Already tried to do this during the first group buy but they would have none of it. They don’t want people opening the light, we are just lucky it is not glued, so we need to count our blessings there.
This I do not know. I would assume they would all ship together but the bag and cap shipped seprately last time due to not enough space in the GT box. So that might happen anyways this time as well.
I can ask but I would not put a lot of weight on the answer based on past situations like this.
Indeed, it will be tricky to spread the word enough and for people to have the money to spend in such a short amount of time. Depending on when the lights ship I might talk them into leaving the group buy open longer, the price will just be locked into whatever it was when it “closed”. We will see when it happens.
The parts are a bit more expensive but mostly the GT itself is far more expensive to make and in particular to ship then they planned on when they set the first GB price. They learned their lesson and the price increase is nessicary to turn a profit, which is a good thing.
Had they not broken even /made a profit on the last GT (which it did not look like they would for awhile) we would not have this GT70. The fact it was so close last time is a big part of why this version took so long, they only agreed to it with the price hike.
I then talked them into the tiered pricing system to give people the chance for a lower price, they wanted a flat $240 regardless of quantity
Far as the lumen readings, there are a few factors.
First the 9k reading was on my old sphere calibration, which I found out was too high. I am using my new ANSI based calibration that reads lower.
Second I do underrate things, I saw over 7500 lumens with the test light but we still do not know what the production LED will be so I have to keep some wiggle room.
It is not really a lower limit, just an educated estimate with some wiggle room. Final numbers will be after a production LED is selected.