I have been staring at my little Olight and On The Road i3.
With a short S2+ tube for 18350 besides it
Toykeeper please chime in.
Yes a 16340 is smaller but is the shorty D4 really big?
The Olight design is kind of really good. It is just the clip that can be better.
This is not like poor SRKs or lights that step down fast, there was and is so much to gain there.
Making those projects scream at me to be made.
If one manufacturer creates ramping on a small Olight clone it becomes very hard to see why a lot of time should be put into making a BLF special very small light.
Please elaborate on it, what you want or have in your mind?
I doubt that.
In my most recent idea about it the LED will have 3 (looks awesome) or 4 (easier to make) copper āspokesā from the LED to the body, made from 3 or 4 mm wide 30 mm high copper bars in front of the lens.
The lens will then have to have a hole in the middle for the LED.
But the surface area of the spokes will probably be a sufficient heat radiator / convector by itself.
But they will be fixed on the aluminum body too, so i donāt see a problem with heat.
But i noticed thereās only 2 months left for the scratch build contestā¦
Still have to order stuff for a recoil build, which will take a month to arriveā¦
And i fear pounding a 5ā copper disc into a good parabolic bowl will be next to impossible :person_facepalming: , but i can silver plate it when itās good enoughā¦
Here are some pics to illustrate why theoretically a recoil is better than a regular reflector:
It has very little spill and very little ācoronaā because the focal distances are similar at each angle.
Cool! I hope it works.
Yeah the size of your plan in the recoil thread should give ample material to remove heat.
Really hope you can build one!
And then we can use it as a prototype for a smaller model for a future BLF group buy. What do you think? 
why smaller? I think the appeal is extreme no spill throw.I bet that if people see the pencil beam reach far over the ocean and beach (Jerommel lives close to the sea) it could kick start the topic and get a interest list going, showing there is a demand for it.
Newer people like myself have not seen a good recoil thrower ever, we need a little show and tell to convince us reflectors, lenses can have an older way (recoil) alive as extra option 
I agree, but smaller just because I still like pocketable throwers.
I am also not tempted by huge throwersā¦
Unfortunately small lights donāt throw as good as big lights.
Or rather, the optic has to be large in relation to the LED if you want serious throw.
None the less, a Brinyte (Brynite?) B158 with a dedomed XPG2 is not that big, but it sure throws very well.
But it only uses half of the emitted light, maybe even less than that.
Same goes for the Supwildfire reflector light. (in a quick test i found out the Brynyte (Brinite?) uses what would be the spill of a Supwildfire, the Supwildfire uses what the BrĆ¼nĆ¼te does not use, roughly)
A recoil light collimates practically all of it.
But okay, 5 inches diameter is very large.
4 inches would be okay, maybe 3 inches, which is still roughly 75mm, which is still not smallā¦
The former is true. The latter - I have some basic theory, but little practical verification. In theory what you say is untrue.
Throw = (optic area) * (surface intensity) * (optic efficiency).
In a simplified model, with a N-emitter light you can have N * (optic area / N) * (surface intensity) * (optic efficiency). Turns out the same as single emitter.
Really, you canāt fit a circular area with a number of smaller circles, you either lose some area or use siamese optics and lose efficiency. So single-emitter large-optic light will indeed throw better than a multi-emitter one with the same frontal area. But the difference is not big and you can definitely get serious throw with multi-emitters. Also, note that multi-emitters will tend to be shorter and may end up with better throw / volume. At least, thatās the theory.
This is correct, however āoutputā is called surface intensity and measured by cd/mm^2.
The actual lumen output is not directly relevant.
Thanks for the correction.
Today I got a thought about a moderate light that Iād love to have.
Not big, not small.
Not a flooder, not a thrower.
Not high output, but not a weakling either.
Not the runtime king, but nevertheless very good.
In my mind I call it a Jax of all trades because of one inspiration.
Details:
- 3*18650
- head just slightly larger than body
- XHP35 HI, driven hard
- efficient driver
- compact package
- side switch
- zoomie!
Could be significantly cheaper with linear driver and SST-40, but efficiency would suffer a lot.
I donāt think you can run the xhp35 on 3 cells. It needs 4 cells.
3s linear or boost wonāt work at all.
4s buck runs out of regulation at high currents, though when it does work efficiency is great.
4s linear would work, but be grossly inefficient.
For 3 cells, 1s boost and 3s buck-boost are the only sensible options that I see.
A tube for 3*18650 sure holds nice (lol just grabbed the Courui walking out which has this)
Stupid question maybe but
If we use the exact same driver as the Q8 to power 1 led (XPLHi or SST40) would that be fed 20A and blow?
If we add a bank of 7135 chips, say 8 and a zener pad
Would this make the driver ideal for regulated output for a single LED and easy to adapt to allow 2 series input and a 6V emitter?
Yeah I am thinking that BLF ST and double length tube.
With the Q8, 2 heads, 3 tubes
Dang what a set that would be.
Yeah it would get 20A and blow everything except a luminus LED like the CBT90 or whatnot.
If you want to add 7315 chips for a 6v emitter you may as well use this driver which is already available:
No sorry that answer is cool in the modding thread (I wanted to post it there but it is not about Q8 modding, it is about future BLF ST 
) but a MTNE driver is not an option. We have a Q8 driver, how to adapt it so :
1 It will drive a single 3V LED like aXPLhi or SST40 with a little more regulation then FET+1 (FET + 1 + 10 perhaps)
2 can be adapted to drive a 6V led like XHP50.2 (just a zener pad?)
Iām no driver designer, but I donāt see how one Fet driver, the Q8, would function differently than another fet driver, blf A6. At full power itās basically direct drive.
You do have less voltage sag with 4 18650 compared to a single 18650, but I donāt think it would make a huge difference.
I think the internal resistance of the led is what controls the current (in direct drive). When you run 2 emitters in parallel, or 3 or 4, etcā¦ your just reducing the resistance which allows for more current to flow.
So an xpl might see 5-6 amps, 4 xpl in parallel might see 20 amps, but only if given enough battery power.
If you look at a quad parallel xpl light with single 18650 you donāt get 20 amps due to battery limitation and voltage sag. I think you get around 12 amps?
Iām sure there are many people here that can tell you exactly what would happen Miller.