The Sceptre - PScal's quest for a superthrower

I really enjoy when folks share these builds, I’m curios what size wavien collar you used.

Thanks! The wavien collar is size small.

Did you buy it from wavien years ago or did someone sell you one?

I think it might be possible to get them from the marinebeam flashlights still, pretty sure they have the small collar in them:Marinebeam Ultra Long Range CREE RLT Illuminator

I bought it from Wavien in 2013. I have eyed that light and may pick one up if funds allow. I’d love to have 2 collars to test different LED modules without worrying about swapping / aiming the collar.

Marinebeam now has the patent.

I re-tooled the pill to use a Flat Black LED, and changed the driver to an H6CC I had lying around. I set the drive level at 4.5 amps and re-installed the collar.

First lux reading at 25 meters

BLF GT 1950 lux (1,218,750 @ 1m)

The Sceptre 2260 lux (1,412,500 @ 1m)

Stoked that I finally out-measured the GT with a 3” light!

The measurements themselves may not be accurate. They still seem high even after a simple back calculation. The thing I am excited about is having a higher measurement relative to the GT.

Nice!
For a 75mm uncoated lens I calculated a luminance of 348cd/mm^2. There is still room for optimization in your build (assuming the DX lens is perfect). 450-500cd/mm^2 should be possible with this LED.

Your measurements seem more accurate now that you’re calculating the candela from the lens :slight_smile:
All GTs are between 1.2 and 1.3Mcd.

Very good performance with the black flat.
I drive mine at 5.5-6 amps but that’s because all my lights have active cooling.
4.5-5 is about the max in a regular flashlight body.

Can you post beamshots with the black flat? :smiley:

Will definitely post beamshots once the weather clears up.

I did some more lux readings. I did 20 meter shots instead of 25 (for 25 meters in my house I have to put the light against the extreme wall of the house, 20 is easier.) This time I put the light on a tripod and walked over to the lux meter while lit, and moved the meter around within the beam. I noticed the “peak hold” feature on the lux meter (which I had used for previous measurements) is more of a “last value” than “peak.” The results I got are a bit unexpected.

BLF GT 2930 lux (back calculated to 1,172,000)

The Sceptre 5800 lux (back calculated to 2,320,000) (is that even possible?)

Not believing the measurement, I tried it a couple of times, The meter consistently read 56xx-57xx lux.

My lux meter is pretty cheap. It’s one of the LX1330B meters. If the reading is accurate, holy moly!

P.S. is there a standard methodology for collecting lux measurements? I’ve not done much measuring before.

I calculate 572cd/mm^2. That’s a great value and getting close to the limits.

Can you redo the previous beamshot with both lights shining over the fence into the sky?

Wow, that is a crazy high luminance. About what angle range does the reflecting collar recover light from?

30 to 90 degrees half angle.

The GT number seems low while the Sceptre number seems high, idk why though.

Yeah, I agree the readings are high. I’ll take some more measurements later and see if they are consistent. I’ll get my wife to help out. I find it tough to take measurements alone.

About beamshots - is there a standard for camera settings that I should use?

If both lights are in the same picture, it doesn’t really matter.
I would reccomend using the same settings as in your last picture to make everything comparable.

It always depends on the camera and the environment.
The best you can do is just make the image look like what you see IRL.

Also, make sure you’re standing to the side or behind the luxmeter when measuring, just so that you don’t have any light bouncing off of you if you’re wearing a white shirt or something.
20m should be accurate enough but you can always do 25 or 30 to be safe.

I started to take some beamshots last night, but my toddler woke up so I had to cancel. I’ll try again tonight!

I added your 2.32Mcd to the list even if it seems a bit high to me.
You’re #20 :smiley:

Fitting the 78mm DX lens into the head (I did this back in 2013 or so)

The lens was slightly too big in diameter to properly nest into the head. Also, the thickness of the lip is much thicker than the original lens of this host. I had to make modifications to the lens and to the bezel.

The lens:

I filed the lip down until it nested into the head. Huge pain.

The bezel:

I had to dremel off part of the bezel.

Before:

After a hack job:

After the modifications, the gap between the bezel and the head is miniscule.

Here’s a photo of the Osram Flat Black LED installed in The Sceptre:

Looks kinda dirty, doesn’t it? I accidentally burned the white surround when the wavien collar moved with the light on full power. Smoke started coming off the LED! OOPS!!! It seems fine other than the burn mark.

I added beamshots to post 2.

Further measurements taken on this light (at 15 meters) have been in the 1.9 mcd range. I think the 2.32 value may have been a fluke. I also modded a GT with a flat black @ 4.5 amps, an Optolife lens, and a wavien collar - and it measures at 3.26 mcd at the same 15 meters. I’m still working on the GT but those are my preliminary values.

Possibly later on I can take some longer distance measurements.

Nice, well the sceptre may move down the list but that GT mod is up to #17 most powerful flashlight :slight_smile: