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

That knurling looks so nice on the battery tube. Seems a shame to machine those flat spots over it

In the real world NW looks FAR more natural, only on a white wall can a NW look “dirty”.

It also depends n the flavor of NW, a 4500K NW is gorgeous to look at in any condition.

5000k is still great (that is the popular 3D tint).

4000k is also good, it is almost the same as HID car headlights (they range from 4100-4300k) for example because that tint has been found to be the easiest on the human eyes and give the most clarity.

If all the studies for cars headlights had them settle on ~4100k-4300k worldwide, then you can bet there was a reason for it.

4500k is my personal favorite tint but either 4000k or 5000k are still acceptable.

I would almost agree, if we are not going to print anything on those flat spots anyways, there is really not a reason for them to be there I suppose but also really late in the game to make a change that big.

It can be locked out with around 1/4 of a turn, maybe 1/2 a turn max. The carriers have a spring in the button tops, without pressure pushing them together the spring forces them to break contact. Mine generally locks out with as little as 1/8 of a turn.

Agreed! I will purchase a short tube if they are offered.

Thanks for the second gen looks TA, nice pics, really shows how Lumintop is paying attention to detail and getting it right.

McLumens, I also like a pure white not tinted in either direction, but it’s been really tough finding an emitter that follows this line of thought. Slightly warmer than pure white works beautifully though, in the 3D range or so, and I think TA and the crew are pushing for just this, a bit of a higher NW and not the orangy looking tint that still somehow falls in the NW range.

It’s being handled well, I like what I’m seeing and have little doubt it will be done to near perfection quite soon. :wink:

I would like to be put on the list to buy 2 of those BLF GT Flashlights.
Please advise what to do next.

Some thoughts​ about the GT:

1) As I am also owning an Acebeam K60, I just ask, if an OP reflector has also been tested with the giggles?
I know that an OP reflector costs a lot of throw, but I have seen what a perfect beam it can produce (very good throw/flood balance), together with a large reflector and single emitter.
Wouldn’t an OP reflector deliver a perfect allround torch? (An alternative “miggles” version maybe? :wink: )

2) why is no HXP70 emitter used in the giggles? Is it too large for a perfect throw? It would allow more lumens ( at least 5000)…

Ok, just got done converting the RAW images to jpeg. This is a New-to-me camera so still figuring it out but they turned out pretty good for mostly default settings.

Reasonably close to what we saw with the naked eye. I did take the wrong lens though, this one had a heck of a time focusing lol.

I might try editing them later to help “balance them” but they really are very close as is.

Yes, it really was that bright out, as you can see there are a lot of lights all around from strip malls and shopping centers and even a car dealership, including the parking lot I was in. Add to that the overcast night and humidity, the sun had just set and what you see, is basically what we saw, it might be slightly brighter in the pictures but not much.

Also, while I say giggles is on turbo, it might have been on high for some of these, the person holding giggles didn’t realize there was a different between high and turbo till part way through the shoot. You can hardly tell though even in person.

Here are the beamshots, click them for full size:

This first tower is 4682ft away according to Google, or 1427m or just shy of 0.9 miles. It is also heavily backlit with light.

Zoomed out control shot, 18mm with AP-C sensor:

Zoomed out Giggles on turbo:

Zoomed in Control shot, 55mm with AP-C sensor:

Giggles on Turbo:

This second tower is a bit further away, 5808ft according to google or 1770m or 1.1 miles.

Zoomed out control shot:

Zoomed out giggles on turbo:

Zoomed in Control Shot:

Zoomed in Giggles on turbo:

A few more random shots:

Notice how the beam looks blue even though it is on the warmer side? That is a great example of why cool white LED’s do not through as far in the real world. The blue light gets scattered much easier then the warmer tones and scattered light by definition does not make it to the target.

The color is great on this LED when used in the real world as well, here is a raccoon we spotted about ~500ft away, notice how everything looks natural?

Here are some more shots that shows the tint pretty well, looks like a small sun. A bit on the warm side of neutral but nothing extreme.

Now for my personal impressions now that I have used it in the real world.

I still love this LED, it is bright, easy on the eyes and throws way further then the CW version for sure.

For example I tried lighting up these water towers with the V1 prototype but even to the human eye it was hard to see the light hitting them for 2 reasons.

