I don’t have much time tonight but just wanted to give a quick update. Spent the afternoon working on the centering ring issue and nkresho’s idea is a far better idea for this situation I think, the end result could in fact be better then what I first panned.

I really like the materials I ended up with and while it takes a fair amount more labor, well thats what family is for when the skill level is low right? lol

I got some pictures of the stack of stuff, think small refrigerator sized pile of stuff. I will try to post them tomorrow.

What worries me is when they are spread out all over the place and then shipping. I never even thought about boxes for this many large items. That could prove a challenge. I am working through them though.

The lux meters will hopefully be here at the end of the week, possibly early next week. I want to have everything ready for calibration when they show up.

JasonWW wrote:

I assume you will add a bit of glue to the main pieces of pvc pipe so it can’t be taken apart. If it is, then the diffusers might get rotated and lose it’s calibration.

The inlet section that is aimed upward I can see leaving unglued. Rotate it flat for shipping and have a mark where it should be rotated 90° to face upward again.

These should not need much packing material as the pvc is so robust. Just wrap the meter and centering rings well and put it in the center.

I am not 100% sure where I will glue things yet. If the PVC itself is not glued together then the diffusers will be glued inside of the PVC.

Gonna have to see how things go before I figure out the glue, that will be the last thing that happens.

That said, I am pretty sure that all but possibly the first piece of PVC will be glued.

I am off to the laser cutter in a few minutes.

Well, I am 4 hours in at the laser cutter so far, think I have about 1/8 of them cut at this point. Took me a few hours to get the settings figured out and now I am having to run it at 15% speed which takes for stinking ever for each cut.

I am really liking this new setup, even more then the first setup.

emarkd wrote:

Thanks for all your work on these TA. I’m sure by the time its over you will have decided you charged way too little for them We’ll be very grateful though.

On the glue situation, I know they’ll have to be glued some in order to keep things lined up for calibration. That’s fine, good even. I want mine to stay together. But I do hope any of the “vertical” pieces can be left loose so they can rotate down for storage. I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t have a good place where I can leave mine out all the time. I’ll need to be able to fold it up and put it away..somehow. If at all possible.

Thanks sir!

Indeed, I am already getting that vibe lol.

Yes, I plan to leave the 1st piece unglued for shipping as well, it will be much easier to ship with it down.

9 hours at the laser cutter and the end is in sight! Maybe another hour and I can go home! lol

So ended up being a little under 11 hours total, wow, talk about a lot more work then I expected. Didn’t even finished, still got to go cut a few more sheets but they were closing.

Here are the pictures I took yesterday. First you can see the ever growing pile that will become these spheres. I just moved them out into the open.

Another shot that also shows the samples I pulled out for testing.

What I spent all day laser cutting today, I will try to get some after shots later.

The results of my work yesterday to prepare for the centering rings.

Lumens Industry wrote:

Im in for one. Thanks!

PM sent with payment instructions.

lights_and _pieces wrote:

I’d like to sign up, thanks. 3.5”

PM sent with payment details.

JasonWW wrote:

Make sure you say what size you want.

Yep, include all the requested information with your payment, that is how the list is being populated and how orders will ship.

Enderman wrote:

How accurate is this compared to a professional calibrated integration sphere? Also afaik nobody has tested the HS1010A against a real high quality luxmeter, so it’s hard to know if the numbers it’s giving are correct, especially with different colour temperatures.

I have interchanged it with my LX1330B meter several times when I was setting up the sphere and the readings were always within a few percent.

I just did it again now to confirm my earlier tests and just holding the meter in the hole without a good seal it was reading about 5% low from 13 lumens up to the 1100 lumens of the test light, which is expected since it was not sealed into the PVC like the hs1010A. Confirming my earlier results, the HS1010A is a perfectly acceptable meter.

I stuck with the HS1010A because it was much much easier to mount to the PVC and it was simpler to use.

I have both but I have used the HS1010A in my own sphere since I finished it. I do not regret that decision at all.

Far as accuracy vs a $10,000 ANSI sphere, no idea, I don’t have one.

If you have a real ANSI calibrated sphere I would gladly send you a sphere to professionally calibrate it so we can find out.

What do you expect at 1/100th of the price?

contactcr wrote:

I agree it’s a bit silly to compare to ANSI sphere but I am curious how much better this is than my shoe box and cell phone rig.

I would guess a pretty significant jump depending on the phone. Most phone lux sensors are crude at best.

The old shoebox setup also tends to be susceptible to beam shape changing the numbers, that is what I spent a lot of time trying to get rid of with this setup be using the diffusing sheets.

That said, if you have a good standard to calibrate a sphere, a lot of things will work. It took me hundreds of tests and over 6 months to get a good enough “standard” to trust it.

The thing that really makes these better then home made setups is they will all be calibrated the same way and use the same setups, thus allowing them to be comparable to each other. The calibration is a big part of the selling point if you ask anyone that has made a DIY setup.

Also over time my numbers have shown to be inline with many others here, generally leaning towards the low side compared to others.

I know I would of happily and gladly paid twice this price in retrospect to get a pre-calibrated sphere but I am selling these so take that with a grain of salt.

chops728 wrote:

I would suggest all who buy these Units measure a few lights they own—-write these measurements down as calibrating reference—this will tell you if things get off in time—mainly when the meter batteries get weak—meters tend to do crazy things with weak batteries—-even high dollar Spheres have a calibrating bulb—my old hickok tube testers have an included calibrating tube——Just my 2 cents—-LOL

Yep, this is a very wise idea. I did this same thing and I have 2 lights I use to double check my sphere on a regular basis and a bunch more written down for more in depth tests.

The biggest issue I have had with readings changing over time is dust, it will collect and lower the readings naturally.

I clean off the top and it is back to normal.

Ok, I am sorry to report that I made a mistake in the order and it will take a week or so to get the correct parts.

Long story short, they do not have a 4” to 1.5” reducer so I had to use a 4” to 2” and then a 2” to 1.5”.

I had 2” on the brain and ended up having to place the order over the phone due to some website issues at the time and I mistakenly ordered 3” to 2” reducers for the 3” spheres instead of 3” to 1.5”.

I also totally forgot to order the 2” to 1.5” reducers.

So I am placing an order for the missing parts this weekend and I expect them to ship on Monday. Last time they arrived on Friday so I expect the same this time.

In the mean time I am preparing all the other parts and using some pieces I got from home depot to do an initial calibration of the spheres.

This should make it fairly quick once the missing parts show up. I am hoping to make my 4 week deadline I set for myself.

Today I got the family involved and we got a fair amount done in preparation for the real work. Hoping to start really digging into them tomorrow.

I will keep ya’ll updated.

I can say that I will NOT be selling any more of these for this price again.

Just got the order placed for the missing parts, they say delivery is expected Friday.

I got a payment earlier today for a sphere but there was no user name on the payment. Could whoever sent the payment please reply to the PM I sent you so I know who it is from? Thanks.