Texas_Ace BLF Calibrated Lumen tube / Sphere No math skills needed - Several spheres still available

From Texas to the burbs of Portland Oregon, received today. I didn't get a shipping notice, but discovered that if I looked at the details of recent PayPal payments, there was in fact a tracking number.

A monetary tip sent to Texas Ace via PayPal.

Will try measuring some Zebralights later and play over the weekend.

Wow. USPS is fast…

You are correct, the other tubes you are thinking of use a different design and do not apply to this design. If you stick the light back the centering ring too far you will see the lumens drop as the body of the light will absorb light.

You you will simply hold it roughly flush with the centering ring, move it up and down until you get the best reading.

It is really pretty simple once you try it, move the light up and down until the numbers are best. It is pretty intuitive once you try it.

Yes, (as you can see above) the rings it comes with have reflective foil already installed. That took for stinking ever even though it looks simple!

For that edge case light, a custom ring with 4 cutouts would be the only real way to get good numbers.

Very nice! It is kind of strange seeing pictures like that of someone I was making a few days ago lol.

You can twist the “input” end up 90 degrees so that it will free-stand and make it easier to take readings.

I hope those poor photons are not claustrophobic… :smiley:

Made a correction in my original post about tracking.

If any of you didn't get a tracking number from PayPal (automatically), check the transaction details in your PayPal account. That's where I found the tracking number today. Had I known it was there, I could have tracked it all the way.

I received mine today. However, I doubt about accuracy :confounded:
Zebralight SC63w measure 1620lm? factory spec: H1 1126 Lm
Zebralight SC600w Mk III HI measure 1882lm? factory spec: H1 1126 Lm
Nitecore tip CRI measure 320 lm?? factory spec: 240 LM

Very interesting numbers. As I said from the start I have never had any direct comparisons to other readings or even owned any lights that I trust the lumen readings on to get readings from. Every light I tried just made things more complicated since none of them seemed to produce the numbers they said they did.

I know it reads inline with most other spheres readings on BLF that I see.

For example the readings VOB got earlier today with the GT XHP70.2 were around 8800 lumens with a sliced dome. My own XHP70.2 readings on the GT were just under 10k lumens with the dome on. Within ~5% or so all things considered. That is what I normally see when compared to others readings.

25-30% is much further off then I expected.

After we see what others get we can come up with an adjustment factor if needed since they are all calibrated the same. I can even recalibrate them free of charge (minus shipping) if people want if we figure out a good number.

What stands out to me are the zebralights being rated the same but getting such different readings. A slight variation is one thing but that much difference for lights so close would say that they are outputting different numbers, which would say that at least one of them is not putting out the 1126 lumens it is supposed to.

Can you try a ceiling bounce with those lights to compare?

Maybe zebra specs are at 30 seconds… or u r using high drain.

That hit me later, if they are ANSI then they will be at 30 seconds although the large discrepancy between 2 lights rated the same tells me they are not exactly rated precisely in the first place.

That said I am still not attached to the calibration I have now but I also want to see a lot more data before a change is decided.

We should really be testing stock fenix light… fenix lumen number are legit…

I don’t know much about it. But, maybe the drivers have different properties that make them start at different levels, even though they ‘should’ land at the same level at 30 seconds? Or maybe Charles was using different cells for those lights, and that is what made the discrepancy at start?

All are possible, this is why I game up on using lights to calibrate my sphere, there was just too many variables. At least with bare LED’s I vastly reduced the variable.

That said, these are the only spheres calibrated that this way that I know of, so I have no idea how they compare.

I was also thinking and I was using China LED’s for most of the time I was calibrating my sphere. I did not start using Mouser until after that IIRC.

I just message with vinh. Skylumen… nitecore lumen are after 30 seconds…

Got mine today, had not tracked so was surprised.
Have to say lately I have been bored with flashlights and real life has taken over my time. But after opening the box and setting it up I was grabbing all kinds of flashlights that I have not handled in 6 months to try them and think the readings are pretty good.

First one tried was trusty old Sofirn PF04, EDC it every day and it came up as 236 lumens, they rate it at 240 and Sofirn is usually fairly honest on their readings or a tad under rated so that was a good first try.
Next up was a C8 by SeresRoad which is pretty much a Thorfire C8 XML2 that came in at 1090 lumen pretty much what was expected.

Also tried a Sofirn SP32a, showed 1350 with Panasonic utility battery, tried a Samsung 30Q and it went over 2100, the meter auto-ranged up at that point and read 210.
Did not keep it on for long as that light gets hot quick in turbo and didn’t want to risk frying the emitter. That is why I run the less powerful battery in it for safe daily use.

