Wavien RLT™ LED Kit

Riskama,

If your beam is still blueish it means that the recycling is not occurring, or is not happening very effectively. When the light is recycled back onto the phosphor correctly, the remaining blue wavelengths are re-emitted in warmer wavelengths. thus the warmer light you see on the original Wavien prototype, even though its emitter is ~6500K (quite blue before the recycling process).

The Wavien reflector is not parabolic, but rather perfectly spherical, and so the wasted light is retro-reflected directly back to the emitter.

The asphere lens and its NA also affects the ultimate Candela output and throw, and the Wavien and Marinebeam RLT lights use a custom and expensive lens.

This is great info. Thanks Jeff! Interesting.
I’m using the prototype without lens btw.
And it’s true that with this maclite reflector positioned right it becomes just slightly more yellow, but just not enough.
Wavien stopped selling, or they’re transferring their company to another business and model atm, so beside theirs are very expensive - I now feel the need to DIY one [while I need multiple in the end]. Looking for ways though, christmas is far away still ;), but will try to find some shiny balls…

Lol he called you ClusterFux. I’m sorry, I’m having a teenage giggling moment this afternoon.

Yes, the Wavien components are expensive, but they are quite low volume, very specialized (borosilicate with specialized coatings dialed in for the specific wavelengths) and with very tight tolerances. Very difficult to manufacture the RLT correctly and consistently, and currently impossible from worldwide vendors to get an outer datum to reference accurately enough to the inner reflective sphere to make a drop together flashlight. It is then quite time-consuming to actively align to <0.1mm in 3-axes and permanently fix in place in a flashlight that must then pass the FL1 drop tests, etc.

A fun project for sure, but it might be hard to pull off economically.

I assume the wavien collar is a ‘cold reflector’, reflecting only visible light, not IR (heat basically).

Wavien has gone dark and is no longer manufacturing anything or replying to contact requests.
Other than finding collars on the used market, the only option would be to buy a custom electroformed reflector, which would be really expensive because no company has a spherical mandrel already made of that size.

Not exactly the case. Marinebeam is still an active licensee, and is still manufacturing the RLT collars for its own commercially available products. Because of licensing restrictions, however, Marinebeam will not sell the components individually at this time.

How do you know that?
It seems to me that they just bought a bunch of stuff when wavien still existed and are just reselling what they have.
Even the other wavien collar flashlight that wavien produced is no longer sold by marinebeam, probably because they ran out of stock and don’t get any new ones.

You can easily read the whole explanation on the Marinebeam website. Marinebeam was originally purchasing housings from Brinkmann, which was the same supplier Wavien had previously used for their proof of concept flashlights. But, Brinkmann went bankrupt more than two years ago, and Wavien’s backer Metro Media pulled the plug on Wavien shortly thereafter. All of the IP was sold to another entity, Meadowstar. Meadowstar was also a licensee that builds a non-lethal light weapon for the military using the Wavien RLT technology. In the meantime, Marinebeam is an active licensee, and has been designing, building, and selling two different versions of their own design using their own suppliers for the optical components. Marinebeam did not buy any surplus components from Wavien, or from Meadowstar. It did, however, buy surplus branded housings from Brinkmann (originally destined for Home Depot).

If they are designing and build everything then why aren’t they selling the collars just like they sell their other optical components…

Post 26 explains why.

If you spent more time reading posts instead of concentrating on your passive/aggressive replies, you might learn something Enderman.

The answer is pretty simple to understand. The RLT is a patented invention, and Wavien is a licensing company. Just like you can’t go out and make RLT reflectors, and sell them commercially (without owning the IP), neither can Marinebeam. IP licenses are very restrictive for very obvious reasons.

To help you better understand it, let’s say that Marinebeam (or any licensee) had the unlimited right to sell the RLT components that they manufacture, and Maglite wanted to use the RLT technology in their high-volume LED flashlights. Maglite could easily avoid the half-a-million dollar licensing fee, as well as a per flashlight royalty to Wavien, by simply buying the RLT collars directly from the licensee. That would be great for the licensee (and Maglite), but not so good for the company trying to continue to license the IP to others.

Contrary to what one may assume, Wavien was primarily interested in selling licenses, not individual components to modders and hobbyists. They made and sold very modest amounts of the RLT modules and hand-built flashlights only to generate some buzz, and as proof-of-principle to potential licensees that the technology worked.

Ok cool, so why then was wavien able to sell the collars but not marinebeam?
Back when both wavien and marinebeam were selling products only wavien sold the collars individually.

I have asked the same question several months before,and some guy answered that it is very difficult,because the printed collar has to be extra smooth so as to reflect the light at high rate.

I hope you realize you are replying to a 2 year old post from someone who is no longer active on the forum…

No I have not seen the time of this post.

This looks interesting. H=35mm W=74mm including the lip. Looks hemispherical to me.

eBay listing

How can one patent a concave spherical mirror with a hole in it, and keep it patented for so long?

I dunno. How can somebody write a few words down on paper, like say Happy Birthday to You, and copyright it for more than 80 years? Maybe it is to protect the work product of creative people, and to prevent others from stealing and profiting from their ideas and efforts.

I so wish I could opt out from the nonsensous stapling of copyright on each of my creations…