Has Registered mail been shipped out so far ?
If I had known DHL is their first priority for shipment regardless of region , I would have chosen DHL over Registered mail at the beginning.

Everyday reading the post of people got their light and some even got 2 lights .
What a shame, I am disappoint that they don’t treat the first 555 customers who paid deposit as first priority.

Is there a reason the reflector has to be made from aluminum? If the surface has a reflective coating put on it then the underlining material shouldn't matter as long as it had the right requirements for things like durability and thermal stability. What I am thinking about are polymers and resins. They are relatively easy to machine or mold and can produce a very smooth finish ready for the final coating. Plus, they are not usually an expensive material.

species8472 wrote:

Is there a reason the reflector has to be made from aluminum? If the surface has a reflective coating put on it then the underlining material shouldn’t matter as long as it had the right requirements for things like durability and thermal stability. What I am thinking about are polymers and resins. They are relatively easy to machine or mold and can produce a very smooth finish ready for the final coating. Plus, they are not usually an expensive material.

I honestly have no idea, but I would think that if there was a cheaper or more effective material to use, it would be used.
this is not the teams first rodeo and especially with lumintop producing these lights, you can be pretty sure they made the right choice.

DoNkEyConN wrote:

species8472 wrote:

Is there a reason the reflector has to be made from aluminum? If the surface has a reflective coating put on it then the underlining material shouldn't matter as long as it had the right requirements for things like durability and thermal stability. What I am thinking about are polymers and resins. They are relatively easy to machine or mold and can produce a very smooth finish ready for the final coating. Plus, they are not usually an expensive material.

I honestly have no idea, but I would think that if there was a cheaper or more effective material to use, it would be used. this is not the teams first rodeo and especially with lumintop producing these lights, you can be pretty sure they made the right choice.

I am not doubting or questioning them in the least. Sorry if it sounded that way. I just would like to know why it is always aluminum. What I put out there was so someone would know what I was comparing it to. It was just something I was wondering about and this is the place that has answers.

flybird wrote:

Has Registered mail been shipped out so far ?
If I had known DHL is their first priority for shipment regardless of region , I would have chosen DHL over Registered mail at the beginning.

Everyday reading the post of people got their light and some even got 2 lights .
What a shame, I am disappoint that they don’t treat the first 555 customers who paid deposit as first priority.

I would imagine if cost wasn’t an issue they could be made out of silver. Nothing shines like polished silver. Of course over time the silver would start tarnishing.Sigh

species8472 wrote:

DoNkEyConN wrote:

species8472 wrote:

Is there a reason the reflector has to be made from aluminum? If the surface has a reflective coating put on it then the underlining material shouldn’t matter as long as it had the right requirements for things like durability and thermal stability. What I am thinking about are polymers and resins. They are relatively easy to machine or mold and can produce a very smooth finish ready for the final coating. Plus, they are not usually an expensive material.

I honestly have no idea, but I would think that if there was a cheaper or more effective material to use, it would be used. this is not the teams first rodeo and especially with lumintop producing these lights, you can be pretty sure they made the right choice.

 

I am not doubting or questioning them in the least. Sorry if it sounded that way. I just would like to know why it is always aluminum. What I put out there was so someone would know what I was comparing it to. It was just something I was wondering about and this is the place that has answers.

species8472 wrote:

DoNkEyConN wrote:

species8472 wrote:

Is there a reason the reflector has to be made from aluminum? If the surface has a reflective coating put on it then the underlining material shouldn’t matter as long as it had the right requirements for things like durability and thermal stability. What I am thinking about are polymers and resins. They are relatively easy to machine or mold and can produce a very smooth finish ready for the final coating. Plus, they are not usually an expensive material.

I honestly have no idea, but I would think that if there was a cheaper or more effective material to use, it would be used. this is not the teams first rodeo and especially with lumintop producing these lights, you can be pretty sure they made the right choice.

 

I am not doubting or questioning them in the least. Sorry if it sounded that way. I just would like to know why it is always aluminum. What I put out there was so someone would know what I was comparing it to. It was just something I was wondering about and this is the place that has answers.

Molds are extremely expensive to make and would have taken far longer to come to market. While the material it’s made out of is inexpensive and the polymer in the mold is also inexpensive, the mold itself needs to be paid for. The lights would have cost far more if the reflectors had been molded. It’s just economics. It woudn’t have saved money. Lumintop did it correctly IMO.

JasonWW wrote:

flybird wrote:

Has Registered mail been shipped out so far ?
If I had known DHL is their first priority for shipment regardless of region , I would have chosen DHL over Registered mail at the beginning.

