[PART 1] Official BLF GT Group Buy thread. Group buy officially closed! Lights shipping.

Do you minds listing recommended 18650 for the gt?

Example. Samsung 30q, lumintop, Sony vtc5, so on. Thanks

Lumintop is offering some 3400ma cells for sale with the GT for $7 each which would work good.

Since the GT uses higher voltage and lower current with a regulated buck driver, virtually any cells will work great. They only need to support around 3A of current and you will not gain anything with high drain cells for example.

Some basic Panasonic 3400ma cells will work just fine or you can go with GA’s if you want a tad more runtime.

Personally I will most likely use laptop pulls in mine since they will work just fine.

Nearly four weeks until I can buy this and still put food on the table, the way things are progressing its going to be tight.

Cheers David

Thanks. I don’t want to be cheap when it came to battery. Illumn sell unprotected flat top Sony vtc6 for $6, and vtc5 for $5…

I can’t decide vtc6, or 30q…

So if I understand DHL shipping will be included
In 111$ price,and only reason why not to use it is tax on destination country…. Correct?

Since I am from non EU, and never had problems with DHL, can we determine lower price to be marked on package like 45$-49$. Basically anything under 50$ will be good for me, otherwise I would have to pay 31% tax…

Where I came from we don’t use laptop pulled battery… unprotected only! we have to think about future mod on the GT too. Is gt max out???

as my experience, EU will tax over $25, we usually declared $20 USD.

but for BLF GT,such a big flashlight, the customs may search in the Google for the real price.
so for EU, two packages will be more much safer.

Relax Pommie, first looks at proto 1 by TA, shorty proto 1 by DEL and MRSDNF. Then probably some tweaks
Then the samples and then the OK
I doubt this all is done in four weeks :wink:

So if I read correctly (debatable)…

The actual payment process has not begun yet? We are still waiting to receive PM, and then we will have 5 days window to complete our payment?

Is that correct?

so when sending into separate parcels will there be any extra charges?

I am #535 on MrScott that mean i am on first group right and will get the PM?

While protected cells are always a good idea, as long as you don’t put the cells in backwards it should not be a problem. It depends on your skill level I suppose.

As far as modding the GT, it should come pretty much maxed out with the stock XHP35. A very slight bump in power to around ~2.8A could net you a handful of extra lumens but not enough to bother with IMHO.

The only real way to mod the GT would be to swap the LED to an xhp50.2 or 70.2 which would increase the lumens but reduce the throw. Although even then the cells would only need to support around 5A, so basically any quality cell should still work fine.

This is the great thing about using higher voltage and lower current, it makes everything in the electrical circuit much simpler and cheaper.

Thanks Neal for fast answer, I would much rather have DHL shipping with lower value on package and take a risk with customs… Done it before and worked every time.

Yes price includes shipped whatever method
And no we are not at the stage we can say it is done yet :wink:

Cheers David

For this GT light, those will be less spectacular, since their high drain capability will be left untapped. Capacity is the only part that’s going to matter here. If you’re certain that you want one of those two, look at the capacity: What is the capacity of the VTC6 and is it an extra dollar higher capacity than the VTC5?

Are lumnitop batteries any good? Will you buy them? Do you maybe know which brand is producing them, samsung, panasonic…?

Or is it better to use samsung 30q or panasonic ncr18650b cells? Or any other cells?

Thank you

Need matched cells though, correct?

My guess, is that the lumintop cells are re-wrapped ncr18650b Panasonic 3400ma cells. Seeing as they even say ncr18650b on them, I think this is a fair guess.

These are fine cells for this light, I would have no problems using them and the nice thing is that they can be shipped with the light which is very handy.

If you shop around and if they offer free shipping to your country you can generally find similar cells for a bit cheaper but it is getting harder and harder to find cells with free shipping now days.

So overall I would say the lumintop cells are a fair deal for those that need cells and have issues getting them from other sources.

http://www.lumintop.com/lm34-18650-li-ion-battery-3400mah.html

Yes, since they are all in series they need to match in order to not risk killing a cell.

There is no worry of fire, explosion, or damage to the light but you could kill a cell pretty easily if you drain the cells too much and they don’t match. The lower capacity cell will drain faster and could get too low on voltage before LVP kicks in.

Although you also don’t have to be super worried about it and make sure you use only a set of cells purchased together or anything like that (although it is not a bad idea).

As long as the cells are the same make and model and not drastically different ages / usage, you should be fine.

Is anyone else having an issue where blf threads are constantly being reloaded because of an error? It is becoming maddening to use my iPhone to access blf.