Texas_Ace BLF Calibrated Lumen tube / Sphere No math skills needed - Several spheres still available

TA, thanks for the answer,

$5.00 sent for goods and services

Actually either way is not good, I know about how paypal fee’s work, my question for TA was pertaining to him being able to easy print a shipping label, which does not happen with Friends and Family.

Okay, I misunderstood.

Ok, a long day of Laser cutting, testing, installing and working later I have now finished cutting all the correction disks and testing them out by installing them in the 13 spheres I have left here.

I am very happy with the results. Even after installing all the disks only 1 out of the 13 spheres was outside of my /-5% tolerance range goal and it was 6. So 7/- seems very reasonable for an official rating.

This is also comparing it to my new “standard” light which I did not have the first time around, so I am even more happy about that :partying_face:

That is enough for me to consider this a success personally since that is the hardest part.

It is also good enough for me to say they are ready to ship out.

So Tomorrow I am going to try to get all of the people that have sent a payment for the address shipped out. If anyone has not sent a payment now is a good time to do it. I have not checked the exact numbers but looks like about ~2/3 to 3/4 have sent their address just glancing at it.

Once again big thank you for those that chose to cover the cost of the fix.

Also, those 13 spheres I installed the correction disks into are for sale for anyone that missed the Group buy.

I just got done finding, printing shipping labels and packing all the orders I could find. I got 27 out of the 32 total ordered between the people that sent a new payment and those that I could find from the old payments.

If anyone does not get the correction discs just let me know and I will send you out a set.

I also sent 3 discs to most of you, just in case one breaks in shipment, it is easier to include an extra then ship another. Only 2 of them will be used though.

These discs seem to read slightly different then the sheet I get before. This seems to work out to around ~.67, so pretty darn close to prefect in most cases. Although a few of the old discs are mixed in so it is possibly it could vary a little if you get one of the old discs.

Luckily no matter which combo you have it should still be within the tolerance range I was aiming for as I didn’t even notice the difference when putting together the 13 spheres yesterday and they still came out within spec.

The official install instructions for the correction discs are as follows

The discs have a textured side and a smooth side.

Simply remove the lux meter from the PVC pipe and insert 2 of the correction discs Both smooth sides should face towards the INSIDE of the PVC pipe

It is hard to tell in the pictures but both textured sides are facing out, towards the meter.

Then simply reinstall the meter to hold them in place:

I forgot to include the directions for installing the 4” discs with the package. The pictures below should help explain it.

Use some normal tape and run it around the edge of the lux meter and disks to hold them in place. It does not have to be very fancy, just hold them in front of the meter.

Alternatively you can hot glue the discs to the meter but this is not super easy to do.

After the disks are attached to the meter simply insert it into the tube and enjoy!

For the 4”, will it make a difference how far the diffuser disk is installed from the meter? If I hot glue it, it will be further away from the meter than taping it directly to the meter.

On the 4” spheres I put together yesterday I first taped the discs to the meter, except instead of running the tape around the edge I just put a strip across the discs. This was to hold it in place.

Then I ran a bead of glue around the exposed edge and after it had mostly cooled cut/peeled away any excess that would keep it from being inserted into the PVC.

So the discs ended up the same distance away either way.

That said, the distance the discs are from the meter will have a minor effect on the readings. Getting the glue on more then the edge will have an effect as well, generally lowering the readings some.

I recommend trying it with tape first and making sure it is reading correct. If you have a choice I would pick a setup that gives you slightly high readings figuring that the glue will drop it a little.

Ok, I will just compare before and after to see what correction factor it gives me. Are we aiming for 0.68 or 0.70?

Nice .

These new batch of discs should give about .67 +/- .01 or so unless you get one of the last batch of discs that read a little differently (there were about 10 mixed into 100 of the new ones).

Although they do vary a little disc to disc but not enough to really matter.

The ideal aim point is .68 but honestly that is just nit picking at this point. Just tossing the discs into the 13 I had here had them all reading within spec (although I did tweak these to read a bit more precise since I had them on hand and could do that, but not something most of you need to worry about since you do not know if your sphere reads on the high or low side compared to everyone elses.

I would just install them like I said above and enjoy personally. That is what I did in my own sphere.

I sent an address payment.

Great, I found your old payment but could not find the address.

I will get yours shipped tomorrow.

Hi

If i understand this the disc vill do the 068/,70 factor. the lumen is what you see on the meter, Im a wrong ?

Correct, this will correct the readings so that you can once again read the lumens directly on the meter as I planned at the start.

I also want to say thank you to everyone for helping to cover the costs of the fix. I would of paid it out of pocket but my pockets are still talking to me by not having to.

1 user in particular covered the remaining costs after the individual payments, thanks!

I was talking to DB Custom and Robo819 over on this Thrunite TC20 thread about their lumen tubes built by Manxbuggy1. Robo tested his TC20 in his tube and Newlumen tested his TC20 in the TA tube (0.7 correction factor). The result was only about 10% to 15% higher in robo’s tube. Not the 30% or so I was thinking. So that’s good news.

DB was thinking of sending me a light to measure in my tube then send it to Robo so we could get some comparitive results between the 2 tubes. I suggested he send it to you since your tube is a bit more accurate than the production ones we all have. Anyway, I hope he contacts you about it.

Robo819, DB Custom, TomE and Richard at MTN Electronics all use the same Manxbuggy1 calibrated tubes. Robo has a ton of light reviews here as well. So if we find out their tubes read X% higher than the TA tube we can calculate their lumen readings to ours (since I believe ours are more accurate). That would be pretty sweet. :partying_face:

The Manxbuggy1 tubes don’t use any diffusers, though. So their readings might vary a bit more based on a throwy or floody beam pattern. I’m assuming this, it would be nice to see if it’s true.

TA, I also whipped up this picture to show people one of the big design points in your tube to help cancel out the different beam shapes. I think it’s what gives your design the edge over other designs. You can use it in post 1 if you want.


.

Very interesting results.

Sure if DB wants to send me a light (possibly an S2+ or other cheap regulated light as well if he is mailing a box anyways for a wider sample) I am up for that. I would love to get some direct comparisons. I could forward them to Robo as well.

The lack of diffusers does mean there is a very high likely hood that the beam pattern will effect the readings. I know I could not get the readings to be consistent with different beam patterns (I used an LED with a bench power supply and different reflectors for testing) no matter how hard I tried until I added the diffusers.

Cool, thanks for that. I have been hesitant to push the benefits of the diffusers too much since I didn’t want to start a “sphere war” with people arguing over different designs.

Many designs work for what we are doing, I have simply found this to be the best in my own experience.

I will indeed add that to the op.

I like USPS… look like we are getting them on Monday… usps do great job and fast.

It also has to do with the size, larger packages tend to take longer. So an envelope is a bit easier to transport then a big hunk of PVC lol.

Also, I noticed in some pictures you posted that your sphere is still at a funny angle.

Were you not able to twist it any more? The PVC likes to get stuck, when this happens I wiggle it back and forth while pulling it out. The top piece has no glue so it should pop out.

Then line it up properly and press it back together firmly.