please put me down for another one please for a total of 2.
Thank you
I’m in for two, please!
Hopefully someone thinks about a lanyard hole without the need of a clip!
In terms of tint and CRI yes.
But the beam patterns would be the same. Toykeeper mentioned that having tried it with 10511 and 10507 optics she dislikes the beam pattern of the LH351D.
I think this sounds like a nice, useful beam. I do own a good zoomie and find that kind of beam fine up close. The edges of the beam don’t matter so much to me because I’d be using the middle of the beam to illuminate stuff most of the time anyway. It may not be aesthetic on a white wall, but it doesn’t affect my ability to use the light to see things.
But it’s not for everyone, nor for all the time. There’s a reason I’m on the list for four of these, which will be getting some different emitter/optic combinations.
So, here’s the thing. What a light looks like on a white wall is like looking at a computer screen; it could be a mix of a red, green, and blue and you wouldn’t know it. The part where CRI comes into play is when you actually go to use the light, and you realize that when you look at the same object under two different lights, it’s not just colored by the tint of the light used… if there’s colors that are missing in the spectrum, you can’t see those colors with that light. In most cases, it just makes things look washed out, or discolored, or pale, or something like that. Often, a person’s face looks less healthy due to a lack of enough red in the spectrum. In the extreme case, you don’t just lose the ability to distinguish colors accurately. If there’s an object that’s a deep red, for instance, and your led doesn’t have much of that color, the object will look black which is not at all what you might expect. (If it’s a mix of colors, you’ll see whatever remains - maybe a less saturated red will look closer to a grayish brown, or something like the palm of a hand will look a bit blue-green compared to normal. In the extreme case of a pure red light, if you have an object that’s got text in a pink color, then under a very red light, it will be hard to read that against a white or gray background. That’s the thing about CRI. If you have a white wall, you can see when a light has an odd tint that might affect your perceptions. But if you have a low CRI, which has a tint that seems nice and white, you could actually not realize that you’re seeing everything wrong. That’s how you might end up buying clothes that end up looking different when you bring them home, to give a common example. And that’s why, given that my ability to adapt to varying color temperature is functional, I am happy to work within a range of color temperatures I find acceptable, but I do not want a light that is too terribly lacking in some part of the spectrum compared to a black body equivalent.
To drive home the point, low pressure sodium lamps are about as bad as it gets for CRI. The car on the right in this photo is actually black, but the car on the left is bright red. A CRI 70 LED is nowhere near this bad, but you get the idea of how poor colour rendering can distort the appearance of something.
Yes. Proto2 had a cool white XP-G3 until I put the LH351D in. And I’ve been tempted to put the XP-G3 back in even though I don’t like cool white. Because right now, the beam looks like this (on the right):
(left: ROT66-219B, right: FW3A LH351D 5000K 80CRI with 10507 optic, white balance set to “daylight” 5000K)
(disclaimer: beam tints almost never look as severe in person as they do on camera)
The LH351D looks less bad in a 10507 optic than any other emitters I’ve tried… but I still haven’t seen a 10507 beam I liked.
It’s certainly interesting, and I’ve found it preferable to the mule-like beam it had with a frosted optic. It’s just not what I’d generally choose.
I hope you’re right. 
No.
Welcome to BLF, but … this light does not have any holes except the ones in the clip. The clip is intended as a permanent part of the light, not easily removable.
Yes, I’ve been using the FW3A prototypes daily for quite a while now. Proto2 works nicely, aside from the green emitters I put in it, the need for kapton tape around the front of the inner tube, and the not-so-great fake silver anodizing.
So I hope proto3 fixed the issue where the inner tube could make electrical contact to parts it was not supposed to touch. And I hope the anodizing will be updated. And I hope the requested emitters will happen. With those taken care of, I’d consider it ready to ship.
Lest we forget……
It’s not just about CRI for many of us. Beam quality counts a lot too. :+1:
The example above of the two vehicles appearing black under low pressure sodium lamps is certainly dramatic. But, as the poster said; it certainly does not represent the difference between 70 CRI & 90 CRI.
