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

They are 4” PVC but the opening is 4.5”, so kinda both.

I might have a few scrap diffusers left but pretty sure I used almost all the good ones, I would have to buy another sheet to cut out more. I suppose I could do this if you wanted enough of them.

I do have a few complete spheres left here.

It would be best to use the meter it comes with since that is what it was calibrated with.

Far as savings, I suppose I could knock off the $16 that the meter cost me from the price if you rally wanted to do it that way. Although the accuracy would be unknown at that point.

I tested all of these spheres personally as all of these latest batch were within ~+/-5%.

Remember that most of the readings you see posted online are too high and even my old readings were off by 32% before I got the ANSI calibration lights.

Do you have some examples of lights that are reading off? There are only a handful of lights that have shown to be reasonably close to the ratings in this thread.

Are you basing this off of the lights factory specs and you seem to be measuring 40% less? Some examples that you measured would help us know for sure.

Your lights are still as bright as before you measured them, it’s just that now you are seeing the real numbers.

Also, have you seen the right way to measure them? You turn the end tube up 90%. You find the disc that is closest to the flashlights head diameter. Put the shiny side of the disc facing down, then put the flashlight head through the hole just a little bit (maybe 5mm to 10mm) and move it up and down a little until you get the highest reading.

I had joked that it’s kind of like waking up from the Matrix. What you thought was real was all a lie. A light you thought was 1000 lumen may have been 600 or 700 all along. :open_mouth:

Welcome to the real world. Lol

My PT16 is measuring 950 lumens so is 10% off.
My Emisar D4 XP-L HI is measuring 3500 lumens so is about 20% off.
My DX80 is measuring 20000 lumens so is about 60% off making the calibrating tube redundant.
I’ll try another HS1010A light meter to see if that’s the problem.

What makes you think those numbers are off exactly?

They sound perfectly reasonable to me. As has been shown dozens and dozens of times in this thread, the ratings on lights means almost nothing. Fenix is the only brand that seems to get close to the ANSI ratings on a consistent basis that I have seen.

The D4 is an FET light and makes for a very bad comparison light, although 3500 lumens is actually pretty impressive, that must be with an 18650, not 18350.

IIRC the DX80 is well known to be overrated as well, although I do not have one to test msyelf. I am sure someone else can chime in though.

Overall, those readings sound very good to me.

Do you have any Fenix lights or other more consistent lights for comparison? I am pretty sure others with this tube can compare the numbers.

So far all the readings you have mentioned sound correct but they are not very good for comparing to others.

You have to ignore the rated lumens on the lights and realize that most light manufactures lie about the ratings. As we have seen throughout this thread, the official ratings are simply wrong most of the time.

After TA confirmed my readings seem right in a pm I can confirm the brighter the light you use on the TA calibrating tube the more the reading will be off, a 1000 lumen light will read around 800 lumens and a 100000 light will read around 50000 lumens the the thing is utter garbage people. £132 down the drain…

Have you tested it with using a neutral density or other dimming filter in front of the meter. If the difference (lux ratio) between a low and high output light is different with the filter, the meter isn’t linear in the high end.

Acebeam X45 - 8000 lumens
Acebeam EC50 Gen II - 2200 lumens
MecArmy PT16 - 920 lumens
Emisar D4 XP-L HI - 3600 lumens
Blf X5 Kronos - 920 Lumens
Imalent DX80 - 20000 lumens
Noctigon Meteor Nichia - 4550 lumens
Acebeam X80 - 15000 lumens
Astrolux MF01 cw - 7600 lumens
Olight S2R - 745 lumens
Manker Timeback II - 2000 lumens
DQG Tiny - 2200 lumens
Blf Q8 - 4800 lumens
TN40vn - 6500 lumens

All other testers reported more lumens especially on my lumen monsters, I have plenty of other lights to try too

Can you please post some examples? All of the examples you have posted so far are very reasonable. Maybe not what you want to see but very reasonable to real world ANSI lumens.

Do tell, where are you getting a 100k lumen light? I would love to see that!

Also you posted above that a 1000 lumen rated light (PT16) read 950 lumens, why are you now saying it reads 800?

Must be my meter if nobody else can’t get a good reading on 5000 lumen+ monsters, though TA thinks my readings are fine.

/\ …… Your Q8 looks about right, I have those. No idea about the others.

Great, some numbers to compare.

At a glace I do not have hardly any of those lights but the numbers all look VERY reasonable.

I do have a Q8 and I also get around 4600-4800 lumens with it depending on the batteries used.

Hopefully some other people with the sphere have some other lights to compare and we can find out if it is off or not.

The only reading that stands out as being abnormal is the X45, does seem odd for it to be reading that low when rated at 16k. Were the cells fully charged?

I topped the batteries up on every light

I don’t see the difference getting bigger on higher output lights compared to my readings.

Your X80 and S2R are both about 25% lower than mine.

And there can be as much as 20% difference between the same model of flashlights. And probably even more on the higher output ones where every little bit including the batteries matter.

Like I say under 5000 lumens they aren’t far off 10-20% over 5000 and it gets quite ludicrous, Im thinking too much light absorbsion

Interesting, how stable are the readings from these lights in the lower modes?

KG, I assume that the batteries are fresh off the charger when you took these readings? If not can you take some more readings with freshly charged cells to confirm that is not the problem.

Also some readings with the lights in the low modes would be a good test for linearity.

Like maukka said the light absorption should be linear (and is in my own testing).

It would also make no sense for it to read the Q8 spot on and be way off for a light only slightly brighter. A few percent maybe but not a massive change. Something else must be going on.

The biggest problem I see so far is comparing the numbers to the factory ratings. See the Haikelite story above, they had the light tested much lower then the official ratings. Official ratings now days mean almost nothing.

Are all of the cells in the lights 100% freshly charged. High powered lights are very sensitive to changes in battery voltage and low cells can easily cause low readings. Also you are using high drain, unportected cells in them correct? Like 30Q or VTC6?

On most iffy diy systems the X45 and X80 come in way too low due to the sheer flood, I had to get around it with my system by moving the X45/80 forwards to impact as a thrower. The TA system is like a Zoomie flashlight that looses lumens as you zoom to a tighter beam as most of the light is absorbed in the flashlight’s walls. My Emisar D4 XP-L HI reads higher in the TA system than my Emisar D4 XP-L HI with diffused optics.