George, look at how the hot spot throws a shadow onto the building from the tree between me and the barn…. the tree is 296 yds from where I was standing and 315 yds from the barn!!
The hot spot probably looks larger than it really is because I couldn’t hold the light steady in the 1/2 second exposure. The meds I’m on for nerve pain make me shaky. It is what it is.
Here’s a shot where I mounted the light on the tripod, same settings. I don’t like the lower light position as much as the overhead shot, but it is more stable for sure…
In retrospect, I could probably have used the 4.25” bar and threaded the end for an internal bezel, more of the retaining ring variety. Wish I’d thought of that when I was figuring out how to go about it as I’d like to have had the reflector encased inside a head as usual. Oh well, little to late to do the right thing now…
I took a chance on the ArmyTek Barracuda, they claim to have a redesigned style, new reflector and redesigned regulated driver. The very deep reflector is not quite mirror finished, but not exactly orange peel either, sort of a satin look to it. As such, the XHP-35 HI has fuzzy edges in the hot spot and it’s more blue/white than I like. So I ordered a new XHP-35 D4 from Richard in HD with 5000K tint.
Swapped it in and the hot spot is more defined, probably lost some throw but I like the beam more and the tint is a lot better. Easy enough to do, and I gained a 26mm XP footprint MaxToch MCPCB in the process.
Got my 70.2’s in yesterday for DBC-05, so I pulled the 50.2’s out and headed out to the shop to carve out the inside of the copper head for the new larger triple reflector. Got it all done and assembled, using iJoy 21700 cells it pulls 32.2A and makes 16,836 lumens! Nice progress, nearly 5,000 lumens for an emitter swap. Liking that!
Um, I found out where the limit’s are on the mini Omten switch.
Recharged the iJoy 21700 cells and put the light on the light box, no amp reading first this time. Start up was 17,215.5 lumens, at 30 seconds it was at 14,869.5 lumens and when I pushed the switch to turn it off the spring inside collapsed and the plunger wouldn’t return. Reckon it died a valiant death! lol
With the iJoy 21700’s freshly charged, DBC-05 makes 18,940.5 lumens at start, at 30 seconds it’s doing 16,318.5.
I took the small Omten switch apart to see what happened. The plastic housing melted around the thin aluminum switch components and blocked the switch from separating. The little internal spring was intact, the plastic housing suffered.
The halogen light on the side of out yard went out recently. I decided to get one of the cheap COB Leds and see how well they work. I did have to carve up the housing to make the heatsink and fan from an old CPU fit, but it works! A bit too bright though, pulling 60w from the wall and the original reflector didn’t fit well so the light goes everywhere.
There seems to be an aluminum cup serving as a pill that holds the emitter and driver assembly, I couldn’t get it loose and didn’t really try as the proprietary MCPCB with 3 leads going to it was screwed down with 2 screws that were easily removed. Pulled the board out, used a hot air station to remove the HI, put the HD on and re-assembled. Pretty easy really.
Their board is copper, had a thermal circuit on it, so of course I kept it.
Nice progress, nearly 5,000 lumens for an emitter swap. Liking that! 