Everyday reading the post of people got their light and some even got 2 lights .
What a shame, I am disappoint that they don’t treat the first 555 customers who paid deposit as first priority.

I think you will have to be content with being in the first 850 to receive their light as well as getting it $40 cheaper than anyone else on the group buy list.

We were not paying a deposite for ‘preferred shipping order’.
We were paying a (very small) deposite for ‘preferred price’.

I’d fathom a guess that contributing factors for using aluminum include:
Easily machined;
decent thermal conductivity;
low cost.

I have a limited knowledge of such things, but off the cuff can’t think of any metal that combines these three elements as well as aluminum.

/\/\/\ Good points arficus…….

Mr McLumen wrote:

I would imagine if cost wasn’t an issue they could be made out of silver. Nothing shines like polished silver. Of course over time the silver would start tarnishing.Sigh

teacher wrote:

JasonWW wrote:

flybird wrote:

Has Registered mail been shipped out so far ?
If I had known DHL is their first priority for shipment regardless of region , I would have chosen DHL over Registered mail at the beginning.

Everyday reading the post of people got their light and some even got 2 lights .
What a shame, I am disappoint that they don’t treat the first 555 customers who paid deposit as first priority.

I think you will have to be content with being in the first 850 to receive their light as well as getting it $40 cheaper than anyone else on the group buy list.

Well said Jason….. we got a heck of a deal on this Bad Boy!!
It is an amazing light!! Paying a measly $15 dollar ‘deposite’ for the privileged of getting one at the ‘first 555’ price was well worth it!!!

We were not paying a deposite for ‘preferred shipping order’.
We were paying a (very small) deposite for ‘preferred price’.

ARsee wrote:

I posted my idea for a handle design HERE, if someone inclined is interested.

I agree it really needs a handle or at least a good strong lanyard.
It is a very heavy flashlight.

Could there have been a bigger stronger LED in the BLF Giga thrower or not ?

djozz wrote:

teacher wrote:

JasonWW wrote:

flybird wrote:

Has Registered mail been shipped out so far ?
If I had known DHL is their first priority for shipment regardless of region , I would have chosen DHL over Registered mail at the beginning.

Everyday reading the post of people got their light and some even got 2 lights .
What a shame, I am disappoint that they don’t treat the first 555 customers who paid deposit as first priority.

I think you will have to be content with being in the first 850 to receive their light as well as getting it $40 cheaper than anyone else on the group buy list.

Well said Jason….. we got a heck of a deal on this Bad Boy!!
It is an amazing light!! Paying a measly $15 dollar ‘deposite’ for the privileged of getting one at the ‘first 555’ price was well worth it!!!

We were not paying a deposite for ‘preferred shipping order’.
We were paying a (very small) deposite for ‘preferred price’.

I do not agree. Yes we will be happy with this light and that it gets delivered at all, and it is unjust to question that! But the remark was not about that, it was about the choice we had in shipping option without knowing that one of the two options would leave China many weeks after the other. It makes sense to be very disappointed about it. Of course the team is not to blame, but it would have made sense if someone in China had done some thinking about it.

+1

Just received my GT with batteries. A big thank you to the GT team and Neal!

djozz wrote:

teacher wrote:

JasonWW wrote:

flybird wrote:

Has Registered mail been shipped out so far ?
If I had known DHL is their first priority for shipment regardless of region , I would have chosen DHL over Registered mail at the beginning.

Everyday reading the post of people got their light and some even got 2 lights .
What a shame, I am disappoint that they don’t treat the first 555 customers who paid deposit as first priority.

I think you will have to be content with being in the first 850 to receive their light as well as getting it $40 cheaper than anyone else on the group buy list.

Well said Jason….. we got a heck of a deal on this Bad Boy!!
It is an amazing light!! Paying a measly $15 dollar ‘deposite’ for the privileged of getting one at the ‘first 555’ price was well worth it!!!

We were not paying a deposite for ‘preferred shipping order’.
We were paying a (very small) deposite for ‘preferred price’.

I do not agree. Yes we will be happy with this light and that it gets delivered at all, and it is unjust to question that! But the remark was not about that, it was about the choice we had in shipping option without knowing that one of the two options would leave China many weeks after the other. It makes sense to be very disappointed about it. Of course the team is not to blame, but it would have made sense if someone in China had done some thinking about it.

Of course all will be happy when their light gets delivered…. that seems a nobrainer.

Yeah… it would have been nice to know in advance if one shipping option was indeed going to have preference over another. Maybe that info was not avaiable or decided on at the time orders were taken however.

Or maybe, since Registered Mail is shipping in two boxes; there has been a slight delay in sourcing those boxes.

Who knows….. all speculation on our end anyway.

