I will take some photos when im get home this afternoon.
Basicly the light has a pill with the collar fixed in the right position above the LED this then screws into the light and the position adjusted relative to the aspheric lens. The light is not potted but it is glued together so it cant be easily dismantled. The LED is dedomed but there is no mention of what it is or any other information. There was no use taking beam shots because I have reflector lights that are more useful and compared to w30 or scratch build aspherics it was useless.
To summarize a piece of junk
Would it be this one…Marinebeam: Ultra Long Range LED flashlight tested, MarineKinetix wind turbine admired - Panbo
Yes that is the light
That is (for a flashoholic) a waste of the collar then. They claim 12 hours of 300 lumen, that is worth something when searching for buoys all night, but for ultimate throw I guess we need to look elsewhere.
Aha, now i understand this post:
Few more photos of the marinebeam. Led looks like xpl HI
thanks for these insights! High-Cost low tech
Yes simple and will soon see if it possible to make my own. I have 2 of these ordered in 50mm with 25mm focal length. They are aluminium so shouldnt be too hard to cut. I will start another thread when i am ready to do it because i think this will get rid of the spill in an aspherics beam. With a precollimator there is 2 cones of spill.
Ugh… Those aren’t exactly cheap either…
Interesting though, bookmarked. Thanks.
The plus is that you can decide for yourself how large the hole will be.
The down side is that you have to make that hole yourself.
No I suppose they are not but cheaper than the other option. I think the aperture is fairly important and should be adjusted to match the focal length of the lens which is an advantage of cutting them yourself.
Wow if it wasn’t for that RTL collar that marinebeam would be a 10 buck host most people avoided.
Will be following your progress with interest
While not wanting to be the devil's advocate, one must understand the limitations of the power supply this flashlight is built around: 3x D “alkaleak” cells.
Wow! I've seen much better machining on budget chinese flashlights.
Run of the mill buck driver designed to obtain good efficiency at about a drain rate which obtains decent power without bringing the 3x D cell power supply to its knees. Can't really ask for more without a different battery.
The scratches in the top of the pill are from cutting the collar off with a hacksaw
Djozz got it right. The Marinebeam light was developed more than 6 years ago, and wasn’t meant to satisfy any cutting-edge flashaholics demands. It was meant to provide >12-hours of high-intensity long range light, using very little power, and use off-the-shelf dry cell batteries. It produces a modest (by today’s standards) 120,000 candela beam, without having a “turbo” driver mode, or having to consider any special thermal or beam duration considerations.
The RLT technology was, and still is, a great way to make a low-powered long-range and long-duration collimated LED beam, and can be coupled with almost any existing LED or SORRA white laser chip. Consider its valid purpose, and the fact thousands of the flashlights have been sold to happy boaters. Also consider that Marinebeam thoughtfully and purposely targeted an existing demand, with a fairly substantial base of potential customers, and did so very successfully. It has D-Cell batteries, and a simple mode driver, because customer demographic wanted exactly that. Those that have been on this site long enough know about the 2 previous RLT licensees that focused on uber-high end RLT based flashlights, and then promptly went out of business.
When Marinebeam offered (and sold out) 50+ RLT Collars and lenses on this site last year, they did it with the understanding that there was an anxious group of tinkerers and DYI flashaholics that would quickly turn those highly demanded RLTs into 50 spectacular home-brewed flashlights. Marinebeam’s hope was that they could crowd source the expertise in these groups like was done on the BLF flashlight, and then make it available to all. Even with the number of posters demanding the RLT collars, and all the comments about easy DYI solutions with Christmas tree bulbs, 3D printing, and catalog mirrors, I have not seen many results or feedback using any of the 50+ real RLTs. Step up fellas! Let’s see what you can do. This is the Budget Flashlight Forum after all! Get off the keyboard and out into the shop.
With regard to the pricing, I don’t know where the $250 figure comes from. Or the $10 Marinebeam cost figure. The collars were originally offered for $50, and everyone that wanted one got one. Marinebeam’s flashlight COGs is mainly in the lens and the collar. When y’all are not typing on the forum, use that time trying to find a vendor to make you an RLT collar to the specs needed to make it work with very high (2.2X) gain. And when you find them, let me know. Also, while you are at it, price out a high-quality F/1 Borosilicate 50mm aspheric lens like used in the Marinebeam flashlight. I’ll even help by giving you a place to start 50mm Dia., 0.50 Numerical Aperture Uncoated, Aspheric Lens
Once you have those sources figured out, pay the upfront patent licensee fees, then the per instance royalties, machine tools and fixtures, packaging, carrying case, wrist tether, insurance, salaries, free shipping, and yes my dear Pocahontas, PROFIT. Then get back with me. I’ll become your dealer for that $10 flashlight.
Contact me via PM if you want a real RLT collar. If I get enough demand, I will see if I can arrange it with Meadowstar through Marinebeam like last time. Any of those that wish to help create a BLF type crowd-sourced light using RLT, I am very interested in that.
Several members have made pretty impressive Jaxman Z1’s making 500Kcd
Convoy L2 + collar + your marinebeam lens + 3D printed lens holder = 785 Kcd
TN42 making over 1 milion cd
BLF GT + collar = 3.5 million cd
You aren’t looking hard enough. Quality fixed or variable aspheric flashlight hosts are hard to come by or else you would see more. As it is people are having to rig up these exposed lenses or manufacture their own bezel adapter which isn’t easy.
I stand corrected, and have edited my comments. Thanks!
I should have been more clear about my statements the $250 was what it cost me to get the light including delivery. My opinion of the light being junk is what I honestly thought from a flashaholics point of view.
One more link to an actual build, my Cometa build with the collar (560 kcd). The Cometa (or Jaxman Z1, of which the Cometa is a clone) aspheric lens flashlight comes closest to a low-trouble collar host as can be: its stock lens is of very good quality (the lettering on the side of the led is readable in the projection!) and has almost the ideal diameter/focal length ratio for this collar. Further, the small collar has the same diameter as rim of the pill so can be glued on top of it. The only fine adjustments needed is making a ring-spacer of very precise thickness (0.1mm accuracy) between pill and collar to focus the collar, and glue the collar in place whith its projection precisely centered on the led-die. But these adjustments are needed with every collar-build, unless the host is tailor-made for it.
If you swap the lens to a original Zaxman,you take more candelas.I have done it myself but no other changes.
i have a microtech H20 and see only a slight boost in lumens?
280 without the mirror
300 with missalligned mirror
315 top Lumen