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

Reflector diameter and head diameter are two different things. There are already 100 mm head diameter lights - Shocker, TN42, TN40, etc. I guess you could argue they look ridiculous, but I don't think so. I agree the EagleTac M25C2 Turbo looks ridiculous at 92mm head diameter but that's because of the single width 18650 battery tube.

A 4 18650 width tube and a nicely designed head with finning at 120mm would be interesting to see - I don't think it would be so bad.

Im interested of course .

Of course you have your opinion, and I have mine. I’m just imagining the actual size of this thing. The tube won’t be 4 cells wide. If it’s a 4-cell tube, it will be a little wider than two cells. The head size to contain a 120mm reflector would be at least 2.5 times the width of the tube. Overall, the light will look “oversized”. To visualize this: Think of a Courui D01 with double the tube length and added 50% to the head width. It’s just too big - unless you’re over 7 feet tall.

I agree with Tom. The TN42 has a 100mm head and it looks great. Adding another 25% wouldn’t make it look terrible either. The courui only has a 3-cell tube. 4-cells helps the proportions.

I don’t mind the look of the box style, but normally with a thrower holding it at eye level is the most natural. That’s impossible at worst and uncomfortable at best with a big box.

But do remind that a box makes it more compact, if the TN42 was rebuild in box-format, it could be this size:

(perhaps a separate build for a box-shape lightweight 2x18650 parallel 120mm reflector XP-L HI thrower should be considered at some point, but I can not do that on my own. I’m tempted to make that one recoil even)

Compact, sure. but then you have to hold it like this: :wink:

LMAO…boombox or not to have boom box…that is the question. Both are valid points OP above djozz and PD68.

Why do you hold a flashlight at eye level? I’ve never seen anyone do that. But, you’re going to hold this monster light at eye level? And the difference between a 3-cell tube and a 4-cell tube can literally be less than 5mm of added diameter. :wink:

If I am trying to see out past 1000meters, anywhere I can think of in my area will have trees, high grass, corn, small hills, etc in front of me. I will either hold it at my shoulder/eye level, or sometimes raise it high above my head. That’s how I use my Courui when I need it. If I am just going for a stroll, I probably won’t be using this light anyways, but I would have it at my waist.

I am in. :beer:
Depending on price

Why not! Put me down for one please.

I haven’t seen any talk of rough price or rough throw but why not!

Would be awesome to aim for something that can hit 2km

Definitely interested

How about slapping a big head on Q8? Everything about that light is already well thought out, we have a relationship with manufacturer and $40 price tag could be kept.

If TN42 had 25% bigger head it would look even better. The Courui has the perfect proportions for a light, and this BLF MT will have very similar proportions to that! Design wise if it is close to Courui in design, or eve a box design it will be great. Those plungers with narrow handles look horrid. Everything else should be fine.

I’m interested.
Count me in for one unit please.

Agreed, if only my courui was properly modded - sad really, my favourite looking flashlight, and yet since I got my sniper I never use it…………….it’s just so under powered.
I know the project has started with a roughly 120mm reflector - but could you clever guys not just mod a ‘host’ courui and make it actually work like it deserves to?
Seems to me it pretty well ticks most boxes already, it’s just the terrible performance that needs sorting. I know there was an issue with some peoples reflectors, but of course there is no guarantee that ‘any’ bulk bought reflectors will all be good.
Anyway, just an idea :wink:

David we understand this is will not have the same appeal as the Q8
For lights with a reflector you say there is ample choice.
This is going to be an extreme flooder surpassing the TN42 at a lower price.
I really hope you will still engage as you did with the Q8 even though you are not liking what it could be looking like :wink:

I fear the reflector, driver and LED alone will costs manufacturer more then $40 and we need a lot more material for the housing.

When form factor and LED are choosen we will do a rough calculation to see what this one would cost (as was done with the Q8 bit that was much easier to guess :slight_smile: )

I like the way you're think'n! Also like your user pic .

Betta a 3D drawing could be whipped out in no time by 5ar. Little more than $40 though - big head, more $$$, just the reflector alone - they get pricey in large sizes.

The Miller, I have a confession to make. :person_facepalming:

I’m engaging in this conversation even though I don’t even like “throwers” in general! At least not the way guys around here define “thrower”. I’m really just a middle-of-the-road kinda guy when it comes to flashlights. I like Neutral tint. I like a “neutral” spot as well. What I mean by that is that I don’t want a flooder OR a thrower, but something in the middle. If anything, I’d rather it be more thrower than flooder, but that’s all. I don’t have a real use for throwers. I don’t hunt and rarely am in a large enough un-lit area at night to need to see further than say 100 meters or so. I know flooders can easily reach that far, but I don’t like spilling too much light on things to the side, so bringing it in a little makes sense to me.

That being said, I do like to “play around” with lights that can reach out. I have bought lots of zoomies, and I like to see how far the fully-zoomed-in spot can reach. I’ve got a Courui D01 (well, actually, it’s my daughter’s) with a de-domed XM-L2 in it, and the rest of it is stock. It is plenty of “thrower” to me. So, what I’d like to see is the same throw as that, with a wider (to me, more useful) hot-spot. If I had a good quality light with a 120mm or greater reflector, I’d want to put a large emitter in it, like a MT-G2 or XHP-70, or even that Luminus SBT-90 that I’ve got collecting dust in my basement/shop. The balance of throw-vs-flood would be just about right then. :wink:

So, you guys can safely disregard everything I say when it comes to designing a BLF mega-thrower. :stuck_out_tongue:

I keep not getting emails about updates to this thread….annoying.

I had suggested this at one point but I think it got lost or maybe it was in the big post that I lost at one point and gave up reposting lol.

This was actually my thinking fromt he start, use the Q8 as the base design since it is already well setup and simply cut it off at the shelf and then make a new head for it.

The bulk of the work is already done. Although we would need to figure out the cell setup, see next reply….

This is something I would like to see as well but it would be hard like you said. The only way you would get 1S is if we either used cell carriers or an extension for the battery tube, which would be nice to have for the Q8 anyways actually. Although alignment would be hard to say the least.

I think that cell carriers would make the most sense. You could run any cell setup you wanted and cost would be minimal, you could simply use a modified version of the multi-cell Q8 tailcap in the cell carriers.

It would cost more naturally but should easily be able to be kept under the goal $100 budget (I think that the total cost could be lower then that if the Q8 was used as the base).