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

I thought the purpose was to have everyone’s tubes calibrated the same.
Doesn’t that mean we should all be installing the discs the same, per TA instructions? (both textured sides facing in)

It sounds like everyone is trying different ways to orientate the correction discs to get what they feel is the right “correction factor” based on some light they think is true to it’s factory specs. TA installed the correction discs all the same way in the 13 remaining tubes and they all spec’d out properly with the test light he used, why does anyone think their tube is different from those 13 tubes??

How can anyone know for sure what the true correction factor is if they don’t have the same light TA used to re calibrate? To me it almost seems like a whole new can of worms has been opened, I just don’t understand how anyone can know the real “correction factor” without using the same light TA used for this. I suppose the differences are not that great, but again I thought we wanted everyone’s tubes calibrated the same.

Maybe I just don’t understand, does what I’m saying sound right to anyone else?

Yes that’s what I did… you should able to feel the rough disc with your finger after you apply tape to the meter…

I see other people are doing opposite and still getting a consistent output…

What actually matters is that the tubes are corrected by as close to 0.68 as possible. It is quite simple to do the math by taking a reading of a light without the discs and then taking readings with the discs installed and calculating the correction factor they give.

Changing the orientation to get closer to the .68 is fine and actually the ideal way to do it, I had hoped it would not be necessary though. In most cases it should not but it doesn’t hurt to check.

Truthfully…… I have been kinda wondering the same thing beam0. :+1:

I can somewhat understand it if someone has a certified tested light such as a PFlexPRO or a ‘maukka tested light’ or the actual ones TA used…. to then ‘calibrate’ their particular tube to. Otherwise it seems to me things will again be all over the map so to speak.

Just my thoughts…. nothing earth shattering. :smiley:
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EDIT: Just saw what TA posted above. :+1: I understand a bit more now…. I think. :smiley: . :smiley: . :smiley:

We dont have an exact answer for that, since we dont have a calibrated light… It is too obvious if your number is way off…

For example… my fenix tk15 should be 1000 lumen range… i got 1045 lumen… thats is acceptable… i also test my pelican 7060, which is 369/368/366 lumen.

We just have to install the disc correctly and play with it until we are satisified with the results…

Me thinks this too. Guess I didn’t understand :person_facepalming:

So we need to orientate the discs whatever way it takes to get a 0.68 correction factor, (Reading without correction discs multiplied by .68, correct?)
So we need everyone to correct for 0.68 and leave it that way.

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I think my concern was in part based on Terry Oregon orientating his discs to achieve the factory spec of the Pflex S2+

Quote:

Convoy S2+ (PFlexPRO)

spec 607 @ 30sec

TA Tube: 790

Since his reading before and after correction was 790 and 608, doesn’t that work out to 0.77 (rounded)?
For 0.68 shouldn’t he be shooting for 537? (closer to his first reading of 505)

No, If i understand correctly we all need to orientate the discs to get the 0.68 correction, regardless of what we think the output should be for a particular light.

With the testing TA did to verify 0.68 was the correction needed, we all need to correct for 0.68 and live with the outputs that’s giving us for our lights, like it or not!

I am kinda in the same boat beam0. Like ole Forrest Gump, “I’m not a real smart man”. …. Except I am not concerned about Terry Oregon’s results at all…

His PFlexPRO is sphere tested & certified…. it is not just an arbitrary “factory spec”.
If I had a light like his…. I would do exactly as he has done. :+1: …. :beer::slight_smile:

That’s correct… those disc are cut into .68 or whatever correction factored…

I did some pretty extensive testing with my 4” TA sphere using different orientations of the correction disk. Here are the results:

Both smooth faces face tube: 0.62
Both smooth faces face meter: 0.70
Smooth faces face each other: 0.66
Rough Face face each other: 0.67

I also tested removing the sensor and inserting it back in the tube in a different orientation and the readings didn’t change :+1:

I’m trying to figure out which correction factor to use. I’m leaning towards 0.70.
With the 0.70 factor, my PflexPro S2+ triple Nichia 219B 4000k measures 875 startup lumens and 853 ANSI lumens whereas PflexPro’s integration sphere measures 930 startup lumens and 919 ANSI lumens. This equates to about 0.75 correction factor between my original TA sphere and Randy’s integration sphere. Did anyone get an answer how PflexPro calibrated his sphere?