And tint is another thing…. why in the world would anyone prefer 4000K or even warmer?? :person_facepalming: . Oh yeah, personal preference. . :+1:
That same personal preference that makes 5000K - 5750K just about perfect for me & many others.
BUT, back to beam quality……
That’s not as bad as it looks for being compared to a sw45k, which we all know is on the pink side, but I do think you must have gotten a greener version than most seem to have, even if it’s partly the camera. I think I’ll bring that up on IRC. Anyway, glad to hear it’s been working out well so far; hopefully we get those things done with and start shipping in time for christmas 2019 
Edit: Also, to the other post that just came in before I noticed it… just XD.
Off Topic, but where is this internet relay chat you guys talk about? I don’t have a clue. Lol
not “where” but “when”
It was a place to geek out in the 1990’s over your very specific interest and chat in real time. I thought it died around 2000… man I feel old.
. . :+1: …. … 
. I just noticed the “Edit” a couple posts up.
…… Yep, XD is kinda how I feel too, about true died in the wool CRI baby commentary… 
IRC is far from dead. Some newer “collaboration” platforms like Slack or Discord have taken a bite out of IRC traffic I’m sure, but there’s still plenty of life in the original.
I’d like one please. Thanks! I love every light I’ve bought so far!
I love how it’s assumed that anyone that doesn’t like a certain High CRI emitter only uses their lights to look at white walls.
The 219C has been anywhere from bad to terrible, in real world use for me. It’s actually good when using it in the great outdoors, but I mainly use my lights in the city, and in my house. Sadly, I have no white walls, but the white trim does blend in with the beige walls with the 219C’s I’ve tried. The XPL-HI 70+ and 80+ are a little better than the C indoors, far better in the city, and only slightly worse outdoors.
+1 … :+1: … Ain’t it the truth.
It is downright hilarious in fact. If someone is not a die hard ‘Card Carrying CRI Baby’, it seems their opinion & preference does not count in the eyes of some. :person_facepalming:
What a joke that is……
The same applies, it seems anyway; to those that don’t like 4000K or warmer. :person_facepalming:
Another joke……
I say live & let live. One preference is no better or worse than another. It depends on what an individual likes & wants……
And we certainly all do not prefer or want the same thing.
Give me 5000K - 5700K all day long. If it happens to have High CRI fine with me… if it does not, no big deal at all.
I’ll still be able to tell if it is red, blue, green, or orange either way.
……
@ Eraursls1984 / I see your from North Florida. I hope you were not in the path of ‘Michael’. If your were I hope you fared OK. :+1:
It was a bad one!!! Still hurricane strength when it reached mid Georgia. 
I feel for the people in Mexico Beach, looks like it was all but wiped off the map. 
Just for the record, i have many high CRI LEDs especialy 219C (yeah i bought maybe too many at the time…) and although some of them don’t have the tint i would prefer, they are ALL better tinted than low CRI Cree LEDs with similar colour temperature.
Low CRI LEDS make beige and skin colour (for example) look green, whereas high CRI LEDs show them in the colours they actually are.
Must say, the 3000K Nichia 219C i have are the least pleasant tint. Too yellow, apparently above the BBL too (hint of green rather than red)
Here’s my point though:
When you have cool white LEDs to me the CRI is less important.
The red end of the spectrum is supposed to be less present with 5500 - 6500K, so it still looks more or less like it should with low CRI cool white LEDs.
And there has been progress too. I have some old XP-C Q5 cool white LEDs, and there really is very very little red in their spectrum.
Red objects don’t even light up, so to speak. It’s actually a bit funny.
Later Cree’s may not have deep red, but at least they have some orangey red, so red objects will light up, albeit a bit orangey.
Anyway, it’s a matter of how important you think colour rendition is.
Depends on the application too.
What many CRI babies (i guess i’m one of them though…) seem to overlook is the fact that with low light levels the human eye can hardly properly distinguish colours anyway.
The human vision system prioritizes contrast over colour identification, because the prior is simply more important than the latter.
So basically for close range application with sufficient output, the CRI and tint matters much more than with a light outside.
