I present you with Giggles, the most hardcore BLF thrower in the World.

you are right, i was CPF member first when im searching for some reviews, their review is great and clear, i have to admit that
but when i want to go higher, deeper in flashlight, i move to here
take some time to get used to this forum, but now i feeeel great to be here

Well (maybe) except by some newcomers nobody here even plays with the thought that you (all) are being paid for all your hard work. But to outsiders it is maybe a strange concept that a small group of people work hard in order to give a large group of people some nice moments with their hobby. For which the large group is very gratefull, at least I am :+1:

First gut reaction when TA send me the PMs: “Let Vin buy them at full retail tweak focus a little, add a dedomed XHP35HD so they can buy what we make for $120-$160 with a Vin seal of approval for $500-$700” :smiley:
But that is not fair, their house, their rules, simple as that.
So if a better down payment method then PMs with Paypal info can be found and the BLF PMs for the $111 price are send I see no reason not to offer it up there for the $150

+ 1 :+1:

As I live very close to the main Dutch airport I can get in serious trouble if I use this light when airplanes pass. The good thing is if the airport lights fail, the dutch giggles owners can take over with their new GT's.....

Here are some prototype V2 updates:

Condensed cliff notes version:

- New reflector is much improved, has some minor specs that don’t affect the beam that are already being worked on by lumintop

- Centering ring is good, just needs to be careful when installing

- Kurling on battery tube, fantastic, could not ask for more

- Lighted switch, 223ua of parasitic drain, about 3 years of standby time with 8 cells

- New Battery carriers are all metal now, double springs, much lower resistance and better design. The button top spring could use a brass or copper coating, needs arrows on all 4 rods

  • Tailcap sticker for protection against reverse installed cell carriers could be improved but is acceptable as is if it had to, going to see if they can make a cutout to prevent the V+ from even being able to hit the tailcap, that would fix it

Overall I would say that Giggles is almost ready for approval with minor tweaks that would not need another prototype.

The last thing that needs to be settled is the LED. I am going to try to test those out later today or tomorrow.

Ok, here are my initial impressions of Giggles V2 as I start breaking it down.


The reflector is a massive improvement, while there is still some minor ringing when held close to a flat surface it is much much better then before. The surface smoothness is now good enough to go into production IMO. Not perfect but really good for such a large reflector at this price point. Further improvements would have minimal if any noticeable improvements to the beam.

There are some minor imperfections on the reflector, minor specs, looks like some dust got caught in the coating process, Lumintop has already confirmed that they are working to fix this for the production run. They are just cosmetic though, they are so small they would have no effect on the actual throw.

So how does this boil down to real world use? VOB still has the V1 prototype (I plan to send him the V2 proto once I am done with it so he can compare them on video), so I can’t compare them side by side. I am going off memory but the hotspot does seem more defined, kind of like the difference between a very mild orange peel and a SMO reflector.

I took some throw readings but due to the very high humidity in Texas my readings are never as good as others and they can vary by quite a bit depending on the day.

In this case it does seem to be averaging roughly ~5% higher than the V1 reflector, which is about what I would expect. Although this LED is different then the V1 so take these numbers with a grain of salt.

Overall I would give the reflector an A, still minor improvements to be made in getting rid of the specs but a passing grade none the less.



The new centering ring also appears to work good, although they will still need to make sure that the production versions are careful with the install. My LED had some minor damage to the silicone but luckily I checked it before tuning the light on and after cleaning it was fine. This is just from being removed and installed several times I am sure, this light has obviously been used for a lot of prototyping.

The next biggest change is the Kurling. All I can say is wow, it is amazing. Somehow it manages to add a surprising amount of grip without feeling abrasive. In fact it feels really good to hold. It also looks fantastic.

A+ on the kurling, could not ask for more.



The tailcap has an added sticker on the inside to provide electrical isolation from the cell carriers, it looks good as well. Not sure how well it will hold up over the long term though. Luckily even if it is missing it would not cause an issue unless the carriers are inserted backwards.

With the new carrier design I think the best option would be to make an indention in the tailcap to prevent the button top of the carrier from being able to contact the tailcap even if it was inserted backwards. There should be plenty of room and would be a simple fix.

It would be acceptable as is if needed though.


I think they forgot to install an o-ring in the tailcap ring, so it rattles a bit but that is just a prototype issue. This needs to be in the final version for sure.

Now for the carriers.

They are very nice, all metal construction and double springs this time.

The polarity protection is also very well done, I like the U shaped cutout, it makes it easier to insert and remove the cells. They did end up soldering the protection PCB to the base PCB for some reason. Not sure why they did this. It can be undone easily with a soldering iron through so not a problem for those that don’t want it. All you need is a $2 iron to do that.

