For not having a background in optics, you explained it very well.
Vodka and coffee, eh? I guess it's only a few tablespoons of sugar away from Redbull and Vodka, my personal elixir of well-being; if you're going to be sick, you might as well feel good while doing so.
That helped a lot and has the added value of maintaining, and even elevating the spirit of learning and entertainment that separates BLF from all others.
The crucial term missing in Foy's (until now) previous hypothesis and/or failed attempt reinventing the wheel is the word integrating. Until this clear (to me, at least) explaination, the phenomena of integrating light from a source, be it narrowly focused from a big thrower or a widely diffused flooder, was entirely missing from my understanding. Using my incorrect method, whereby the light meter rests on a shelf next to a white wall, 4-feet from a white ceiling; a thrower would cast a tight beam on the ceiling and would then read higher on the meter. When measuring a flooder (with pehaps the same lumen output) under the same conditions would read lower. Neither light being properly integrated, along with a host of other changing (and ignored by Foy) variables illustrates the limited usefulness of my current practice.
Somewhere, in a not-so-distant drug store is beach ball . . . destined for flashlight immortality, when it becomes the functioning integrating sphere of a newly informed Foy. I am in your debt, Mr. Match. Your graciousness and humor is equaled only by your indulgent patience.
smarter/lessdumbFoy
Wonderful comment Mr. Foy!
You do write very well.
This thread just keeps getting better! Thank you Sr's Match & Foy for this most entertaining & educating read!!
Foy, I look forward to your machination now that you're armed with this knowledge. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
Cheers,
Tim
Yep . . . .
Foy has drank the Match-mod I.S. Koolaid. Gonna build it precisely to spec.
papermachemessFoy
While I'm still fiddling w/my pipe contraption, I'm also looking to build an IS albeit w/different approach than above.
In terms of the interior coating, short of Spectralon paint (prohibitively expensive) or barium sulphate (good cost but hard to get even coating), what would you experts say is the next best choice (@ reasonable cost)? Would simple flat eggshell spray paint do?
I was planning on using flat white, then covering that with a coat of matte clear fixative.
Nice job - great idea to turn it into something attractive. I wish I could paint like that. I'm pretty good w/ a rattle can, not as good w/ hvlp, severely lacking skill w/ the air brush, and a bumbling idiot w/ a brush.
Joining this Forum is one of the wisest decisions (if not the wisest) I made this year (joined 03 January 2013). 
For just short of five months, I have learned quite a lot from you guys and I’m very grateful for that. Imagine how much I will learn if I continue to follow your posts for a year or more? :~
Learning is a never ending process. Here in BLF, you learn a lot while doing the things that you love. That’s why for me, BLF is one of the best (if not the best) places to stay in the web. 
I had an idea for making a sphere… most people seem to use strofoam which can be quite expensive for what it is. My idea would be to use a beach ball, then paper mache it with thin new copy paper (so its more white). Then cut it in half after it dries, and paint it a flat white, then connect it back at the seams and drill out the hole for the light and lux meter.
Every time I see this thread pop to the top of the recent threads page I think 'oh no, not Illumination Supply!!?'
...then I remember what it's actually about. I wish the thread title would be edited to clear that up, 'I.S.' is a rather ambiguous abbreviation, anyway. |(
Fuuny you should say that actually as I thought exactly the same thing as was like "oh noooo"
Especially as their banner wasn't loading on TFE today because their website was temporarily down.
Still.. it's good to know that illumination Supply is very much still with us :)
i agree that i think of illumination supply as well, but whats with the “oh no” part?
About the 'is finally done' part. As in, 'Illumination Supply is finally done'. There was talk a while back that they were having trouble matching prices with the Chinese sellers.
ah, i thought of it as a contradictory title as in, illumination supply is a store not a device