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

I just got home from DHL pickup depot with my GT.

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.

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.

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.

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

That is an interesting question species8472. :+1:
I’d like to know that also. And like you, my interest has nothing at all to do with the GT either. . :slight_smile:

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.

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 deposite for ‘preferred price’. :+1:

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……. :+1:

Aluminum itself has a reflectivity of about 89, silver about 91, multilayer aluminum up to 97%. .This is achieved lots of layers - typically several tens to hundreds. Silver reflects “selectively”, its reflection depends on wavelength.

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.

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 ?

+1 :+1:

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

I guess I read it wrong then, I thought we were talking about the disappointment someone was feeling because the first 555 were not treated as “first priority”.

Of course all will be happy when their light gets delivered…. that seems a nobrainer. :+1:

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!!! . :slight_smile:

Bigger stronger? The xhp 70.2 will give more lumens but less throw.

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.