it’s the highest performing highest capacity cell I know of. I’m using 6 of em in 2 TR-J20’s, they’re unbeatable by any other cell I’ve got (I’ve got a lot of options).
Perspective wise, a 3*32650 Buck driver light with a 120mm head should be flippin awesome! Then again, Thrunite could build it too as far as that goes, maybe they’re already working for something along those lines…
I don’t think i’m the only one that wants a 400kcd + affordable flashlight . It could be a 700kcd light ….
Maybe Simon is the key as you said Dale . A light with xhp35 , 4S battery holder and the appropriate driver ? I don’t think a cheaper TN42 isn’t possible . But only some people here can make it really happen .
You really don’t even need a XHP35 or a 4S battery holder, just a host that can hold a reflector big enough to produce that amount of throw with fet driver and a single cell. Reflector size is the most important factor.
Yeah, I wasn’t thinking about that. It would be nice…$200 is too expensive for a light. I use to not mind paying that price to get a good thrower or flooder but not anymore.
An XPL HI would perform great in a large reflector light. Of course we know that; people here make big XPL HI throwers all the time. The XHP35 does have advantages over the XPL HI: similar luminance but with potentially 50% more lumens. This manifests itself as a hotspot with similar intensity but with a 25% bigger diameter (XHP35 active area is ~2.50mm while the XPL HI is 2.0mm). This is nice but not a huge increase. And it comes with the complication of being 12V. It’s fine that manufacturers use the XHP35 to get that 50% boost in lumens, but we modders can get a pretty similar result with the XPL HI much easier just using a FET driver. Though of course I wouldn’t blame modders for wanting the XHP35; it’s all about optimizing the performance.
Has been on holiday for last week, and today got my TN42 from my work place.
Below are some numbers for ref.:
Flashlight - Ceiling Bound - Lux @ 7.5m (kcd) - Total weight with batteries
TN42 (NW) - 286 - 9440 (531) - 852.7 g
K70 stock - 328 lux - 7580 (426) - 772.9 g
K70 (NW) - 323 lux - 7440 (419) - 773 g
TK61 Mod - 189 lux - 7170 (403) - 790.6 g
BOSS1 Mod - 196 lux - 7130 (401) - 1492.1 g
Maxtoch 2X - 199 lux - 4530 (255) - 412.8 g
TM36 Lite - 161 lux - 3410 (192) - 1066.9 g
(Remarks: The TM36 Lite is under performing using protected batteries in parallel. The intensity test may not be as accurate as the distance is too short)
Here they come
Below are the beam shots at about 110m distance, taken using Canon EOS 70D with 15-85 IS USM using tripod:
I am not sure, that’s 3:00 am. During the shooting, there were some lights being switch on and off. The area I shined at is the corridor, but the beam coronas spilled over to their kitchens (left units) and bed rooms (right units) :confounded:
Maybe we should get JDub to push in that direction, see where it goes…