1: The cooler 3A tint that I had in the V1 while technically neutral was still fairly cool and it scattered bad. Remember this picture:

That is really what it looked like and it was only ~15% higher humidity that night, compared to picture below from last night, you can see how much less light is scattered.

So the light simply could not make it as far due to the atmosphere fighting it. This LED on the other hand seems to cut through much better. I was worried about getting good shots tonight but man, it cut through the ~65% humidity great!

2: The V1 LED caused so much light to scatter that it really screwed with your vision, it was almost blinding just to look at the beam and made it very hard to see long distances without squinting, which killed your night vision.

This LED is far more enjoyable and pleasant to look long distances with then the cooler LED, no question about it.

On top of that this LED seems to have better contrast and that makes it easier to actually see things down range as well.

For real world use at long ranges, I am completely happy with this LED!

Now for the considerations, this LED is a 4000k LED, which some people think is a bit too warm, I will admit that 4500k is my personal perfect tint but the fact is trying to get another LED would add significant delays and complications to the GB and all for a very small change in final tint? Plus we have no idea if we found some 4500k LED’s if they would be as powerful as these 4000k which are strangely high output.

Seeing as HID headlights are between 4100-4300k, You can bet there is a reason for this range being selected where high visibility it paramount for safety and usability.

The 4000k LED looks great in the outdoors but does have a hint of yellow if you are looking at a white wall. It really does look like a small sun, both tint and intensity.

Off topic but from a few feet away Giggles literally is brighter then the sun, I got a reading well over 100k lux when playing around with it, 100k lux is roughly the sun, at noon, in the middle of summer.

So before commenting on your desired tint, please keep these things in mind:

1: 5000k / 3D xhp35 HI’s could not be found anywhere in the world from The Teams, Neals, or Lumintops searching.
2: 4500k may or may not be possible to find but it would be from an unknown source with an unknown quality and unknown lumen output. As much as I love 4500k, a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.
3: It would add significant delays to the production to use another LED besides these 4000k
4: Cost could also increase slightly if another LED is used from an “outside source” due to the extra costs involved with using said source.

5: The team has final say on the tint based on what we feel is the best for all involved, that said we do want to hear peoples opinions so that we can make an educated decision.

Personally I am once again very happy with both the sphere and real world results of this 4000k LED, I truly feel it is the better option for real world long range use. The only thing I would say is not ideal is the higher then expected Vf. Although it still appears to hold high output till about ~3.7V cell voltage, which is about 50% of the total runtime, so that is not bad. We have no idea what another LED’s Vf would be, it could be lower but it could also be higher.

If someone wants to get technical and explain how the longer wavelengths of the warmer tones can travel further, like low frequency radio waves, please feel free.

1: This light is all about throw, I also like OP reflectors as a rule but in this case SMO is what works better.

2: I actually plan to test an XHP70 or better yet XHP70.2 in the prototype once I am done using it for testing. I will naturally post the results when that happens.

I don’t mind that led tint (What tint is it???), I do wish to have something a little bit cooler (Q8 tint or better) BUT I rather have the light now and can definitely wait for better LED / Tints to become available, I am still considering to mod it to a XHP-70.2 anyway, so the tint is a non issue with me… Just my $0.02

True, if they already have the tubes machined. If not, it’s one less step they have to do. Mor moola in their pocket !

I was also wondering, do the battery carriers and tubes support a bigger diameter battery like a 20700 for example, it would only be about 2 more mm in bore size and would be a bit more future proof…

This light is somewhere between 4 and 5 pounds. I don’t think it’s ever going to be an all around light by any definition.

As someone else stated the XHP70 will penalize throw, which is the objective of this particular light.

The 4000K LED seems like a no-brainer. The tendency for lower scatter is totally consistent with the design intent of the light.

You mean that the tint resembles to that of the Maxtoch 2X if you know it?Because I don’t like it.

It is a 4000k 70CRI D4 bin (although it seems to preform better then that) xhp35 HI LED.

We are discussing it in the team now and will ask Lumintop about it when we speak to them next. It was a good idea, it just might be too late.

I don’t have any 21700 to test but I doubt they would fit between the carrier rods, it is a tight fit with the 18650 as it is.

I agree, the real world results surprised me, it had so much less beam scatter. The light saber effect was vastly improved (bad for looking like a Jedi, good for seeing long range).