[PART 1] Official BLF GT Group Buy thread. Group buy officially closed! Lights shipping.

4 cells will be fine for a single emitter, extension would be a good extra for a few extra bucks for those that want it, like the TK75.

Oh yeah, and of course I’m in

We are kicking around two completely diferent ideas for this light.

One is the traditional flashlight plunger and the other more like a box with the reflector as central part and integrated handle.

Interested! Like an idea for top handle with about 16 cm reflector.

I’m definitely interested. Hi CRI thrower sounds awesome. I’d be nice to beat 1 million candella. Reminds me of a spotlight I used to carry in the car that plugged into the cigarette lighter.

Like the box idea.

I think it's worthwhile to re-investigate.

For other comments - the intent of the project is max throw, so depth in almost insignificant compared to width. Depth limits the width of spill. It should be a thrower LED - XHP35 HI, XPL HI, possible XP-G2 but don't think that would be an option unless we can do a true factory dedome, or if an XP-G3 HI comes available. Going with an XHP-70 on SMO would have the hole, less throw, but can be considered. To me, the best stock emitter choice would be the XHP35 HI, but would love to see 1 mcd broken with a dedomed XP-G2, or possibly dedomed XPL W2/W3. A couple of manufacturers are doing or did factory dedoming, but the XHP35 HI and XPL HI are kind of killing that direction.

Texas Ace traditional “plunger” light:

Djozz surprised with a real out of the box design

I like where southland is going with it. Reminescient of the maxabeam throwers :smiley:

(sigh) count me in…

I would get several of those no matter what they are yet i would like to see the host form of it, it seems that XHP35 will prevail at the end so at least let us the host option and W3/XLP2 ftw :slight_smile:

Whats the idea behind the high CRI option in a thrower?

If you’re really trying to make a large diameter light, I recommend designing the large diameter parts in segments that are an inch or two thick. Go much thicker than that and prices for stock go through the roof, and that’s if you can even find what you want. For example, to fit a 120mm reflector, you may be looking at a 6 inch cube, so you’re starting costs off at $118 per light plus shipping if you buy that from McMaster. Take it down to smaller segments like I suggest, and you might be able to find suitable hunks of aluminum that local shops are scrapping, which in my city would cost roughly $10 per light for enough stock to build an assembly that large.

I’m not an addict. I can stop whenever I want…

Ok, sign me up…

I’m in, lantern style (top handle) would be my choice, with a reflector this size a pluger type will be unpleasantly unwieldy, while you great minds are at it, why not make it vailable in a number of LED choice XHP35, XHP50, XHP70, anything under XHP35 die size with a reflector this big will throw a somewhat useless laser like beam.

Would like a very strongly driven neutral XHP70 personaly, it should give a relatively broad beam with around 200Kcd throw, a more practical K60 on steroids.

I love Djozz’s design btw, looks like the center of gravity could be aligned with the middle of the handle, perfect balance.

Have been waiting for this one… I am in depending on price

Tripod socket please :smiley:

Hello!

Fellows, thinking in putting some bucks in a bigass reflector?

Did anyone dared to try a triple lens setup before?

This is my idea (v2):

  1. Stage one. Pre-collimator: a narrow angle TIR.
  2. Stage two. A convex/plano-convex lens, converging the beam to some point up front:
  3. Stage three. A concave/plano-concave lens gives us our final result. Check the following pic borrowed from Lens (optics) at wikipedia.

Cheers ^:)

Original post date: Tue, 11/01/2016 - 14:12; edited: refined idea.

That is very interesting indeed. Especially considering the ludicrous TN42 price. If it is considerably cheaper people will buy it, but it must be cheap. And it mush have at least 1mcd.

Very good idea since no Chinese cheap manufacturer has gotten around to trump the TN42 for a quarter of the price, yet. And it is very easy and possible, all you need is a bigger reflector. And you have found it.

Also it is very nice to use a reasonable amount of batteries, like 4x18650. And to be able to use pulled cells, and not only INR. Since the XHP35 will pull ~4A, any battery can do that. No need for more than 4 batteries. High CRI is also not needed in this kind of light. Yes i love high cri, but in this particular situation every possible lumen and cd counts. And maximum output should be crucial.

Personally I never would have considered doing a “box-style” light, like those plastic “spot lights” linked earlier, but now that its out there I really like the idea. I think most of us have shelves full of lights at this point and probably nobody in this thread actually needs another one, so lets do something very different. I’m in either way, but I really hope y’all go forward with a fantastic “box spotlight” style.

I purchased 4 TN42’s for $161.00@ so whats a TK61 cost $122.00-$130.00? Not that bad after all in my book! Everybody loves it, one guy wanted me to mod his with a XHP70, he has changed his mind since he has been using it in the field! The relector is the Heart of this Beast good luck with that part of the project!

I purchased a fifth TN42 for modding. Keeping the other one stock to test against, Winters coming got to have something to do! :slight_smile:

Agreed, I especially like that the reflector would be provided by an American Company and, I think, manufactured here too. On the other hand, I would also be interested in hearing about other big reflector options. Especially, shallow reflectors as I do like wide spill if possible. I would prefer throw over spill if I had to chose though.