So, so far I like this rig.

Told the Wife it is a “Precision Measuring Device” and not a new toy :slight_smile:
Anyway Hat’s off to Texas_Ace and his “Team” for delivering the goods ahead of time and on Budget.
I feel blessed to have gotten one at the price paid and am happy for not being pessimistic.
THANKS!!!
Later

Keith

I got mine just now.

I’m also surprised by the high readings compared to the JoshK sphere.

I have a Convoy S2+ with QLITE 3A driver and xml2 CW:
JoshK 700
TA tube 1350

On the Road M3 CW: .69
JoshK 862
TA tube 1240 (4v)

Convoy C8 xml2 CW: .65
JoshK 845
TA tube 1310

DQG Tiny 7x 2500lm:
High- .65
JoshK 855
TA tube 1310

Turbo- .64
JoshK 2120
TA tube 3300

These are just quick tests with some batteries at 4v or so. I won’t be able to do more accurate measurements with fully charged cells until tomorrow.

I think the general consensus is that it is indeed reading high.

I tried covering the reflective tape on the spacer ring with black cloth, all I had at the moment, and readings seemed to drop back down to a little above the JoshK sphere. Maybe painting the silver side with flat black and flipping the discs will get the readings in line. (Maybe, requires more thought)

I was a bit skeptical of the JoshK sphere because after measuring lots of lights with it, the readings always seemed a little on the low side. Maybe once you take into account losses in reflectors and lenses maybe it IS accurate?

Anyway, all this will have to wait till later for me.

(NOTE, My JoshK sphere numbers are from a past session. I was comparing that to today’s measurements in the TA tube.

So not a direct comparison. I’ll get both spheres set up tomorrow so I can do back to back tests)

Keep the TA specs number coming… i will put out my numbers on tuesday.

Mine also came today. Its a really cool design and well put together so I’m excited to get it dialed in. I also have a JoskK sphere for comparison, so I ran some quick numbers as well

Light/host Spec Sphere TA Tube Diff
HDS 170 170 168 234 71%
HDS 200 200 203 327 62%
ReyLight Lan N/A 234 327 62%
Swm V10r 219c N/A 315 474 66%
Haiku 219c N/A 390 609 64%
Zebra SC5c mk2 475 427 648 66%
Hanko 219b N/A 615 890 69%
Zebra SC62w 930 891 1362 65%
Zebra SC63w 1150 1086 1748 62%
Zebra SC600w mk2 HI 1126 1120 1738 64%

So a few important points:

  • Like Jason I didn’t bother to test cell voltages because we’re comparing measuring devices here, looking for relative numbers, so it really shouldn’t matter just to try and find a trend. But maybe it will when trying to compare to other users’ numbers so I may need to re-do this when I have more time.
  • The HDS lights are the most interesting to me, because according to Henry at HDS each and every single light is custom calibrated on his sphere to give the promised output. He tweaks the levels in the firmware so that the lumens are exactly as promised, so they should make pretty good “reference” lights for these sorts of tests. Unfortunately (for this application) I’ve modded most of mine which invalidates that work, but these two are still stock.
  • I’ve included “spec” numbers for factory, unmodified lights. They’re just there for reference and not included in the math. Lights marked with N/A are modded in some way so factory numbers, if they ever existed, would be useless.
  • I’m concerned that my differences don’t show a more precise trend. A range of over 9% difference, between the lowest and highest variations, seems like a lot to me. I suspect my “technique” is to blame there which makes all my numbers questionable. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to use this thing.
  • I didn’t include any “high-powered” lights for this test because the JoshK sphere can’t handle them, so I’d have nothing to compare to. If the tube’s response isn’t linear then it may not be off as much at the higher end. I have no way to test that. I did order those numbers above in lowest -> highest order in the hopes of seeing some sort of trend in the differences, but I don’t.
  • More data is definitely needed but I think its safe to conclude that the tubes are reading high, its just a matter of determining how much high. Mine seems to be up by ~35%. I’ve not yet tried to bring it down in any way and look forward to what some of the rest of you come up with.

My JoshK sphere numbers where from a past session. I was comparing that to today’s measurements in the TA tube.

So not a direct comparison. I’ll get both spheres set up tomorrow so I can do back to back tests.

I’m really impressed with how the depth of the flashlight through the opening as well as the angle of the flashlight in the opening doesn’t vary wildly.

You basically just want to aim your light straight down and then move the flashlight up and down a little bit to get the highest results. It’s working really well. :smiley:

Maybe we can watch matt video and use correction factor method of calibration.