Yes skv… I have the same set up and working well… both smooth facing meter…

The discs are only for convenience. Without them we measure the lights and multiply by .68 to get the more accurate results. It’s an extra step compared to reading the lumens straight off the lux meter.

We can eliminate having to do the extra math by letting the discs do that for us. By getting them to automatically reduce the normal readings down by .68 we don’t have to use a calculator any more. This adds convenience and makes the tubes live up to the promise of “No math skills needed”.

There are obviously some small differences in the diffuser sheets so “both smooth sides facing into the tube” is not always going to give a .68 reduction. If we test the same two circles of discs across multiple tubes I bet they have the same results.

But if we test one tube with two sets of discs from different sheets of diffusers we get these small differences. This is why we do before and after measurements. We just find the orientation that automatically reduces the readings .68. A .68 reduction is the goal.

I hope that makes sense. :slight_smile:

Hmmm, it’s certified and tested, to PflexPRo’s sphere …

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It’s calibrated by lights…

Quote from Randy at Pflex from his ebay listings:

“My testing: I use the FL1 test procedures, but my sphere is not ANSI calibrated but is calibrated using a number of ANSI rated flashlights. Since I make customs, I don’t have a production run of flashlight to test. I test each flashlight I build and report the output for that light.”

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Earlier in this thread I had suggested TA contact him to get a calibration light…

Yep, I got it. But everyone with this tube needs to find the orientation that comes closest to .68 and ignore what they think their lights should output. Or just do the math for .68, that way when someone posts their results in other threads, reviews etc. we can know they’re consistent for this tube across the board.

Sound reasonable?

:+1: ./\\ :+1:

All we are asked to do is apply a .68 correction factor or to orientate the diffusers to give us that correction factor automatically.

We are not supposed to be tuning the tube to get a certain result from PFlexPRO. We don’t know if his calibrations are correct. It seems they are reading a bit high and are outside the TA tube plus or minus 5% range.

At this point I’m only trusting Maukka’s measurements because he’s got calibrated reference lights.

I might try and get my tube to a tighter tolerance by sending TA one of my On The Road U16’s. It is a bit larger in diameter than a S2+ and sits nicely on top of the adapter hole. No need to adjust it’s depth in the hole. That removes a variable. On Medium it measures a steady 226 lumen regardless of battery voltage from 4.2v to 3.8v. It deviated only 1 lumen depending on voltage. So I think this will be a great light to send to TA.

It’s pretty likely my tube is not one of the outliers meaning 4% to 5% off, but probably closer to the middle average. By sending TA a light I can probably reduce the tolerance to plus or minus 1%.

You guys were busy while I was writing up my last post.

Yes to what you said. We want to keep all the TA Tubes reading very similar to each other which means using that .68 correction factor (either by using the TA diffuser discs, math or a custom diffuser).

I found a steady output light and did back to back measurements and wrote them down to find the correct disc orientation. Now mine is automatically adjusted to read .68 and I can throw any light on it and read the lumens directly off the meter. :+1:

I can also go back to all my old measurements which I wrote down the raw numbers and multiply those by .68 to get more realistic numbers instead of measuring them all over again. That’s too much work. Lol

We are at the point red or blue pills.

What I mean is that many have probably over estimated their measurement methods, everyone wants stronger flashlights. so red pills or blue pills what had Neo done?

What is right or wrong ?. As I understand, the idea is that we calibrate our Ta-tubes with each other so we have a “standard” to compare with. if we like all lights are less strong than we thought the question is about red or blue pills.

I have already realized that 2000 lumens flashlights are more like 1300-1400 in our Ta-tubes but appreciate how strong the flashlights are in reality:
/ Micael.

Is this in reference to what I said two weeks ago?

Right or wrong is a human idea. We should go with science.

We have to take off the rose colored glasses and see things closer to what they actually are.

I don’t like that my FET driver, xhp70.2 Convoy L6 drawing 17A to 18A is only doing 5950 lumen instead of 8500 like I used to think. This is a bummer, but I’d rather know the truth.

I used to think a 13,000 lumen MT09R was a little brighter than my L6. Now I know it’s more than double my light! This is good news.

completely unaware repetition of your post, did not try to steal your post.

What I mean as you said reality is not always what we want to believe, but it’s still real :slight_smile:

take it for what it is and be happy.