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

I would prefer no mechanical cell protection. I only use flattop unprotected cells and would prefer not to change that if at all possible. That would also take away the big benefit of being able to use laptop pulls in a light that takes 8 cells.

You can solder blob the cells very easily but if they used the setup I described then it would be quite simple to remove the protection for those that didn’t want it. You would simply remove the screws on the cell carrier and then pull out the plastic protection discs. Boom, back to flattop comparability

The assumption would be that anyone that can do that would be capable of not putting the cells in backwards. If they did, then it is their fault and it protects lumintop from any issues down the line as the most likely failure point would be a backwards cell, it has been seen in many cell carriers before and I would like ours to not have that issue.

Particularly as the first BLF light to use a cell carrier I want it to be the ultimate cell carrier from which all others take notes.

For those not capable of removing the protection disc, they are also not capable of being trusted to insert the cells correctly IMHO.

Personally I would leave the protection in place and solder blob my cells, it is easy to get lazy when inserting cells in a hurry and better to have something there to protect yourself and others.

Please put an S2+ or a Lumintop TOOL next to it on a picture :smiley:

lol, I will try to remember to toss my EDC on the table next round of pictures

Probably something I have mentioned first time I saw reflector, bottom should be open all the way without that ring surrounding plastic centering. The LED is sitting way to low, probably 1mm under perfect focusing. Even like the way it is now it can be improved using better centering ring that will allow reflector to go deeper like in M3X UT… Like this

This is just too thick…

I guess if it’s something the majority wants, but personally I do not want to have to solder blob a cell, and don’t really want to have to take apart the carrier to use… Or worst case, they design it so it can not be removed.
Not too hard to put negative on the spring, and positive on the nub side.
I just think it’s an unnecessary added layer.

You would think it is that simple but DB has many many stories of having to fix lights that had this exact thing happen.

When the most likely scenario of failure is also the worst case scenario (aka, flames or blown up cells ect), I think it would be negligent to not do something to prevent it.

You would only need to remove 10 screws to remove the protection at worst, even if they glued it down you could pry it up easy enough.

This was my initial thought as well except that since the reflector is custom made, it could be made to have the focus point anyplace it wanted, including below the bottom of the reflector. So it is a bit early to say that the centering ring is too thick.

I plan to try a few things with the focus, I will most likely start out with removing it all together and seeing what it does.

Wow, just wow! Any idea how much it weighs when fully loaded with batteries?

The long tube version with 2x full cell carriers weighs in at 4.75lb or 2.120kg

I think DEL said his was 1.9kg with the shorty version.

Pretty much this!

I was outside last night in the humidity and bugs, in-between thunderstorm downpours. Best I can see the beam is parallel. And it makes sense, that is how a parabola is defined, that is how a parabolic dish works. We do not want it to converge at any point before the intended target, be that 100 m or 2 km away.

That was not me, but it sounds about right. On the to-do list for tonight.

Ok, I just did some focus testing and the throw numbers went down when I removed the spacer for sure. They also seemed to go down if I pulled the reflector further away. So at first glace it looks like lumintop did a pretty good job of focusing the reflector and LED combo.

I saw minor gains here and there when playing with the focus but we are talking minute movements. I am also only testing at 7M currently so it is hard to get good consistent results.

Overall I would say the focus seems to be pretty good. It is nice that it was designed to have a nice spacer, it makes wire management much easier.

Niceeeee!

Only if it’s an 18350 shorty! lol

I’m having a giraffe from how comically HUGE the GT is :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Is great to hear that they are very serious in getting their product right the first time. Hopefully they can improve further on the smooth finish of the reflector, Like the Acebeam K70 or the Olight SR90 Reflectors… (Fingers Crossed)

BTW, I probably miss-read somewhere here that the front window on the prototype is glass and not plastic?

Lens was not specced so it seems LT gives us coated glass, very very nice!

Good pics and write up TA!

DELs reflector was smooth and good iirc difference between first and a second iteration on LTs part?

Good to see all the balance talk was not invain!

Can’t there be a electronic part that let’s power flow in one direction used in the carriers to avoid troubles when somebody inserts cells wrong? (Diodes?)

Can i get in on this groupbuy?

As miller said it could be that the first reflector made that I have was made at a faster feedrate and thus a bit worse quality. We will let them know that reflector quality is directly related to throw before the next round and see what they look like.

You could use diodes but they would be expensive, take up room and would cause more losses in the carrier that already has too many losses. They would also increase parasitic drain a bit as well.

Compared to a $.05 cent piece of plastic that reaches the same goal.

To be honest if someone can’t remove 10 screws to take out the protector or solder blob their cells, then I would not trust them to put the cells in the correct way 100% of the time. It only takes once to fry things and things could fry in a bad way.

DB has to deal with people making this mistake all the time. Even I have done it before, luckily for me I noticed it before inserting the last cell and completing the circuit.

The last thing I want to have happen is the first BLF light with a carrier to become known as “that light that blows up”, better to do it right from the start.

Also the driver doesn’t have reverse polarity protection for the buck IC, so that would need to be added if there is not some protection earlier in line. This would mean a significant change to the driver.

It is no different then the Q8, the Q8 requires button tops or solder blobbed cells or for the user to remove the plastic mechanical protection. This is exactly the same thing.