Are you talking about the very slight rings on the reflector? The V2 reflector is much much better then the V1, the rings are hardly noticeable unless you are looking for them.
Lets put it this way, this is already impressive for such a large reflector, to try to make it any better would cost exponentially more money while providing exponentially less performance gain.
I am quite happy with the reflector quality minus the specs. It is easily as good or better then almost any other light I have, just larger so minor imperfections show up more. My D01 reflector looks horrible by comparison and it is a fraction of the size. Even the L2 reflector is about the same proportional quality.
The grooves that are made by the cnc machine. Here is a picture of a rough pass using a square end cutting bit on some plastic.
Once the machine cuts out the majority of the reflectors inner dimensions using a square end bit it then does a slower, more precise pass to smooth out the steps. The final pass should be with a ball nose cutting tip with a large radius cutting surface to get a really smooth finish.
I was thinking they did the final pass with a square end bit instead of a ball nose bit.
Yeah, I see what you are talking about. They significantly improved it for the V2 version to the point you really have to look to see the machine marks.
The other factor is feedrate. Slower feedrates would improve the finish but also increase the costs. At this point we are splitting hairs over a few percent of throw that no one will be able to notice anyways. I mean who can really see the different between 1.3 miles of throw and 1.34 miles? lol
So there comes a point where you have to make the tradeoff between quality and cost. In this case I think we have come out way ahead on the deal considering the cost of the light.
It is not official yet but with a few minor tweaks I see no reason it could not be approved in short order.
The firmware is the only big thing that has to be figured out. I am going to flash a new firmware on it when I get home and see if that was the problem.
Did the BLF user that hand polished his reflector then send it back out to be recoated?
If not, then that is why he lost output. Nothing to do with surface smoothness. You can’t confuse the 2. You need smoothness and a proper finish such as plasma vapor deposition or equivalent.
Surely the reflector is being turned, not milled, no? Even with a ball end mill, milling would require a huge number of steps to get anywhere close to a smooth surface. If it’s turned, the surface finish will depend more on spindle speed and tool feed rate.
A CNC lathe will still approximate the curve with a series of steps in the radial and axial directions, but the machine resolution should be more than enough so that the steps aren’t visible.
Slowing the feed rate more then they have now would start increasing the price with very little to any tangible benefit. So we have struck a good balance at this point of performance and cost. Besides the specs I am very happy with the results.
Even the specs would not technically hurt performance as they are so relatively small but cosmetically they don’t look good.
In fact, the difference is not perceptible. Then I wonder if the throw of this torch will be distinguishable from that of the TN42vn with throw of 1940m.
