BLF recoil über-thrower

The spot @ 10 meters is approximately 50 cm in diameter.
This is a compromise between collimation and focussing, it’s “the best it can do” so to speak.

That is a 1 degree half angle beam divergence, very good for a toy reflector! :)

Do you have a luxmeter to measure?

Hmm, when you put it like that, i guess it’s not too bad. :slight_smile:

No i don’t have a lux meter (yet)
I thought i’d compare it with a known light: the Jacob A60.
The recoil setup seems to outthrow the Jacob hands down, which is not bad either.

By the way, the XP-E is soldered on a 1.8 mm diameter copper wire, and it seems to be enough for about 1 watt.
Cools better than i expected.

Hmm that's alright I guess. Maybe look into buying one in the future if you're into flashlights a lot, I got one for $50 a while ago and it has been extremely useful.

For myself, I also contacted a company that makes real reflectors, and it's like $700-1000 for a nice 16 or 20" reflector xD a bit pricey!

Jerommel, maybe I missed it somewhere, what is the diameter of that reflector you tested? Looks pretty big.

Having a 445nm blue laser,I use these protecting goggles,which are red. http://www.banggood.com/405nm-445nm-532nm-Anti-Blue-Viole-Light-Laser-Goggles-With-Bag-p-69211.html?rmmds=search.

The green glasses reduce the power to about laserpointer power so I can still see the beam. I will still be careful with the glasses on.

About 14 cm / 5½ inch parabole.

I would still very much like to find an approx. 5 inch one that can capture 135°, although 120° would make me happy too. :slight_smile:

So not exactly a same-same comparison to the A60 lol

Sounds like you need to make a custom build for next year’s competition!

Currently it does more than 135, does it not?

You can always trim away like 1/2" off the edge of the reflector...

I haven't modeled the 6" mirascope reflector, so idk how much it actually is capturing.

Indeed not…
But it’s a similar LED die and and both run 180 mA (low mode on A60 and with variable resistor 3x AA NiMH for the recoil)

Planning to join next year’s competition for sure, but probably not with this reflector…

Yeah, you’re right.
I thought it was like 120° but it’s actually 140°
This may explain why it does considerably better (lumen / wise) than the A60.
When my camera battery is full i’ll do some shots from the screen towards the LED, hopefully it will show how much of it is actually doing the good work.
It seems the outer perimeter of the reflector is a little ambiguous though.

Ok cool. Also, what's this competition people are talking about?

The contest everyone is talking about is the Annual Scratch-built Flashlight Contest which has recently closed for this year, and winners haven’t even been announced yet.

I made some nice and grainy shots facing the light from about 20 meters away, light on extremely low power of course:

Left is taken from left, middle from the middle and right from the right of the hotspot.
I conclude the outer perimeter of the parabola reflects too much inward, the ring section inside that is okay, inside that one seems to reflect a little too much outward, the middle is okay.
(The most outward perimeter is not parabolic but flat so that does nothing at all.)

Yeah looks like a bad parabola, that's unfortunate. You're getting the same effect that djozz got with the outer part of the parabola focusing inwards.

It should still work alright for a handheld flashlight, but probably won't get 1M lux :/

Yeah, that sucks a little…

[quote]

…and then a ring that’s okay, and than a ring that reflects outward, and then another change in angle…
Considering glueing rings on the back pushing and pulling it in shape, but…

Not sure it’s worthwhile to continue with it.
As a mirascope it’s not much good either…

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Experimente-Solar-mit-Parabolspiegel-Solarzellen-6in1-Modellen-/201159295539?hash=item2ed6074233:g:uFoAAOxy3zNSh6Xl

Amazon zigarette lighter parabol mirror

Maybe those parabol mirrors might work