Let me start this by stating the obvious… opinions are personal renditions of one’s own experience. For example, in my own personal experience Chinese people have shiny black hair and very very dark brown eyes. That might lead me to deduce that ALL Chinese people have shiny black hair and very very dark eyes, but as I have yet to see every person of Chinese origin’s it would just be guessing, based on my own observations. With me so far?
I have built a lot of lights. I don’t know exactly how many, but probably somewhere in the 400 range. I personally have never seen an XP-L get 1900 lumens. I personally have never seen a de-domed emitter of any kind retain lumens output, or even come close. I have seen an XM-L2 U4 get 1811, that’s the highest I’ve seen from a single die Cree emitter. I’ve never personally seen a C8 make over 151Kcd. Not one of mine, nor anyone elses (and I have actually measured a few builds from some other people.)
I was once accused of having higher numbers than anyone, it was said that my methods were questionable. And here I see Mitko consistently give reports of numbers considerably higher than I’ve ever seen. I can’t say that Mitko does or does not see those numbers, I’m not there, I don’t know how he goes about it, I don’t know what equipment he uses. I don’t know where he buys his emitters and drivers. I can only say that I personally haven’t seen anything close to what he reports, and I’m the guy that has stood accused of spouting false high numbers.
The reason I say any of this is merely to introduce speculation that we all see some variance, numbers are a test result at a given time, people like getting hung up on these numbers and act like it’s the holy grail of all things flashlight. This is why I’m saying we need to be careful to not do that.
Can we perhaps do a test? Can we, Mitko and myself, someone else if they’re interested, agree to build a light, say a C8, with given specs, given materials and components. Measure said light. Then cross ship for cross measurements? See if I measure Mitko’s light at the same levels Mitko does and if Mitko measures my light at the same levels I do? Perhaps we could find where the middle ground is, there is probably some concrete truth to be found in there somewhere. Is it possible for two or more people to build the same light and consistently have the same results show in testing? If someone in Bulgaria acquires named parts, will they be the same parts someone in Texas acquires? We assume, I think, that a Cree XP-L V6 1A is a Cree XP-L V6 1A, regardless of where sourced, but perhaps this is not the case. What if we both bought from Hank at Intl-Outdoor, so our emitters came from the same source, would that then give us the same light? I’m curious about these things, about what makes the differences we see here.
I bought Old-Lumens modding supplies from him, a few months ago. In his things there is a second light meter just like my own. (Well, it’s the same model number, there are some different writings such as his says Dr. Meter, where mine does not. Could I have a clone?) I will attempt to take meter readings from each and see if they are consistent, this might tell me something in and of itself…
maukka, I love those charts! I may not fully understand em, but I love seeing all those results. Is there anywhere in there that gives a definitive 98% or 99% light transmission statement? (or 97 or whatever?) Because to be quite honest, my testing on the L6 confused me. I was going to test a second factory lens but alas, it was damaged by the blue plastic protective sheeting that comes on the UCLp lenses. (stripped off AR coating when I removed it, I tend to put the two blue sheets onto the stock lens for storage, thought I was protecting it, didn’t know I was effectively killing it. )