Astrolux "MF04" discussion thread

Tested the light outside for the first time. This is absolutely insane. I wasn’t this impressed with a light in a long time… the reach is ridiculous. :sunglasses:

Anyone tried both MF02s and the MF04? Is the difference huge? I have a MF02S on order and I’m going to use it to watch for deer on my property. Furthest distance would be approx 600meters before the woods make it impossible to see anything so it needs to throw good at that range.

Thank you that was perfect. Looks like the MF02S might be to little to reach good out to 600meters… So is the MF04 the thrower king atm considering HID lamps and such also?

Leds can’t match the HID in distance, but are much more practical in use such as immediate turn on and better efficiency.

The MF04 and BLF GT are good throwers, but if distance is all you care about, there are lights with smaller, weaker leds and big reflectors that create a real pencil beam and go farther.

You also have lights like the new Acebeam W10 that is pocket sized, 250 lumen and can go 1000 meters. It’s a really tight beam.

So you have to decide what you want as far as distance and how big a hot spot.

Ok. It’s not all but I have a MF02S that’s arriving in a few days that should do some throw/flood and I ordered a Emisar D4 + Convoy S2. It would just be nice to have something with good throw to be able to scout for deer around on the property. 6-700meters should be plenty but it should be more than moonlight at that distance. I have no experience at all with flashlight but I’m just guessing that a beam that is very narrow will be hard to use for that purpose. There are way to many nice flashlights :smiley:

In order to have good brightness at a particular distance you want to take the factory rated throw distance and reduce it by either 1/2 or 2/3. So if you need to see clearly to 700 meters you probably need a light that can do around 2000 meters. Something like the MF04 or BLF GT. They are rated at 2200-2400 meters (where their output is 1/4 lux and quite dim). They will be bright at 700 meters.

The MF02S is not going to be as bright as the bigger lights, but might be enough. You can’t really go by pictures. Your eyes might see better than the cameras settings.

Thank you for explaining. I guess I’ll wait until Tuesday when it’s set to arrive and see how the MF02S are doing. Easier to compare the pictures when I know how the MF02S performs as a reference.

Here’s my 55w bulb with 12-24V 100W ballasted HID, driven at probably around 80-90W only as the battery is only a very small 12V 4AH SLA if i remember correctly.
55w bulb coz it has a shorter arc gap than 100w bulbs, the 55W bulb has an approx 3mm arc gap. 4300K, as bulbs at this colour are brighter than 3000K/6500K etc.

So you can imagine, 3mm to 4mm max gap, approx 8000 lumens on the ceiling bounce with lux meter, 30cm head. I am not sure what is the surface brightness intensity, but i don’t think it’d lose to current LED capable technologies.

I measured the hotspot to be nearly 3 million lux on my lux meter, at a measuring distance of 50 metres which is about the best that i can do at a relatively dark place.

Unfortunately like JasonWW said, it’s very impractical to be using a host with a 12” head, though it’s not really heavy at 2kg.

I can hit nearly 2km targets in a city urban setting which is very bright (it’s one of the most light polluted cities in the world), which is a difficult environment to play in regarding throw.
Even the forested parks are relatively bright, especially since you’d need 3km targets to hit it with if you wanna do that “NEMA FL-1 0.25 lux on target thingy”.

And since we are in BLF, budget is always impt. :smiley:
I can get the Mateminco MT35Plus with XHP-35 HI (Astrolux MF04) at rmb 888 (usd 129), the head-only option costs rmb 788.
Shipping is usd 7 via “4-day sensitive air”.

The 12” HID 55W host + extra 100W car HID ballast purchase (you will get 2 ballast though) shipped would come in at just under usd 70, shipping via “4-day sensitive air” at usd 14. Maybe a bit lower if i search harder. :smiley:
At least that makes up a little bit for the extra large proportions for the hobbyist’s very occasional fun use. :smiley:

I’ll see if there’ll be a 20% discount on 11/11 singles day, if there is i’ll make the purchase at 710rmb (usd 103) for the Mateminco MT35Plus. Fingers crossed! :smiley:
(auto discount would always be way easier than if i were to haggle on their aliwangwang chat platform, which is a fair bit more diffcult than bargaining in person when you are visiting China)

That looks like an awesome diy project. Do you have a build thread?

