BLF style 18650 1s thrower( poor mans Olight M2X)

The die projection is clear. These fresnel lenses I used are quality (not cheap) lenses from edmund optics. The one I used in my C8 conversion resulted in 177Kcd with old style dedomed XPG2 (with precollimator lens) without any lens in front protecting the fresnel, 166Kcd with AR flat lens added. I was quite pleased with this, so I got the similar fresnel lens in a bigger size for the SP02 mod. The larger size fresnel lens only came in quite a long focal length, so even with precollimator lens I couldn’t get the light collection efficiency very high, resulting in small beam size. With old style dedomed XPG2 I got 350Kcd without lens protecting the front of the fresnel. With UCLp lens in front I got around 320Kcd. Just not as high lux as a quality glass or acrylic lens of the same size. It was not a bad light; partly I just got a renewed like of reflector lights after making my 7xC8 light so I wanted to switch the SP02 back to a reflector. See some beamshots here.

Finaly, something good enough from Manker….actualy its the only good manker product so far, at least from my point of view

Those are make exacly for that host, it seems that Manker knew! ROFL…plus they are quite thick too, like 2.7mm

Found them localy, the local deler branded them as Japan Manker 28mm PCB :smiley:

Good find, these boards are at Banggood too, but the thickness is said to be 16mm: Manker 28mm copper mcpcb xpl xpe xpg direct thermal path circuit board Sale - Banggood.com sold out-arrival notice-arrival notice

$3.65, cheaper than the Maxtoch board.

Ok,I got the Uni-T luxmeter in and did some testing on it. I compared it to my Mobilux DIN class A luxmeter which is about the best you can get in portable luxmeters, it has a very good optical filter.

The most expensive part of a good luxmeter is the optical filter in front of the sensor that makes sure that the relative sensitivities for all wavelengths are correct, following the standard defined luminosity curve. And this luxmeter being cheap, its filter does not do miracles, no surprises here. The longer wavelengths towards red do pretty ok, but like all other cheap luxmeters that I tested (see my sigline for tests on luxmeters) it over-reads the blues, up to 8.6 times too much for 470nm.

That said, as normally white light sources are measured instead of single colour light, the error is not nearly as bad. The calibration of my copy is not far from the Mobilux meter, and for sources from warm white to good quality cool white, readings from the Mobilux relative to the Uni-T meter varied but were within 15% of each other. An old very cool XR-E reads 23% too high on the Uni-T meter though.

This very cheap luxmeter seems pretty useful for flashlight lux-measurements, but maybe not so good for ambient light measurements (see below).

Test results :

I tested a number of different led light sources, measurements were from hotspots made by reflector flashlights, except the XR-E which was in a recoil thrower and the XM-L Color which was in an aspheric lens flashlight.
From left to right is the light source, by which factor the Uni-T luxmeter reads different from the Mobilux meter, and that same difference expressed in percentages.

Dedomed cool XP-E2, 0.95, –5%
3000K 90CRI XM-L, 0.90, –10%
Cool white XM-L2 1.03, +3%
5000K XM-L2 (Nitecore P12) 0.98, –2%
Very cool old-school XR-E 1.23, +23%
Royal blue XP-E2 470nm 4.00, +300%
XM-L Color red die 625nm 1.07, +7%
XM-L Color green die 532nm 0.93, –7%
XM-L Color blue die 450nm 8.66, +766%
_

Overcast daylight is measuring different too, the Uni-T measures 27% more. That could be due to the large fraction of 400-500nm light in cool white daylight (the Uni-T may even pick up some UV, although the plastic of the dome should absorb almost all of that), but there could be other reasons too, like different sensitivities to light that comes in at an angle (mind that throw measurements are always done with light hitting the sensor dome at 90 degrees, excluding one of the potential sources of error that luxmeters have)

Good info djozz. I’d suggest that this is worth its own thread.

Very good info Djozz… Thank you very much Sir!

BTW I am still waiting for mine uni-t meter and I probably ordered even before you :person_facepalming:

If I got you right it will probably under read de domed XP-E2 and XP-G2 but for only 5% ?

And the most important if you say that it is good for flashlight lux measuring than it should be good. Looking forward for mine and I will report new measurement results for my modded supfires.

You’re welcome

That depends on the colour temperature, but yes it seems that the dedomed cool white leds under-read a bit. Could vary with exact colour bin though…

Hmm, I shall be more precise: it is good for flashlight lux measuring with keeping the errors in mind. Folks on BLF tend to attribute meaning to measurement differences between people that are under 5% while errors between luxmeters can very easily be higher than that.

Could measuring errors between same batch of lux meters vary a lot? Like lets say those mentioned uni-t lux meters we ordered?
We have some kind of frame now where we can compare particular cheap lux meter to your professional one.

BTW did you test your sup osram black flat modd with uni-t lux meter? I am really curious what it will say.

I would expect that all these Uni-T meters have the same sensor and filter so the wavelength error should be the same. Assuming that also the calibration was done with some care (calibration should be an easy step) then yes, I would not expect a lot of variation.

