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

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.

Absolutely… don’t believe manufacture number… I got 1700 lumen on the acebeam L16 ( 2000 lumen rated)…

Yes, this is how it should work. Although remember the spheres themselves do have a margin for error as well, so it is possible someone could use a slightly different correction factor and it is the right one for them. BUT this should only be done if you have a light that can truly be trusted. So unless you got a light from a real ANSI lab / calibrated sphere. I would not try to match the readings on the light.

As we have seen even the best light calibrated spheres tend to have issues.

This boils down to never knowing how to bias the readings since all lights will have slightly different correction factors.

As an example I know of 1 sphere that the owner said he took many hundreds of documented readings with hundreds of lights to get his correction factor (and I am pretty sure he is right). His sphere read almost 10% higher then mine (about 40% too high overall).

The more I compare readings with my old notes from years ago, the more I really like the new calibration for being accurate. It just fits better when you ignore the rated lumens on lights and stick to data sheet ratings.

So that is a long way of saying, unless you get a properly calibrated light to test in your sphere, I would aim for as close to .68 correction factor as possible.

Yep, that is exactly what I have been getting at. They are just numbers.

The more testing I do the more confident I am that these are the most accurate numbers I have ever had.

But it does not take away the hurt that is seeing 30% lower numbers then I am used to.

We can take the blue pill and stick with inflated readings to sooth our ego or we can take the red pill and get readings much more inline with what real lumens.

Personally I am just going to slowly work my way into these new readings and accept them for what they are.

If anyone chooses to not using the correction factor, then please be sure and state this in any numbers you post.

If you settle on a correction factor between say .66 and .70, then no need to mention it, we will assume it is standard.

I don’t think manufacturers expect people to try and verify their official ratings. Plus some companies will cherry pick the brightest light out of a group or even over charge a battery to 4.35v to give it an extra “boost” in output. Some companies will guess or estimate what the output should be
And some just make up the specs out of thin air. What we call “internet lumens”.

Matt from Adventure Sport Flashlights has a cool video on “internet lumens”. It’s worth a view.

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This.

At some point down the road I’d like try to incorporate a glass plate at the inlet (directly underneath the centering ring) mainly to facilitate setting a light hands-free for longer testing, such as run-time tests.

Would this be a problem? Would I need a special type of glass?

This could be done, although getting the glass to sit just under the centering ring could be interesting. I thought about this early on but abandoned the idea as it had a lot of variables.

Only way to know what the results would be is to try it, getting a high grade glass / lens would be important to lesson the impact on the readings. The readings could go up or down, not really sure. There is a plastic lens made for flashlights in customs sizes but I forgot the website name, www,flashlightlens.com or something like that. That would be a good option.

More then likely you will need to recalibrate things slightly once this is installed. I am going to guess that by adjusting the disc orientation you should be able to get it right.

Just take some before glass readings with several consistent lights and then again after the glass is installed.

If you used glass then that will require an adjustment on the calibration to compensate for it. I thought about using a + shape of wire. Like thin stainless wire. It might not effect the readings at all, I need to check that, though. All my lights seem to give the highest output when sunk down maybe 5 to 8 mm so depth should not be a big problem. Right now its no big deal to me holding the light.

I got my manker ranger today… I tested the throw version and got 1470 lumen… manker listed 1500 lumen… just some information…

What reduction factor are you using?

Isn’t the Manker MK39 rated at 2,000 lumens? Vinh tested it at 2,000 lumens.
https://skylumen.com/collections/v54-lights/products/manker-rangervn-excellent-handle-light