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

Teacher makes it sound EASY to remove the head from the pill, and of course it is… if you have the right tools. Without a large enough vise (with soft jaws) and strong enough reinforced strap wrenches of sufficient length, well, good luck!

I have the set of tires removed from my diesel VW before the big scam/buyback stacked in the garage, I found it relatively easy to remove the bezel by pressing it into one of these Continental Extreme Contact DWS mounted tires and twisting. Access to the emitter is fairly easy due to the sheer size of the now open space (reflector removed).

Do take steps to keep the reflector clean, of course. I simply place it upside down in the bezel, atop the lens, and that suffices for the amount of time it takes to swap the emitter. Ambient conditions and presence of children are key factors involved in what measures one must go to. Pelican cases used to warranty their product against virtually anything, excepting Acts of God, Grizzly Attack, or Small Children… take heed! :laughing:

Nice Olight video, you get the picture here how they produce flashlights. I guess this is one of the best facilities. Not every production facility looks like this in Guangdong region. This video shows that the reflectors are milled out of a cylinder of aluminium. No pictures of the coating process. Thanks for sharing.

Thats a great tool you have there! All sorts of fun you can have with that.

I am also glad to see proof that what I have been saying for years is correct, that the sun is around 5000k.

Also good to see proof that the tint does get cooler as the power increases. I think some of those saying it is too warm are looking at it in low modes, where it is quite warm indeed. At full power it really looks much better.

They are using a billet to machine the reflectors almost assuredly. The cost to make a mold and cast them would be way more then it is worth for a production run this small. Plus the surface finish would not be as good with a cast material.

From the outside you can see the material quality is much too high for casting.

:smiley: . :smiley:

Wasn’t trying to make it sound easy… though it was.

I just did not want to dissamble the head unless I needed to.

More things taken apart, more chance for something to get messed up.

Have not reassembled this one yet, so not sure if I will have to loosen the bezel or not to do it properly. That remains to be seen.

I am thinking go slow & easy………
…………making sure all is line up properly, it will be NO.

BUT you have done the reassemble Dale…. what says you. :slight_smile:

The light is well made Teacher, reassembly with the Bezel still snugged down is painless.

However… I find it more optimum to NOT have the bezel so tight. I also removed some material on the underside of the Delrin centering block, it was cupped underneath and held the reflector a bit too high for my liking (agree with Kawiboy on this). Putting the bezel back on it seems to do well for the definition of the hot spot to not snug it too tightly. [my Delrin block was 2.8mm thick, apart from the centering ring section, and flat across the top both in the block face and across the ring. When I got the base flat the block ended up 2.5mm thick.]

/\\\ … Thank you sir…. :+1: … Good info.

Glad you mentioned the Delrin centering block too. I had forgot what KB had said about that.

The reflector is loose and sort of floats in the head, the centering ring aligns it when the head is tightened down. :wink:

/\\\ . That is what I was thinking / hoping. . :slight_smile:

I keep checking back :slight_smile: … any idea when they are likely to be sent?

Not sure why this never include the 3rd round of PM’s have not been sent out yet … PEBKAC I expect…

I found a picture of my BLF GT on the internet: :disappointed: :smiley:

Maybe the half of this is yours. The other half is mine. :wink:

A lathe can quite easily grab an out-of-round part and make it round. There may be other technical issues with making the reflector as a machined casting though.

In general I agree that hogging these out of solid rod makes more sense at low quantities. I do hope that they’re saving their sharp tools for nice slow finishing passes. Tool wear could certainly explain the bit of variance in the finishes we’ve seen.

Trying really hard not to be that guy, but I paid back in December and my name is not on the paid list. I did get an email from Neil asking for my phone number, but that was close to two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything since. I've been trying to keep up with this massive thread to figure out how the shipping thing is supposed to work, but I can't find anything to inform me where in the process my order is.

You are the same as everybody else. We pay our money and just have to wait. 850 orders went in and 500 have currently shipped. As production rolls along at 150 to 200 lights per week, they are steadily shipping them out.

It is cumbersome to show your pics here. Always wondered why they insist on file hosting…

Do you know how much more server space we would need if the site also hosted all of the images posted here?

That makes sense. Can you tell me what FREE site(s) are good to use, if any? I remember searching a few different ones in the past but they all wanted money.

I use dropbox, but I have not used it to post pics for quite a while.

I not received the tracking code yet :cry: