I just got told by a seller that I can get this flashlight for $96 shipped. I will be buying one very soon. Now I don't know if that is just for me and a great deal the seller offered me because I am going to buy some more flashlights from him or not, but still that's the best price I have been offered so far.
Soo... 2100, did you receive your light ? What's your impressions ? Any comparision to other XM-L throwers? Selfbuilt from CPF tested T40S and he got ~47K lux/1m, which is only a hair better than Catapult V2 XM-L. Definitely not 62.5K lux/1m this light suppose to achieve to reach claimed distance (500m).
I thought I would tell you guys that above offer to me came from Andy. His email address is x-tactical@hotmail.com He sells some very good lights and he goes by olightworld on ebay. He has only been selling lights on there since July of this year and he has a perfect 100% (44) feedback score with no complaints.
Here's an email he sent me.
Hello Brad,
Please check the link: http://nighthawk.taobao.com/ , this is my TAOBAO store.... and it's all the flashlight i sell...
thanks,
Andy
I'm going to make this guy one of my main sellers to buy from. Andy has answered every single email lightning fast and he has made me the best offers period on the 3 lights I am wanting to buy next.
Now I am not pushing this seller off on any member here, but rather trying to help all the members here to get some great prices if not the best prices on a lot of great flashlights.
If you need to email Andy, you will soon see how polite and quick he is. And if you see a light or can think of a light you may need, ask Andy what his best price is shipped. I think you will agree that he will be hard to beat.
Brad
Yep, it reached my country on Friday but we don't have deliveries on Saturday so it will be delivered tomorrow. But nobody will be at home, my wife will collect it on Tuesday probably. (I will be out of country on Tue and will return at night).
The only somewhat small problem with others measurements, is that the usual measurement distance on the meter is way too short for throwers. I get quite a bit of difference (> 10%) for my TK70 when measuring at 12m and 50m.
I wanted to also say that Andy will give you better deals on the more you buy. All you have to do is email him and ask him his price for 1 or 2 or how many you want to buy at once even if it is a variety of lights. It don't hurt to ask. I am getting ready to buy a couple lights form Andy next month. I'm waiting on a sort of bonus check. Andy made an offer of $118 for the Olight SR51 complete case package deal with both battery carriers for $118 shipped. If I buy another light say of $100 or more, he will bring it down to $115 shipped. Nobody I know of has matched that kind of price.
Yea Iilikeflashlights, naturally you get better support/prices if you are a regular. Same goes for CNQG etc.
It's still a XM-L T6. Head is 64mm. How could it do much better than Catapult? Maybe if they were overdriving the XM-L, just for the sake of Lux, but that wouldn't be the style of big companies.
It could outthrow Catapult, because it has much wider reflector. Catapults reflector is only 52mm wide (or so). For example Olight M3X Triton, thanks to wider reflector - it blows Catapult V3/V2 xm-l, away. Just like its predecessor, the M31 did with Catapult V2 SST-50.
I won't go in advanced math/physics here, but in certain interval, if you double the reflector diameter, you get 4 times bigger throw value. The diameter ratio of T40CS reflector to Cat reflector is ~59/52=1.13 ....So with the same depth of reflector, you should get ~1.29x bigger throw value. But you don't, because T40CS reflector is more shallow (thus, don't collect as much light) and the LED is not driven as hard. But still, less [A] to the LED, less reflector depth ...and it matches and even slightly overtakes the Catapult. The diameter and depth are very important factors. That's why I'm so curious of this new Crelant 7G5, which has both - the depth and width (ordered yesterday, btw :D ).
Well I can show you boys a video on the Catapult V3 compare to the Olight M3x side by side. In my opinion, the M3X wins.
It starts on the 2:33 mark of this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnL5lFxVwLw
I think the Olight M3X will win a lot of throw contest for lights of the same price and class.
