Just a project name I had to think up on-the-fly. Mainly for a project which could change portable high-kcd lighting. The L-RADW is in early prototype phase on aluminum, passive cooling for heat testing. It is about to merge into a copper-based active cooling design as it moves towards production. It is what I call a portable “light-engine”. Highly adaptable, able to mount in many configurations (vehicle headlights, foglights, boating light, remote pan/tilt configurations, and general compact spot lighting). It is able to put out extremely high candela from a small package. I’m heading out now to bring back beamshots for the night. This will kick off the introduction of a new style of portable lighting design, using the highest quality performance components, with non-performance enhancing parts kept at the lowest possible costs by use of 3D printing, to achieve the highest gains in throw possible while remaining cheap. The beam is adjustable for focus from 1° narrow beam to about 4° de-focus, those angles respective to emitter choice (that would be with de-domed XP-G2 [S4]).
So, sit back, and wait for the comparison beamshots to post up tonight. I’ll start with a known “high-kcd” stock thrower, the OLight M3XS-UT Javelot, which in stock form is at 240-250kcd. 500 meters is a pretty good indicator of a usage distance for long-throwers that is encountered in real-life scenarios. A light that says it performs to 1000 meters in reality, may not do so well at even half that distance. But you must see it first hand through beamshots. I have a target at exactly 500 meters ready for spotting. I’m heading out to photo the results of what happens shortly. Will be back to post results.
The LRADW is passing 1 million cd at around 3A using an XP-G2 S4 bin. Here it is seen at over 4 amps and ~1.3Mcd. That’s on an aluminum master heatsink for testing, with Noctigon pcb clamped to sink under pressure. In V2 config, output will be steadily passing ~1.5Mcd on copper, cooled sink. Then a small, special setup is planned for extreme -cool testing (ice water).
Here is the rear design of the L-RADw and b-shots;
It is fully focus-adjustable, but it’s not “zooming”. That word does not really get used by me, sorry. It can be over-focused, or de-focused. Only a few mm, so that focus can be had with essentially any LED. I can post up my custom iteration of the design. I’m not sure many people will want water cooling, but since I have a portable system with large reservoir I built using twin Home Depot submersible-pond pumps connected in series, I want to see what “chilled” LEDs will perform like. I.E. XP-G2 S4 @ 7A and 0°-5°C. It’s kind of like computer overclocking; raise the power, lower the temp. However, the portable heatsink which will be used will be more than plenty to run any LED at whatever amperage is chosen. This unit was drilled and tapped for a tripod-grip. In other words, it’s a “pistol” style thrower with grip that can be locked in many positions, including a tripod (used for the photos).
Notice what a quarter-million cd gets you from a reflector (M3XS-UT)? There’s light everywhere that isn’t used, and the beam blocks some of the view at medium distance in reality (when humidity/fog is high especially). But concentrate all of that extra light back into the main optic, and the ability to find targets at distance increases exponentially. The target becomes so bright, the beam stops interfering at those same distances. The Noctigon chip surface itself puts out some “moonlight mode” in red as can be seen on the grass. :~ That isn’t actually intended. I will be using different PCBs than Noctigons once I find my chosen LEDs. I need to throw an XHP35 HI in there next on 4S.
I’m sorry, did I miss this rule somewhere for maximum allowable image size? I had downsized them until quite frankly they looked like crud to me as JPEGs, 1600 pixels wide, I don’t really know what max pixel size I should be limiting to. If I start at 3600+ pixels wide, then 70% of that…see what I mean? It will be bigger than what I posted still.
BTW, these images were imported RAW into Adobe from my Nikon, and their tint and white balances were corrected to be equal to each other. So I cannot guarantee your monitor is correct, but the photos should be very close to correct against one another based on their data. If you line the two photos up you will see the buildings etc all have equal color tint. This was about as close to reality as it looked being there, except the beams appeared slightly brighter I would say. If I added any exposure, the signs and other light sources in the horizon flared up too much.
There are no rules for image size on BLF. Too large looks not good and loads slow in places with slow internet, but if 1600 pixels wide is needed to show what you want to show then 1600 it will be :-)
My own maximum width that I use is about 1000 pixels.
Mainly for a project which could change portable high-kcd lighting. The L-RADW is in early prototype phase on aluminum, passive cooling for heat testing. It is about to merge into a copper-based active cooling design as it moves towards production. It is what I call a portable “light-engine”. Highly adaptable, able to mount in many configurations (vehicle headlights, foglights, boating light, remote pan/tilt configurations, and general compact spot lighting). It is able to put out extremely high candela from a small package. I’m heading out now to bring back beamshots for the night. This will kick off the introduction of a new style of portable lighting design, using the highest quality performance components, with non-performance enhancing parts kept at the lowest possible costs by use of 3D printing, to achieve the highest gains in throw possible while remaining cheap. The beam is adjustable for focus from 1° narrow beam to about 4° de-focus, those angles respective to emitter choice (that would be with de-domed XP-G2 [S4]).
