Sofirn SP70 Alone $50, PM for AMZ US CODE(LIMITED)

I’m not sure about that. A noticably bigger hot spot would mean much lower throw numbers, but our throw numbers are still high. I guess we’ll find out later.

It HAS low throw numbers Jason. Would have been nice to see 300Kcd or more…

You have a high powered L6 with an SMO reflector, right?
You know it can only hit about 172kcd, right?
Why would you expect 300kcd by going from a 63mm SMO reflector to a 73mm(?) OP reflector? I would not expect that big of a jump. Am I not understanding how significant a small bump in reflector diameter can be?

If the hot spot was visably larger than an L6 like gehrmo said (20%) it would indicate a much wider beam angle. You would then expect probably under 100kcd. Maybe under 60kcd. We are not seeing those crazy low numbers.

We are not seeing perfectly optimized numbers either because we know the reflector depth as a bit short for the diameter.

I would much rather wait till I can compare the lights side by side and take measurements. I prefer that to speculating.

I wonder if we can ask for a differently designed reflector for the BLF edition?

Can anyone confirm 21700 cells fitting?

Plenty of speculation in that post Jason for someone that prefers not to speculate.

Good that you tell me what I know, because I’m so forgetful and all. I do remember that I have smooth, OP, and Optic Convoy lights, boosted 35’s to 4 cell 35’s, MT-G2’s to 70.2’s. Do I need to put a White Flat in an L6 and see what the reflector is actually capable of? Nobody said this light had to have an XHP-70 variant in it… my little L2’s can sure blow away what this Sofirn light does, I know that.

As I’ve said, I paid for a Sofirn SP70 and it’s on the way, the speculation will soon end. :wink:

Dale, tell robo to get a Maxtoch X Pro and tell us about it

My SP70 is out for delivery, should be wait'n when I get home

63mm -> 73mm reflector diameter should get you 34% higher kcd.

Conducted an experiment. Cut the emitter shelf in an L6 to fit a 32mm MaxToch MCPCB, cut a copper heat sink to solder one of RMM’s 20mm drivers into to run a White Flat at 5.5A from 2 cells. In the L6, tested with OP reflector and clear polished reflector, the OP did 69Kcd, the mirror did 335Kcd. I know, I couldn’t believe it myself, ran the tests multiple times, but there it is.

I just stuck some Sofirn 4000mah 21700’s in there and they fit. The cells do stick out about an inch but it all screws up ok. The flashlight works fine but I would think the cell size is too big and will strain the springs. The cells were fine when they came out. No damage.

Dale - Ok, I'm wait'n to hear the amateur optical physicists explain this one... Actually I'm kind of serious on this.

Tom, I even cut the flat out of the OP reflector and did some shaving to get it fitted to the large MCPCB using the lathe. Everything was dialed in, the beam looked really nice but of course no real definition to the hot spot with the OP reflector. It looked really bright, I was expecting at least 200+Kcd, but 69 was ridiculous! I actually meant to keep the OP reflector in it, but then tested the mirror finish one and the difference was so radical I just had to leave the mirrored one in place.

These measurements were at 5M, it might prove out somewhat different at a longer distance but of course it’s a bright sunny day out at the moment.

I'm sure someone could explain it, but would love to hear from Enderman on it, or maybe djozz has a good explanation. The white flats are highly throwy of course, but maybe has something to do with the low lumens output, too many lost photons.

Just got home, and sure enough - got the SP70! Looks great, big springs of course, probably to allow 26650's to 21700's. For 2 cells, it's a big length to adjust for. I am suspecting, Dale you are right bout the reflector's shape, leading to less throw, bigger hot spot. I got an L6 (or 2) and an old S70S to compare.

Update - First Impressions:

Yep, I'd have to agree about the relative large hot spot - seems about the same as my L6 OP w/XHP70 and old S70S OP w/XHP70. Hard to say but the OP treatment is roughly bout the same as an L6, maybe worse. The center flat area is OP's while on the L6's with OP reflectors, it's SMO. It's unexpected to see such a large hit spot for such a wide reflector I.D. The spill is clearly wider than the L6 and S70S - also expected for a shallow reflector.

Hard to tell for sure but looks like the LED sits fairly deep down so maybe there's some improvement to be made there. The glass looks untreated, but they didn't claim it was AR coated.

The reflector ID looks bout the same as the HL MT07, but I'm sure my MT07 blows this SP70 away with it's SMO/deep reflector, sliced&diced XHP70.2, and tweaked driver.

This is indeed a huge difference, this is how i explain this:

Although the OP reflector is light OP for the XHP-70 it is very heavy OP for the White Flat.

The smaller the led the bigger the difference is going to be between a SMO and a given OP reflector in throw.

Tom, do you think the SP70 beam profile is an excellent GP light? I got the feeling from the parameters that it would be, just a great all around light to have out on a walk or doing night work like clearing a storm felled tree or something like that. I could be wrong, happens more than the other way around.

The L6 came out with an XHP-70 though, so the OP is designed to merge that donut hole. Perfectly understandable there. The 70.2 works much better in a mirror finish reflector than the 70 does, so the differences come through modernization of the emitter.

And yes, I can see where an orange peel surface would just kill the 821 lumens of this White Flat. Nature of the beast and all that.

Been a while since I fiddled with these big single XHP70/XHP70.2 lights. Didn't even realize the MT07 now has an HQ driver in it, does like 368 kcd with the sliced XHP70, think it's not a 70.2, not sure yet.

Yes - it has a wide spill, not a great thrower but wouldn't expect it to be. Nice though it's high amps. I was able to open the bezel, no glue but needed a strap wrench with some decent force (wood clamped the head). The MCPCB is hugh, looks like 40 mm, and i was able to poke thru a LED wire hole and loosen the driver - probably mildly glued, not sure because couldn't remove it without de-soldering the wires. Got charged up blue LK 50A cells now so will take some numbers.

UI is ok - didn't try ramping yet, but modes work the nice way - click to ON, click OFF, press&hold to change modes.

It really depends on the cell. Flat tops that make contact in series should work as long as they aren’t button top. Clearance is tight and they fully compress the springs, so officially they aren’t recommended. It’s a case by case situation.

I really don’t understand why you say stuff like this. I’m saying “Huh?” to every sentence.

So like 100kcd to 134kcd and 200kcd to 268kcd? This sounds quite reasonable.

Since my L6 does 172kcd, if the SP70 had a SMO it could theoretically be capable of 230kcd.

I think Dale’s expectations were a 75% increase which seems too much in my opinion. Plus it seems Sofirn used a heavier OP than they said they would, based on the reports coming in. This is a bummer, they said they were going with a very light OP.

So you think the hot spot is about the same as the OP L6 and not 20% bigger? The same size is better than bigger, but in theory it should be a bit smaller. It can be really hard to determine hot spot size with OP reflectors.

Tom, I think you have a lux meter, can you measure the candela?

I dug up Sofirns measurements from an older post.

I do hope their machine is reading a bit low. It has read low on most if not all of their lights.

(Interesting that 127kcd to 160kcd is a 34% increase)