New WildTrail (former LuckSun) BLF-D80v2 Sale is open.

By adding mass on the inside before cutting the finns deeper from the outside the total mass stays ~the same.
Only the surface area on the outside increases. But i agree with you. If i would only cut the finns deeper without adding mass on the inside i would probably reduce the heat handling capabilitis.
And adding 2mm to the led shelf (from ~1mm to 3mm) should help increasing the heat transfer inside the head.

So i got me some paper from the Nurse to draw a D80 head (my cousin scanned it for me at home and added a few things). The red space is the change i have in mind.
What do you think. Would it help with heat distribution?

LED shelf of like 5mm will help, as well as the other red you have marked there

Original shelf thickness is ~1mm and the driver cavity is 8,5mm deep. I was thinking to take 2mm from the driver cavity to add them to the shelf.
Not 5mm but 3mm. I want enough space (6,5mm) for people modding the light with a boost driver.
I am not sure how much space would be required for a modern boost driver (do not have any at home). If less space is required we could add more to the shelf.

If you could add a couple mm to overall length of the head, you could make the shelf thicker that way, and also add another fin at the bottom. My preference would be to also add another couple mm to the length of the head for making the reflector a bit longer. So, maybe a total of 4-5mm added length on the head. Some people wonā€™t like that though.

@TheOnlyDocc, do you want contact info for my spring company?

So we can get some good springs in their lights :slight_smile:

BlueSwordM
Is the company from China? If yes please send me the address. I will send LS the info + a link to the spring sale here on BLF. But we will have to see what they want to buy. They will also have their sources for parts. So maybe some more technical information are better. This way they can check in with their suppliers and check if they can get somthing similar cheaper.
DavidEF
So far most of the people do not want a change on the outside. But you are right if we would change some things (more finns, bigger/longer head) the light could probably handle more heat and would throw further. Could be a good starting point for another light in the future.

@TheOnlyDocc, yes, itā€™s a Chinese company. Iā€™ve asked for their contact information yesterday, so should be receiving it today.
I will also include technical information if necessary.

A shelf thickness of 3mm is enough, the D80 must not be made longer than it is (the size is a main strongpoint), and the triangular extra aluminium under the fins will help too but half of that (a narrower triangle) will help just as well and keeps the head more lightweight. For example the Sofirn C8F (18650 model) has an exellent heat path but the head is unneccessary heavy.

One of the main reasons I like the D80 so much is the heat fins for great heat shedding. If we can make use of the red triangles and deepen the fins, I will be sure to buy a few. Otherwise, not sure if there is enough incentives for me to buy more since I already have two D80.

Those cooling fins are just for decoration, no air is flowing through those little gaps. Get rid of half of them and make them deeper. Let Lucky Sun decide their final shape for ease of manufacturing. Same with the tapered area you added. It can be smaller like djozz said but instead of a taper it can be a couple of steps if it is cheaper to manufacture.

If there is nothing to be gained by changing the reflector why bother? Iā€™d just orange peel it to get rid of the cree rainbow. Which side of a C8 do people want this light to be on? Personally I want something a tad smaller, a good solid workhorse that picks up where my S6 triple falls off. This looks like a good general purpose host for XPLā€™s, SST40ā€™s, XHP35 and 50ā€™s, maybe an XHP70 if someone wants something on the floody side that puts out lots of light.

All the new emitters are low VF, its time to move away from the fet + 7135 drivers. Lone oceans driver uses a 7mm tall inductor then add a little clearance for the wires, Iā€™d like to see a 9mm deep driver pocket. And make the driver shelf as wide as a 21700 body will allow.

Honestly, I think of this light filling the ā€œwhite spaceā€ around the Emisar D1 and EE X6 which is a tailswitched version of what I would call minimalist thrower.

(This goes for any light, butā€¦)

Minimize the value of ā€™ Bezel OD - Reflector ID ā€™ with optimal reflector performance. Do that well and itā€™s a competitive light in any size.

