The SYNIOSBEAM - CFT90 recoil thrower

It definitely looks more sharply focused vs the last post pics. CFT-90……can’t wait to see the beam.

Your making Giggles look like this. :frowning:

Nice, now the farthest throwing led reflector thrower ever - by a large margin!

The second pic looks really cool!

The beam looks very similar to my light, but that was to be expected (in truth it’s actually much slimmer though). The focus looks a bit “off”.

BTW: you could improve the performance a tiny bit by putting a spherical mirror into the center hole of the reflector. :smiley:

EDIT: I just checked, you should be getting up to around 11-12Mcd. You’re still way off. Like I said - focussing is very, very difficult.

Yeah, even a barely visible brightness increase to my eyes brought the lux up from 5M to 7.5M, got some tuning to do for sure.

:frowning:

Thanks!
Yeah I was expecting over 12, however to get the focus right it will require a very long distance measurement, and then atmosphere might start affecting the results.
Will have to do the 500m test on a very clear night.
The only ways to make the focusing easier are to increase the LED size, which only makes a bit of a difference, or make the optic have a larger F number so that the mirror is farther away, sort of like in a mirror telescope.
This basically would make a clear die projection like a lens does, but then I lose the advantage of compactness and light collection.
The next light I build will be a longer focal length, either reflector or lens I don’t know yet.

And yeah I bet I can get 1 extra lux from adding a spherical reflector in the middle there xD

Something ain’t right here… From your picture aspherical light seems to throw further. For guys that don’t know aspherical is that yellow/green one… Aspherical beam seems thinner but also more intense to my eyes…

The picture was taken before I did the focusing, so the Syniosbeam is at about 5Mcd in that pic.
It was mostly to show the beam, not how far it throws.
If you point it at an object it is noticeably brighter in the hotspot, and the hotspot is also a lot larger.

I don’t think the measurement distance is the problem here. I think that the LED is not optimally positioned inside the reflector and that you need to find a way to look at the hotspot on an even surface in a similar distance (lets say 100m) or better yet the actual lux value while being able to fine tune the focus multiple times. It might take you hours, days even. Very small adjustments can make a very large difference.

X,Y focussing can be done be shifting the LEDs pcb around. Is that possible on your light? Maybe you need to enlargen the screw holes bit. When that is perfect you will need to adjust the Z-focus. This is probably the more important part. How will you do that? Copper foil between the PCB and the heatsink might be an option.

The CFT-90 will make it easier to reach a high Candela value, but will require a similar effort to get a perfect beam with the largest hotspot wioth max intensity.

As the distance increases the cones of light projected by the outer edges of the reflector diverge more, so it is much easier to get all cones to overlap at farther distances.
The LED is centered fine, and the Z axis is adjusted using 3 screws. This also changes the direction of tilt of the reflector which also needs to be fine tuned.

From 85 degrees the 1mm LED looks like a 0.09mm wide line, at 150mm distance from the reflector, so at 140m it would be an 81mm wide projection.
When focused perfectly, this would not give maximum lux because the light diameter is 280mm, so the projection from one side of the reflector will not overlap with the other side.

They would need to be at least 280mm wide in order to overlap at the center where the luxmeter can measure the total light.
.
As I mentioned in my collimation thread you can kinda cheat this by focusing it at a close range rather than at infinity, but this works best when using a lens because all the cones of light are almost the same size.
With this recoil reflector, the cones coming form the edge of the reflector are very slim due to the 85 degrees.
Focusing it to a spot closer than infinity would then require an ellipsoidal reflector rather than parabolic, because ellipsoidal reflectors are made to focus to a point closer than infinity.

For this reason I think it is better to simply go very far to let the cones grow in size until they overlap more and it is easier to read maximum lux with the luxmeter.
Of course it will still require proper focusing by hand for fine tuning, but this way it will also be focused for maximum throw rather than at a close point for a lux measurement :slight_smile:

Extremely nice work Enderman, nice to see and learn for myself.
About the pump, what kind of pump are you using, standard centrifugal self priming?
I have used the Laing DDC 1T in the past, which is a very good pump, and it cools itself using the cooling medium, but is is not self priming.

Just a small self-priming one from amazon.
Not the best quality but I couldn’t find any well known high quality brands this small.
It’s only ~1” diameter and like 2” long.

Not only would a DDC not fit, but it would require some adapters in order to get tubing to fit around the barbs, since my tubing is only 1/8” ID.
The self-priming is actually great, makes filling it waaay easier when you don’t have a reservoir and don’t need to worry about damaging the pump when first filling the loop :slight_smile:

Ok, so where’s the 3” version I need to replace the hood ornament on my Bomber? It would be a perfect fit.

Joking aside great work on an impressive build.

Haha thank you :slight_smile:

Build update

1) new tubing has arrived, now with 3/16” OD rather than 1/4” OD to not push on the reflector, also more flexible.

2) 48A CFT90 driver from lexel is finished being designed, and he will be working on building that over the next month or two. I still need to buy a CFT90 though, but there’s plenty of time.

3) I machined a special indent in the back panel of the Syniosbeam today, so that the driver does not interfere with the reflector focusing mechanism since it is a massive PCB.

4) I will be doing some small tweaks to the chassis in the next week or two and cleaning up the surfaces before I do a final fit test and then send off to be powdercoated or anodized.

You could put a second LED into the hole in the reflector … Would that increase the performance? Just an idea …

So, you will do more candela measurements and focusing tweaks now, as you announced before? :wink:

No. Led must be at the focal point. And in this reflector that’s in the front

Though if one wanted a beam duality similar to spill+beam of regular reflector lights, that could be a good way

I am going to send the parts to get type 3 anodized next week, since I’m done all the machining and everything fits as intended.
When I get them back I will rebuild both lights and do the proper tests.
It will be a while before I can test the CFT90 though, lexel will take about a month to build the driver still.

This is correct


Just arrived :slight_smile:
Tomorrow I will turn it on a lathe to form it into a circle that will sit on the copper LED block.
No Lexel driver yet, but I guess I can still test it using the “powerful” 6A 3v drivers I use in my other lights :stuck_out_tongue:

Only one of the lights will be converted to CFT90 for now due to cost, my light will keep the black flat, depending on how amazing the CFT90 performs I may spend the money to convert my light to CFT90 too during the summer :slight_smile:

On Thursday I will be dropping off all the aluminum parts for type-3 anodizing, that may take a few weeks, when I get the parts back I can begin the final assembly and testing.

So that’s the expensive little guy!