Spring testing is very good as well. The losses in the spring > trace > contact for next cell is only around 40mv at full height (no compression of the springs). If I compress the springs that drops down to around 15mv at max compression (aka, if you used protected cells) or it looks like around 30mv at “normal” cell compression heights.

So voltage loss at 2.5A is less then 0.2v for all 4 springs. Much better then the first carrier.

The “button top spring” on the top of the carrier is not quite as good as the others but about the only improvement it could have is a copper/brass coating, otherwise the spring is about as good as it can get in the space it has. I measured about 75mv voltage drop for the complete connection from the bottom of the carrier to the top.

So grad total the voltage drop in a single carrier at 2.5A should be less then 0.3v and with springs compressed in actual use it should be closer to 0.2V.

That is perfectly acceptable and once again a passing A grade. A brass or copper coating on the button top spring would be nice to see. Also it needs arrows on each “rod” showing the correct way to insert the carrier.






This is the button top spring that could use a copper or brass coating:

The threads and all the other parts of the light are still just as good as the first prototype

The driver firmware appears to be the wrong version, it looks to be using the Q8 ramp table if I had to guess. This should be easily correctable, I am waiting for Tom to get back to me on what version I need to flash to it, otherwise the driver appears to work fine. I will test further once I have the correct firmware.

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. I think that is acceptable. It is also not nearly as bright as the Q8 which is nice for night time use. It can be adjusted by the end user by swapping a resistor if they wanted it brighter or they could switch to a clear cover.

Overall an A grade here, this is the most universal setup I can think of, brighter would drain more power then I would like and some people don’t like it that bright and dimmer would make it less useful in some cases.

It does not look quite this bright in person:

So overall this light is basically ready for approval. Just a few minor details to hash out.

Here are a some random pictures to keep you entertained while that happens:







Ok, I just got a little time to test the LED’s that Neal found and all I can say is I LOVE them!

First here are the specs, they are D4 bin Neutral white LED’s but interestingly they are putting out slightly more lumens then my “E2” bin I tested previously. I am thinking they were not real E2 bin emitters.

They tested out fantastic, 2600 lumens at the turbo 2.5A that Giggles uses. A bit more from a cold start.

Here is the CW xhp35 HI that came in the prototypes, it is obviously not a top bin emitter.

Here is how they compare:

The only downside to the neutral white emitter is the higher Vf. Looks like it is about ~0.25v higher then the prototype LED.

Luckily the new cell carriers lower resistance helps balance out the higher Vf of the emitter so regulated runtimes should be similar to prior tests. With the higher output the current can drop a fair amount and you still end up with the same lumen output.

It is a trade off but seeing as the NW D4 LED makes basically the same lumens at 1.5A as the CW does at 2.5A, I would say it is well worth it.

After I finished the technical testing I put the other LED into Giggles and boy, it is amazing looking. A nice slightly rosy tint that concentrates into a sun like hot spot. Simply amazing looking.

I can’t wait for it to get dark so I can see what it looks like outside. I might even try to get a beamshot humidity or not.

I want these LED’s to go up for sale somewhere, I can think of several uses for them in other lights. My 3C xhp35’s I had in my other lights now look washed out and dull in comparison.

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.

4000K? For me - great news. Always hated the fact that most throwers use CW emitters with >6000K color temperature. Sure, it makes great beamshots, but… only that. Ah, great for blinding others as well…

Waiting for shipment with great anticipation but “giggles’ in such a large engraving is kind of a turn off.

IIRC, that was a personalized, one-off kinda thing. But, I would love to have mine like that. Or, better yet, no flats at all.

Yeah, it is just a custom engraving on my own light.

I would like to see a small “Giggles” engraved under the logo but never intended for something this large on the final light.

Although it seems others prefer giggles not be on the light at all, they must be real fun at parties lol.

I am not attached to either setup, never been one to care about the brand names and logos on something.

I hear ya. I usually unstitch any labels, logos, or branding from my clothes when it’s easy enough. Still, I think a big honking Giggles is appropriate here!

Please leave the host unbranded. Then each owner can have the light etched to suit their personal preferences. That is unless everyone agrees that FLASHPILOT would be a nice name to enhance the overall appeal!

Great photos you probably scared that raccoon lol. I can’t wait. I want the giggles logo…

Agree I’m buying 2-3 of these and don’t care for the engraving :frowning: unless it’s on the back of the switch section

I’m GOOD with the GT the way it is, no large tube branding of any sort!!
I think BLF GIGITY-GIGITY sums it up for me! :smiley: :+1:

Thank God I have a bead blaster, just in case…. :wink:

i am very happy its 4000k, most my long range lights are cool white and when it gets humid/foggy they become useless and a crappy halogen spotlight out throws them

Yep, ditto that here.

+1