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

/\\\ … 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:

Damn! Been out of the flashlight buying game for a bit and come back to miss this by days!

If there’s any chance I can sneak on to the end of the group buy list (or anyone’s ordered too many!) Please let me know. Dan (London) Cheers…

I use IMGUR, per hour parce that works well

That means I have to break out all the heavy iron from their storage places. That’s a lot of work. But eventually, it will be done. I’m under the impression that typical XBO/Xenon Short Arc lamps have CRI’s in the 90’s. It would be fun to confirm this.

Seriously though, I would be more than happy to measure lots of light sources for people if they send them to me. Send complete lights, bare LED’s, commercial bulbs, whatever you might want measured. I have programmable current limiting power supplies so I can power up bare sources so to speak. Example: LED’s on stars as long as I can get a reasonable sized contact area or u attach wires to it. I can provide Kelvin and CRI/extended CRI measurements and, although I do not quite understand them yet, info on where the source is in relation to:

CIE1976
CIE1931(CIE1964)
XYZ
xyz
u’v’
λp (Peak wavelength)
λd (Dominant wavelength)
Pe (Purity)
PPFD

Maybe a database/repository of sources and their measurements could be kept on the site.

Here is a video of how they might make the reflector, probably using more CNC and less human intervention…

Thats a pretty cool video on making a reflector, but I really dont think most of the reflectors in the lights we use are made like that. If you notice a page back the pic of the GT reflector, p60, c8 and s2, I would say all 4 of those are turned down on a lathe, not rolled out like in the video.

The GT’s reflector is NOT made by spinning.