I wonder what the costs are for a lonoceans driver if produced in moderate quantities in China. Iā€™m afraid it will still be more than we are prepared to pay for in the D80.

The H2-C from Kaidomain is very similar. The buck controller is a generation older and the inductor is not as good. The way the reverse polarity protection is done leads to overheating the board when driven hard.

If Ban could get those things fixed up weā€™d have a very good boost driver. Of course it would be nice to have a couple different models. 6v, 12v plus a 20mm option.

Donā€™t these manufacturers do any experimenting with the heat dissipation of their designs? Is a $500 thermal camera that hard to buy?

BTW, I donā€™t think the ā€œdeeperā€ and ā€œmoreā€ is straight forward as cut this or that. Cutting fins too close together or too deep may not have the effect some think because it restricts air movement. Only way to know is by doing it AND then testing it.

In the design project ā€œBLF Sabreā€, in theory, the detached head had a lot more surface area but I also saw problems with heat being trapped between the body and head. Only testing would prove theory.

Trust but verifyā€¦lol

I read the request for more testing in many threads but you have to understand that they do business a bit different than we are used to.
If you develop to long in China someone else will beat you to market. It does not matter if the idea is stollen or it is a similar one. If you evolve your products not fast enough someone else will come up with your desing and a few simple usefull changes and your are done. . . Without the copyright we used to have the only way to stay in business is to develop faster than the competitors. So often they know it is not perfect. But its better than the other version on the market so they launch the product and work on the next better version. It does not have to be perfect, only better than the others / old version. To change their sight of doing things more our way is a huge undertaking.
Companies like Sofirn (that work with us on more than one project) have understand that we have other priorities. But that only works because we bring them money. Other companies have to learn this (some faster some slower).
Another point that is very different is everything that has to do with advertising. They do not spend money on that. If you want your product to be recognized you do not have to build up a brand . . . name your product similar to a exsisting well known product (similar to yours) and you get enough attention.
It is the wild west of marketing. Sometimes it is hard to understand why they do what they do. But it helps a lot if you understand their way of doing things.
I uploaded the hand drawing without the red spaces. I hope someone else can implement the changes. I am having a hard time doing it on the tablet (maybe i have not found the right app).

Personally Iā€™d prefer them not to spend much time testing fin configurations for cooling. Itā€™s just an added cost, I want a cheap well built host.

Just look at a heat sink that is designed to be used without a fan, theyā€™ve been engineered to death . Kiriba-ru is a smart guy, have a look at what he made for Convoy C8ā€™s.

Deep thin slots make it hard for air to move, once the air gets hot it needs to move out of the slot and be replaced by cool air. Wider slots are also faster to manufacture, there are less of them to make and a wider tool is stronger. Less chattering and more coolant flushing chips out leads to much faster feed rates. More parts per hour, less broken tools and less scrapped parts. It should be easy to talk the manufacturer into it as long as the end result looks nice enough to sell. Kiribaā€™s design will look good to knowledgeable people, probably needs to be tempered some to make it look good to the masses.

Their existing design isnā€™t bad compared to most lights and could be kept if need be. Just keep in mind deepening the existing slots wonā€™t help much in cooling but will increase manufacturing time, break more tools and scrap more parts when the tool breaks. Adding your tapered section will help spread heat across the head of the light, might be almost as effective as the best finning. Iā€™d prefer a stepped design. Its probably faster to machine and could be used to install a shelf for multi emitter optics. Either way its less material for the manufacturer to remove, less time equals cheaper to manufacture. They just need to spend a little more time making sure the reflector fits, shouldnā€™t be a hard sell.

donā€™t do any changes to the fins that will take years to perfect. lets just do changes that can be done fast

Testing time is measured in matter of hours or a few days. Changing depth on a CNC is minutes work in programming. Same with spacing.

Assemble. Run. Use infrared camera to show heat builds up. Repeat to confirm results.

Weā€™re talking flashlights, not space shuttles.

Still faster than testing, the heat path
can be predicted from the pictures, as said: no rocket science. Only the last few percent improvement needs testing, but just skip that, it is not important.