I thought a a recoil would give higher cd/mm. Isn’t that the point? If it’s the same as a traditional reflector, what makes it worth it?
Perhaps that is one one the reasons why there are no recoil flashlights on the market? But as I said, a very first experiment, nothing optimised. What would make it worth is that a big reflector weighs much less than a big aspheric lens, My 1405 is one hefty thing, and I would not want to go bigger. But in recoil form I can go bigger and it would still weigh nothing but does provide a spill-less beam, what a normal reflector light can’t do.
I do like the beam profile form a recoil, just the thermal issues have kept me away from trying to make one.
It would have the same relation between throw and area as a normal reflector. A potential advantage is that it could be made to gather near 100% of the light into the beam. However, as I was explaining in the other thread, the increase in light collection won’t be large because standard reflectors are already pretty good at this.
For example, a C8 reflector, with depth=32mm and reflecting diameter=38mm, collects 74% of the light (lumens) into the beam. Only 26% escapes as spill.
Interesting project!!
You’ll find that reserved post handy down the road
Notes: updates in the OP do not give a thread that red “update” flag or put it back on top (so ideal for interest list and such)
You can PM 10 people at the time, a reply from one of those will be send to all.
Well there’s more than none on the market. A search turned up this one, for instance. I’m not saying its a good light, only that it is out there. This idea has been tried before, just not to great effect.
Sold out, like the good old Ultrafire UF-007. It was an interesting light but not worked out as well as could be done (pretty low-driven XR-E led).
I’m in for one of these.
I have one of those budget recoil throwers. It certainly had potential, but didn’t deliver in stock form. And despite several attempts at modding it I’ve got nowhere with it. But a well designed one from the ground up would be a pretty cool addition to the collection.
Where did you get a parabolic reflector?
Or do you have a spherical hollow reflector?
Anyway, keep us posted.
That one has an even smaller reflector (pure waste of head size!) than the original UF-007 !
Copper LED support must be like Mersedes label star.
That’s crazy cheap…
I have this one:
It seems the original has a larger mirror / the cheap one has a tiny mirror in it.
And the mirror in the original one is already small and shallow, it only picks up less than 60°
[edit] no, it seems to catch 90° of the LED light[/edit]
of the emitter light, and then it’s hindered by that big XR-E…
It does throw well though, very tight beam, but i have always found it a frustrating and inefficient design.
I think the mirror is spherical by the way, but you don’t notice that when you only use < 60° [edit]that’s 90°[/edit]
I’m planning to mod it one day, replace the boom / holder and put an XP-E2 or maybe an XP-C in it, but again, i can’t find parabolic mirrors, would have to use original mirror.
This seems to be the thing that discourages folks.
But i think that with a copper boom / arm / LED holder, on which the thermal slug of the LED is soldered directly, will suffice.
In my drawing it may be too thin a fin perhaps, although i think 2mm wide will do the job, both as a thermal path and as a sturdy holder.
The “Mercedes star” would look great though, but maybe a fin across the whole diameter would be best, fitting in 2 slots in the head, centring and focusing easier / more reliable and exact in production of the light.
Been waiting for you to start a thread on this. Really sounds exciting.
I used to have a 6 inch reflector telescope that I gave to a friend to give to their kid for Christmas. My understanding is that the kid only tried to use it once. I wasn't aware of recoil lights back then. A soon as I learned about recoils, I regretted gifting it. It was one of those lower-end Tasco telescopes, but I bet it would have worked great.
To collect close to 100% of the light the parabolic mirror should have its focus point near the height of the rim. Mirrors used in telescopes have their focus point much farther away, which is necessary to make a good image. In that case only a small amount of light would be collected.
I think it’s because you can’t use normal MCPCBs and you have the + and - leads that have to be long (and thus not too thin).
For a flashlight spill is a good thing usually, or zoomable, not a fixed pin spot.
There seem to be no decent affordable parabolic reflectors out there either, so it’s all unusual parts you need for a recoil.
None the less, modern small footprint high intensity LEDs are ideal for a recoil set up, as they’re hardly in the way of the reflected light (unlike the old XR-E models), plus LED’s radiate their light in the suited direction for a recoil.
Dumb question, doesn’t the ” boom” get in the way of the light?
In the first drawing i limited the diameter of the mirror to where it was 45°, for a full 180° reflection.
That’s how i found the focal point.
In the new drawing i just used the same, but limited it to about 145° by cutting off some of the rim of the reflector.
So the focalpoint is more or less accurate in the new drawing too.
But, the drawing is for reference only, because i didn’t know how to draw a perfect parabole.
I tried, but it’s apparently almost spherical (concave)…
Yes it does, but it’s only a thin fin.
I will calculate how many % it would block when it’s 2mm wide.
Probably less than 2%.