Main thing is the lights are being made & shipped as fast as LT can crank them out & maintain that EXCELLENT QUALITY we are seeing in the GT.

Sooooo……. Thank You Lumentop!!! .

mickscott wrote:

Could there have been a bigger stronger LED in the BLF Giga thrower or not ?

I don’t think there is a led that give more lumens and throw and is easy to install using the current driver and cell setup.

If there’s a 70.2 version I nominate the name “GM”. Compromised throw, not pure flood. The Giga Mixer.

mickscott wrote:

Could there have been a bigger stronger LED in the BLF Giga thrower or not ?

Smaller gives you longer throw with a smaller hot spot.

Bigger gives you less throw with a bigger hotspot.

The team settled on the xhp35-HI as the best compromise between long distance and a decent sized hot spot.

If you are willing to sacrifice some distance, you could go with an xhp50 or even the xhp70 (in 12 volt of course).

The GT joins the little family.
From left to right: BLF A6, BLF Q8, Imalent DX80 and the GT.
And I used to think the DX80 was a monster light

The ancient Maglite 6D joins the fray:

A shot of the reflectors. The BLF A6 is hiding between the DX80 and GT
No sign of orange peel here, but I see the slight maching marks that everyone has.

Paid deposit on August 26. Full payment plus small bonus for the team on December 2.
Number 5# on the paid list…
As far as I know there is only 2 GT’s for Serbia RS, bouth with DHL shipping.
One of those two is delivered to Sirius9 some time ago and with batteries included.
Mine is without batteries and no sign of it so far.
As I used to work for DHL I have possibility to check out if anything is currently coming to my address,but nothing so far…
I am not complaining at all just would like to know if there was some confusion over shipping to me, and maybe sent with registered instead??
Can someone from the team please ask Neal, or Lumintop since I don’t want to bother them when they have too much work to do.

Thanks
NikolaS

M4D M4X wrote:

M4D M4X wrote:

from left to right:
K70 – BK-FA09S – GT

room height 2.6m

 

 

and outside fogfighting

https://photos.app.goo.gl/e7QT33CRk2Kpp6zy2

That Xiaomi projector Also, those fog photos are great.

the GT is already heavy and with silver you can not lift the GT anymore

Alux wrote:

the GT is already heavy and with silver you can not lift the GT anymore

If that is indeed so, the 3.9 times heavier, then the 305 gram aluminum reflector would turn into an 1186 gram silver reflector. Unless I missed something, that would mean an Silver reflector equipped GT would weigh approximately 6.9 pounds instead of 5 pounds, if a grown person could not lift 6.9 pounds I would have to wonder who carries their newborn babies for them?

JasonWW wrote:

Texas_Ace wrote:

The latest report is that ~500 lights have shipped. So another 2-3 weeks till the next round of PM’s go out is a reasonable estimate.

Okay, so late January/early Feb?

Everyone is probably moaning, awwww. Lol

At this rate they have about 350-400 more lights to ship to catch up with the current orders.

So figure ~2 weeks for that. And if they slow production to improve reflector quality figure at least an extra week for that.

So yeah, looks like February is a good bet for the next set of PM’s at this point.

species8472 wrote:

Is there a reason the reflector has to be made from aluminum? If the surface has a reflective coating put on it then the underlining material shouldn’t matter as long as it had the right requirements for things like durability and thermal stability. What I am thinking about are polymers and resins. They are relatively easy to machine or mold and can produce a very smooth finish ready for the final coating. Plus, they are not usually an expensive material.

Plastic could have been done and it would have been cheaper but this was rejected during the initial specs for the light.

Mostly because plastic tends to warp and bend and this causes issues down the road and it also makes modding very difficult.

There are some other options for making reflectors like electroforming? that cost a lot to setup but then are cheap to make large quantities. They were not aware how many would sell when they started production so this was not considered, still not sure if it would be worth the start up cost even with 1500 being made.

So overall, the lathe made aluminum reflector was the best and simplest option.

mickscott wrote:

Could there have been a bigger stronger LED in the BLF Giga thrower or not ?

I was doing some testing with the xhp70.2 a few weeks ago before I got sick. That put everything on hold.

Thanks to the donations of a few generous BLF’ers I was able to order some more parts to keep the testing going.

I just got in another xhp70.2 yesterday to continue the testing though. Hopefully I can find some time this weekend to put it on the sphere and try slicing the dome. Might even try some final focus adjustments as well.

Also got in some parts to beef up the stock driver and hopefully increase the power some more.

As well as some parts to mod the drive for 3V LED’s as well.

If only there was a good 3V LED that I could try that uses the 3535 footprint.

Not sure how much I will get to this weekend but should be able to knock out at least some of it.