Well, too many factors affect throw. For me i just base on the meter as well as supported by pictures (preferably). The meter gives you a good idea as long as you are not comparing LED vs HID, but does not account for hotspot peak. Eg does not account for donut hole and aspherics in which some areas near the bonding wire part will be much brighter.
This is why measuring distance is so impt for it to spread and don't let make the measurement procedure seem like a precision measurement engineering test, esp for those playing with HIDs/shortarcs you will appreciate this *immediately* once you play with them. Take it as practical experience.
Anyway, Selfbuilt measured the SR51 to be at 39k, and 40k for Catapult V3. Actually each and every light there will be a range of figures from different people/meters/distances. Actually the temp/LED batch could easily account for 10% diff.
BTW, some flashaholics/experienced guys owning really expensive flashlights can still shoot videos (youtube) with varying exposures between LEDs/HIDs thus rendering comparisons totally impossible, but on the other forum you'd see quite a fair bit of comments stating very convincing expert comments on which is brighter. The thing is, you can't. Seen it before....i am particularly sensitive prob coz I deal in photography. Unfortunately this is part of the mix sometimes, so need to be mindful.
SR51 uses OP reflector ...so it doesn't count. I'm not sure how hard driven is Cat V3, but I know that all V2's pushed 3.5A to the LED. And his V2 XM-L scored 46k lux/1m and his T40CS measured on the same setup, scored nearly 47k lux/1m. So these two values, taking into account similiar conditions, flashlight construction, same meter, etc., are quite comparable. I'm latched onto that Cat V2 XM-L, because I own one and I would like to find something with more throw, similiar dimensions and two digit price tag :)
As for the HID, short arcs, aspherics, you're right. But we're talking only about the LED here, farther, with very similiar construction.
ps. I deal with photography, too. And I'm an engineer, so sometimes I make use of my brain and physics or math book :)
I haven't said it doesn't or it couldn't out throw the Catapults. :)
Judging by my 7mm rule the Reflector on the T40CS is about 56-57mm. It's not monstrously larger than the Cat's.
What I wanted to say is that 62k lux estimations were exaggerated, since Cat is not much more different in construction as a flashlight.
So what's the word on the Crelant 7G5. Anybody got any beamshots or videos from this light yet?
Sorry, I've misunderstood your question: "How could it do much better than Catapult?"
...With deeper reflector (or better parabolic curvature) it could *theoretically* score ~20% better results. That's a lot, given same light source, technology and similiar size. I know, that in real use it's almost nothing ...but you know, in many cases these things are toys (talking about pure throwers) ...just like sport cars. Every bit of performance counts :)
We've been talking about Crelant in this thread:
You can check out the links there. Unfortunatelly, only beamshots and photos are from shoudian.
That's true, but they would have bragged about it, if they were really working on the parabolic curvature of the reflector.
Well, here's Selfbuilt's data for those who are interested. So i guess not too bad for the T40CS. Note the SR51's 39k figure.
Not surprising. Actually i don't base a lot on the manufacturers....some specs i believe and use as a guide, some specs i don't believe but a bit of info is still better than no info. The TK70 is listed by Fenix as 130k.
Unfortunately too expensive, cheapest is usd78 from Hanks Wang. Shenzhenwholesale quoted me usd87 shipped!
Woow... they charged 21$ for shipping ?? I read some post on their knowledge base from people that want to order Trustfire X6 (whole package weights over 2.5kg) and the shipping costs were 23$ (...or so). I thought, they'll charge ~13$ at max.
However, I ordered mine from Hank. Can't wait till it arrives:) And why do you think it's expensive ? It's cheaper than Catapult, T40CS, M3X Triton etc. And Crelant is not a budget brand like some Sky Fire or similiar DX stuff. I'd say, the quality is on par with Tiablo or Balder products. Some time ago, I had Crelant 7G1 and it was really well made with nice grey HAIII and quite efficient circuit. The UI wasn't the best, but in terms of workmanship and appearance it was really nice.