The blue and green are what I ordered and I ordered all that were left of each. 15 units of each.
They are both really nice colors. The blue is really nice. The pictures are not even close to how good it looks when it is in front of you.
The gold they actually call sandstone and those are sold out. The darker blue (as far as I know) and the green are the units coming. Even the darker navy blue looks a ton better than I any of those pictures.
I just called and asked Dale and the blue is the darker navy blue. Both really are far better looking than those pictures.
I can't even decide which I want to keep for myself. I like the blue a lot it that green I've just never seen on a light or really anything else lol.
I have the blue one…dark matte blue…it’s beautiful! Looks elegant and rock solid. Definitely a show case light…and you can’t go wrong with TA’s driver! He mixes up some magic and shoves it in there…Tesla would be proud!
I have a green Emisar D4 and D1…almost bought their big daddy, but the blue one looks like a dark blue business suit…ha!
I just had someone place an order for a blue one lol and the funny thing is we are flying out to meet and help move our partners here but where we are going is very close to where that person lives.
Of course I can't post that. But I will be shipping from that location.
Be sure to send me a PM or email me at hesaidshesaidsales@charter.net and let me know if you want it shipped to TA.
Many are just ordering the driver from TA and want their light shipped directly to them.
Ok, I finally managed to catch up on the lights and until the mailman shows up didn’t have any to work on today so decided to take care of another issue I had.
Measuring all these lights actually started to melt the diffuser I use for my sphere, luckily not enough to cause the readings to change. So I am looking for a better way to make this sphere and I think I might of found a way to make one and even produce them if it was worth my time.
I already have a new sphere reading well within 2-3% of my old sphere from my 150 lumen “standard” test light up to a few quick tests with 6k+ lumen lights. I also much much prefer this new design as well. It should give better readings.
So my question is if this idea works, would anyone be interested in a calibrated PVC sphere based on my own sphere?
Interested
I am curious, how much would you be willing to spend for a sphere based off mine?
It would include the basic lux meter, 3D printed centering rings, laser cut diffusers and all the work to put it together and calibrate it.
It also would read the lumen directly on the meter, no math needed to convert the readings to lumens.
Im definitely interested. I think you should throw in a rough price so we can get an idea and we can tell you whether it is within our budget.
how many flashlights should a flashaholic have before considering a sphere 
Ok, after some more testing and tweaking I think I now have my new sphere setup the same as my existing sphere. I pulled out my old lux meter (both are HS1010A and read within a few lux of each other) and setup both spheres side by side and they are within 1-3% with all the test readings I took. Plenty close enough since I only figure my sphere to be accurate to within 5-10% anyways.
I much prefer this new method using proper diffusers instead of foam as well. There is zero chance that a thrower will be better results now.
This diffuser also works well for flashlights as well, turns them into a pure flooder but a great beam. Think I will cut some out to fit over a few of the lights I use like this.
I officially put my old sphere in mothballs in order to make sure I always have a known good standard for calibrating other spheres and am switching over to the new sphere for the future.
Yeah, I needed to do some more math and figure out all of the costs and how much time is involved.
It is looking like for it to be worth my time it will be around $100, although I will need to see exactly what the 3D printed centering rings work out to cost wise along with the laser cutting before I know for sure.
That would include everything you need,
Lux meter just like mine
All the PVC fittings so it will free stand on the desk
Laser cut diffusers to fit inside the PVC and diffuse the beam so that beam pattern is not a factor in readings
3D printed centering rings in several common sizes so you can get good readings from various lights
Labor to assemble, test and calibrate everything.
Proven readings that are comparable to my numbers
I might start a thread to see the interest soon, if I can get 10-20 people interested I think I will make a batch.
I wish that every Flashlight company in china would get one so we could get rid of these fake lumens.
LOL, it has more to do with the type of person I suppose. One of the very first things I wanted when I got into lights was a sphere so I could see what effects all my mods and changes had. That was the only way to learn.
Most people do not need a sphere, in fact it is liable to bring more disappointment then happiness. Most lights give less lumens on the sphere then they advertise, it is rare for it to be the other way around.
Also in some cases like the latest flip chip LED’s, they “break in” and generally drop ~10-15% output during that break in. Something you would never even know without a sphere. So it is a case of sometimes it is better not knowing.
That said I still prefer to know the truth.
Pulled down that huge post, but I have a lot of interest in your work on a lot of lights TA, so will PM when the MT09R’s are here and see if you have any interest in about another 10 lights or so with various modding requests, got cash so not a problem, just need perfection like what you provide, sorry about my getting carried away with that post, nothing unusual from me frankly.
lol, no problem at all.
Sure send me a PM when you are ready and we can talk. Sadly I do not have a lathe so I can not do any machine work, I wish I did though. Nor am I setup for any kind of coatings at the moment, used to do some powder coating but that setup is long gone now.
Far as other stuff though, sure, As long as the light can be opened (aka, I don’t like messing with glued lights, it is almost impossible to open them without damage) I am willing to look at it.
Sounds good, will be in touch very soon, by the way would you happen to have any XHP35-H0-E23C perhaps times 3 or more…?
My goal is to get lights modded past my skill level to deal with nasty weather, clouds, fog etc. and still have some throw. Every light I own has been opened eventually, I even got those GT’s opened finally and they weren’t even glued but wow they must have a beast of a human assembling those lights at Lumintop,
Will talk shortly I hope, I really want to get these projects done right, tired of messing them up and redoing them over and over.
Thanks TA
Before I forget, I am also including a washer under the tailcap of the MT09/MT03 now to help it spin easier and not bind or risk shorting out to the tailcap over time.
The mailman brought another light today, this one from Darbonius. Stock his light is doing ~12k lumens with CW emitters.
He wanted a TA driver with 50% ramp, springs bypassed, and 4000k 80cri LED’s. Pretty much the standard build at this point. Although interestingly the next LED order I am placing has as many 5700k as 4000k.
Speaking of which I missed the order cutoff to get the LED order shipped out yesterday so I will be waiting till tomorrow or monday to place the order to give people more time to place orders and get in on this shipment.
Don’t forget the 5000k LED’s that just popped up (interestingly I called and asked them if they had any 5000k a few weeks ago when this started and then 10k of these 5000k LED’s appeared) if anyone wants to try them.
I also got the GT XHP70.2 mod finished earlier today and with dedomed XHP70.2 LED’s it is hitting almost 85% of the throw that the XHP35 hi is doing!
The names are a bit confusing. It doesn’t seem right to call it a sphere when it’s not ball shaped at all. What about calling it a Lumen Tube or PVC Lumen Tube?
Or does that name just make it more confusing?
Sadly I don’t have access to any of those LED’s, I wish I did. The XHP35’s are hard to get in small quantities and you kinda got to take what you can get.
Yep, just get a list of what you want done and send me a PM and we can talk.
This is why the GT’s are so hard to open, they sent me this when I complained that I could not get my GT open.
I have had the same thought but everyone calls it a sphere when talking about a lumen measuring device. So trying to come up with a new name at this point seems like it would add more confusion.
Although I am open to suggestions.
Well Lumintop is not messing around when they assemble, that surely explains why I had to buy two boa constrictor rubber and metal strap wrenches and with degenerative disks in my neck that are just crushed it really kicked my butte getting those apart but I did it but not without paying the price in pain for over a week.
I do know Lumintop has some serious glue, just try and disassemble the AAA Ti Tool with the electronic stupid switch, geez, that is some work.