But please notice the use of words like would. should and assume in the above text.

I did not check the Black Flat because it is in a direct drive flashlight that has a sloping output which makes comparing luxmeters extra difficult. Instead I used all regulated flashlights with almost flat output. But I could have a go at testing the Uni-T meter with the Black Flat anyway.

Even life is not for sure :wink: But we hope it will be :slight_smile:

Nice djozz!

I got in those Manker 28 mm's back in December - gotta measure them.Can't recall.

Thanks! Perhaps it should have been in a dedicated thread. At least I added the post to my djozz-tests page.

I received UT383 light meter today. Well it does not have X10 or x100 function but it has FC function. Footcandle is 10.763910417 of lux.

I also have TES 1335 light meter that it started under reading for about 20% probably cause my 40 kilo kid had stand on sensor. So suddenly all my lights dropped in lux for 20%

Now I will report results with new UT383 meter which are more than terrible. Measured in lux and in FC at 7 meters distance. My modded supwildfires with good old XP-G2 S4 2B from this thread.

240kcd vs 260kcd(TES 1335 light meter)
260kcd vs 280kcd(TES 1335 light meter)

Assuming that possible –5% under reading like in Djozz test on de domed emitters and if I add +5% on given results it would be like 252kcd and 273kcd.

So I am so confused and a bit angry because of all mentioned…

If I will stick to my old meter which costed around 150$ and add +20% results I had before accident than it is very possible that I have 336KCD and 312KCD Supwildfire light.
But If I will stick to new UT383 meter results, and that is 240 kcd and 260kcd for super throwy old XP-G2 S4 2B emitter than I claim that results from that new meter are very unrealistic for mentioned emitter since some guys here reported that kind of results for XP-L and one guy even reported 300kcd for new xp-g2 s4 2b and I don’t even have to say that old xp-g2s42b should throw much further than any XP-L, L2 or any new G2 emitter.

Anyway and imho lux meter reading variations from meter to meter can obviously vary a lot. Maybe even for more than 30%

So from my redneck test I would not recommend this UT383 lux meter. Seems it gives very unrealistic results.

As requested by l.i. I checked the throw of two more flashlights with the Uni-T meter compared to the Mobilux meter. And the results underline (found that in earlier tests of cheap luxmeters as well) that the difference in the optic filters between the two can lead to fairly unpredictable differences in the reading of different leds, it is not just the colour temperature that makes the difference, other differences in the led spectra have significant impact on how different the Uni-T meter reads from the Uni-T meter.

Because both flashlights are direct drive and thus have a sloping output, I took a Mobilux reading at 30 seconds (which gives my standard throw number), then in the same session a reading with the Uni-T and then a second reading with the Mobilux to check what speed the output decrease was.

Mitko thrower with Oslon Black Flat led :
Mobilux at 30 seconds: 344 kcd
Uni-T : 359 kcd
Mobilux again : 338 kcd

Brinyte B158 with old type XP-G2 S4 2B :
Mobilux at 30 seconds: 313 kcd
Uni-T : 272 kcd
Mobilux again : 301 kcd

So I think l.i. can breath again, when measuring the throw of a dedomed XP-G2 S4 2B in an aspheric flashlight, my Uni-T UT383 luxmeter measures lower than the Mobilux luxmeter, if use the average of the two Mobilux readings, the difference would be –11.4 %.

The Black Flat from a reflector light on the other hand measures a bit high, +5 %.

For illustration, the two hotspots (flashlights at 7 meter distance) next to each other. The aspheric hotspot is not as yellow as appears in this pic btw.

Thanks Djozz,

Thank you very much :slight_smile:

I did more various tests with mine but this time on shorter distances 5 meters and I found that results vary a lot…

I will take weakest mitkos thrower reflector I made for example with fully charged Samsungs inr 30Q after 30 seconds as you said.
First measuring on 5 meters Showed 247 kcd and after each measuring Uni-t turned off-and on again;
second one 225
Third one 233
Fourth 245
So each time different results on lux reading setting of same light meter.

Than I tried FC function on lux meter and it showed significantly higher results after calculating 1fc= 10.76391 lux

First 267
Second 250
Third 258
Fourth 248

So I guess that readings can vary with this light meter and it seems it reads slightly higher with FC function on (I don’t know if you tried that Djozz)

I would like to mod this light too but i’m kinda a newbee to the modding scene…
What kind off stuff do i need to mod this light? I didnt really understand the lowering part of the led that was written in the OP.

Thanks.

First of all, replace the driver and the LED.

For the rest, about focussing and making things fit, this topic shows various ways to do it.

Thanks for your reply. As i understand it the led should be closer to the reflector?
And will a xpl hi be good for the best throw or rather have a g2?

Correct.

XP-G2 de-domed will give you a very narrow beam with this reflector.
Maybe too tight for you to be useful (without binoculars).
I put in a XP-L HI and i quite like it like this.

I will first mod a convoy c8 to practice with :stuck_out_tongue:
But i will order this anyway so i have it ready.