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

Please add me to the list as well.
Thanks!

Regards
Daniel

Any update on the shorty tube being available for purchase?

Are the springs on the same PCB as the Bat+ contacts? And the bars are on the outer PCB too? That would mean by removing the protection PCB, the battery carryer wouldn’t shrink and it would be verry easy to remove it.
Is it right so?

Sorry I do not understand the abbreviation, my question can you tell me what these batteries type model and manufacturer. ?

Sanyo NCR18650GA

I bought them from nkon.nl from the Netherlands, at a good price. https://eu.nkon.nl/rechargeable/18650-size/sanyo-18650ga-button-top.html

@Texas_Ace

Thanks a lot for your detailed answers!

- I thought the chosen XHP35 HI was CW since CW is usually higher output (maybe I'm wrong, I'm not deep in this field)

- Thanks for the advice on the batteries. No worries, I understood the "official" recommendation now ;)

- BTW, I usually use a Neodimiun super strong very "small coin" magnet that has Nickel coating, instead of solder blob. Did you try it?

Thanks a lot once again!

Also thought the emitter would be cool white for the increased throw. Why not offer both, no big deal to build lights with two different emitters.

Two different emitters is a big deal in manufacturing, somewhere in production you have to separate two production runs that even to trained eyes are almost indistinguishable.

Were any of the proposed GT logos mentioned in the OP ever posted publicly? While Lumintop has opted against custom logos, I’d love to have one printed on die cut vinyl for my hard case with permission from the designer(s).

Quoted from TA’s previous post:

“The indicator LED’s work good. I measured a total of 223ua of parasitic drain with the driver in sleep mode and the indicator LED on. This means that with both carriers full it will have around 3 years of standby time before draining the batteries.”

— does this mean it has that parasitic drain if the indicator LED is on AND I assume if it can be turned-on, then it can turned OFF? (thereby no parasitic drain, or minimal)

— does this mean if only four batteries are used, the standby time is halved to around 1.5 years?

If so, I will be more comfortable is the parasitic drain be made much lower, as I have lights on stand-by for almost 3 years with batteries in it and never worried about them, and on the other hand, I (and my brother-in-law) have both the Lumintop SD75 (which has horrendous parasitic drain) and we both has ruined 2 sets-of-four batteries.

If the GT will be my only light, then perhaps it will not be much of a problem for I can watch its cells deplete.

I have all my 25 lights sleeping with the tail caps turned a little counterclockwise,so they have not drain.There are two of them I think which don’t “want” this,so I have entirely open up their tail caps.

I guess I have been spoiled by my lights that has no or very minimal parasitic drain that I never worried about them and are ready-to-use, and not have to do “tail-cap loosening or else” ever.

Yes, the springs are on the lower PCB, so you can remove the protection PCB by simply de-soldering those points and pulling it off with no effect on the rest of the carrier function.

I hope for clear weather and some spare time in the evening for TA to measure a proper throw-number :slight_smile:

In older days you could get much higher bins in CW then neutral white tints. This is not the case anymore with the highest or 1 bin lower then highest usually being found all the way down to 4000-5000k.

So now days you really do not gain anything by going with CW in the real world.

People still think that CW produce higher outputs but that is mostly due to the cheap meters we use to measure flashlights. They are biased towards cool white light and will ready CW emitters as higher output as an equal bin NW emitter. This is just a reading error in most cases though, the bins in the data sheet much be correct or they would be sued.

So if you get different readings most of that is just a reading error in the meter.

To the human eye it is the other way around, you can see much better and much further with a NW or even WW emitter in the real world. This is well known, it is the same reason the sky is blue. Blue light is refracted in the air much easier then warmer tones.

So with a cool white LED you will see the beam like a light saber but that causes the intensity to drop much faster and the throw to be reduced in the real world.

Neutral white does not refract as easily so in the real world you can see further.

I have posted before my experiences with this that made me a whole hearted convert to NW.

Yes, with 4 cells it would be about 1.5 years.

The indicator can be turned off, like any e-switch light there is still some drain but it would be less. I think it was around 100ua IIRC for the driver alone? Been awhile.

If you plan on leaving it for a really long time then it is always best to lock out the light. Simply unscrew the tailcap a tad and it will have no drain except the self-discharge of the cells.

With a storm moving through and supposed to linger for the next several days, it doesn’t look good.

Although even without a storm, I live in one of the top 10 (think it is #4 last I checked) most humid cities in the USA. So there is not really such a thing as a dry night around here lol. We consider dry anything under 50% humidity.

Right now it is 50 degrees outside and 61% humidity as an example. Last week it was 90f and 80% humidity so it feels great right now.

That is why my beamshots look so vibrant, it is not a trick of the camera, it really looks like that, the refraction of the light is extreme.

Wow, don’t visit often anymore. So glad I did. I’m at work - and that first post is so long. Could someone fill me in on how to get in on this?

PM, specify short or long? Price is $150 with $14 prepay?

Hi dthrckt, you just got in on this by posting. The price for who join in now is indeed $150, for the group of people who pay $150 it is not clear yet when or even if at all a prepay is needed.