INteresting to note is that outside in the dark, where contrast counts most, a warmer white LED provides more clarity to the human vision system than cool white. But when you use this same light indoors and (thus) at closer ranges, the lack of red in a warmer white LED really shows, and skin colour and beige turn greenish…
80 CRI LEDs are often a nice compromise between output numbers and colour rendition.
The few 80CRI Cree’s i have are quite okay.
I have some old LG 4000K 3535 LEDs that are quite excellent actually.
Now the 4000K 90CRI Samsung LH351D’s i have certainly are not greenish. In fact, this is a very nice LED with high efficiency to boot.
But the die is very large, so if i had read more about the LED choice in regards to the optic used, i would have known they don’t make a great team…
No surprise the XP-L HI works well with small triple TIR optics.
I have a couple lights at 4000K with 92 CRI and 95 CRI. I also have several around 5000K with only 70 CRI. I find that the 4000K ones look yellow, while the 5000K ones look white and give better color rendition.
But the best-looking light is a matter of personal preference. It has no right answer, just an ideal value per person. For me, that means a well-blended beam which is brightest at the center and fades pretty smoothly to the edge, at about 4700K, on the pink side of the BBL, with high CRI.
I find that the ideal white light is a combination of several factors, and their importance is not equal. In order of most to least important, the factors are:
- Beam shape / consistency.
- Color temperature.
- Tint (above or below BBL).
- CRI value. (assuming everything is at least 70 CRI)
It’s nice to have all of these, but if I had to drop one, the first one I’d sacrifice is CRI. It’s a way to fine-tune the last few details after the bigger factors are aligned.
Thanks!
I’m not surprised to see my comments misinterpreted, but still. No, I wasn’t laughing because of your preferences, only the way you express them, which is perhaps too uncharitable but at this point I don’t think I mind that.
I wasn’t saying that someone only uses their light against white walls, but that no matter how good it looks while they do, when they don’t, it can and does throw off the color of objects to some degree, regardless of whether they notice or whether it’s because (as in the example I gave) there’s a lack of red; if you look at maukka’s charts, I would probably dislike one where there is any set of wavelengths that there is too much or little of for the color temperature specified, including lights that are too green (or, if taken to extremes, too pink), relative to what should be present, not in absolute terms. Maybe it has a very big spike that includes too much of one color, compared to all the others. The thing is, even if you move the goalposts and assume that you’re using such little light that nothing you’re seeing is lit at a level that allows you to see in color, the effect does not go away completely. Instead of something being a different color than it should be, it’s just lighter or darker than it should be.
I do not attempt to say that others must think as I do. But I refuse to be told that my preference for color accuracy is invalid; that I am a freak for wanting things to appear as they are, that making some things look strange without knowing it is okay but if a led is not precisely the right tint, then no matter its other qualities it’s instantly trash. (Note: I exclude TK here since she has mentioned her inability to automatically adjust to warmer and cooler CCT’s) And hey, i don’t absolutely love the 219c either; I like the viltrox panel much more - it gets CRI, CCT, and position orthagonal to BBL right, so there’s not much to object to. But with the 219c, when mine came in just slightly green, I considered just using it, because honestly at the minor level of green I saw, it was hard to notice in the real world. But eventually I decided to buy a $1 swatchbook of filters, put the lightest or second-lightest minus green on there, and called it a day. Maybe sometime I’ll get the zircon version due to the heat, but otherwise, it was a simple solution to a minor issue. Don’t have the sheet? Don’t worry about it; if it wasn’t for the d4 219c being 5250k, i might not even have bothered - at 4000k, like the lh351d’s I’m looking forward to in this light, the effect is supposed to be little to none depending what batch you choose, and regardless, if I was looking at 4000k, once my vision adjusted, i’d probably have been even less likely to notice.
Anyway. The point here is, you can’t retreat into “but mah personal preference” until you acknowledge that that means that others’ preferences get equal validity. So the CRI freak thing? Yeah… Otherwise, don’t let anything I said be twisted into some sort of “CRI is most valid” thing. No, CRI is just valid, nothing more or less. If you’d rather enjoy your lights by how their light looks when you use them rather than how well the way it makes some things look corresponds to how they look under ideal sources, that’s a valid way too.