Oh yes, now that you reminded me…. i wanted to PM you initially but if the others don’t mind the OT here i’ll just share it here for a fun read. Apologies for the OT, well at least this one is a thrower thread. :slight_smile:

It’s not really a built thread per se. Note this is 2011’s tech, so it might look outdated when compared to current tech

Someone else also did a 100W swap after me. He got 2.6m lux with a 100W ballast but i am not sure what bulb was he using (100W bulb or 55W bulb?), and also fine-tuning the way how the bulb seats into the reflector is quite important as it is a small 3mm arc gap on a 11.5” reflector (host diameter is 13”) as initially i got only 1.8 million plus lux before getting 3.8M lux.

I remember that that were also quite a bit of variances in output between my 1 dozen or so 4300K 55W bulbs, such is the huge variances of low-cost China domestic quality components meant for the China market but conveniently shipped internationally as low cost aftermarket swaps. Same goes for the 35W bulbs, and to a limited degree the ballasts as well.

I made a mistake, it’s a 12V 5.5AH battery. After battery sag i guesstimate should be around 9V? I don’t know the current also, but i think it might be around 80W at most? These ballasts sometimes could vary quite a bit in power output as well.

But some years after 2011 I also tried on a 30A capable variable power supply with output at 24V just for fun, it’s visually significantly brighter than the above due to efficiency gain as I dialed up from 12V to 24V on the 12-24V 100W ballast (might be 80W on 9V, then on 24V it might be closer to 120-130W as i have read those figures on other 100W ballasts before). So if you don’t mind using some 4-6S RC pack and cables, i guesstimate it can hit 5 million lux easily if you have a decent 55W bulb and bulb seating is optimised.
But i think the bulbs won’t last more than an hour of total runtime even @ 1 min max burst each? :smiley:

OMG i cannot imagine that i paid usd 165 incld shipping last time in 2011, $100 for the light and usd65 shipping. Of course It can be done nowadays for ~ 3 times less money with my current methods, oh well….that’s the hobby for ya. :slight_smile:

PS. I know the hotspot looks yucky. But seriously such lights are really just for pure fun….no real practical usage. That’s why i was gunning the bulbs so much (good thing they are just a few dollars each), like how nowadays some would gun a XHP-70 to what, 7-8k lumens and 10k lumens on the bench?

I guess the Astrolux MF04 would get much more use, fingers crossed that i can get a better price on 11/11 so that i can make the dive. (no guarantees)

Nice! No doubt that these leds are more practical but no-limits with DIY is fun to. I’ll look into both options. First thing is to test the MF02S tomorrow when it arrives :slight_smile:

Have you seen anyone comparing MF04 to a HID lamp before? From all the videos I found of the MF04 it has pretty impressive performance. I really can’t imagine how anything can be that much brighter at the same distance :stuck_out_tongue:

I think currently HIDs are a bit dead? But here is a good thread about the Thrunite TN42vn vs Lemax LX70 SuperPower. The latter is a 4.5k usd light with a 219mm head, guns out 4.5m lux. The focusing of the bulb and reflector i suspect should be way better with a much much higher quality hotspot than that of mine, that is probably how they can do 4.5m lux with just a 219mm head non short arc.

edit - holy smokes, did a search on Taobao (china consumer ecommerce site), seems like nowadays they have 150W variable output power ballasts and even 220W variable power ballasts. Still need to measure to see if they are able to do 220W with a proper PSU.
edit - Holy smokes x 2, i saw a 12-18V input variable output power 300W ballast cum 18” smallish reflector and bulb combo for just rmb 190 (usd 28). No host, though it has mounting hardware for mounting onto a normal tripod. It’s a fishing light meant for the fishing market, you can even put in 30k kelvins bulb, or magenta bulbs and all that car rice stuff.
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.275.53ab77f94z6JT4&id=528039049306&ns=1&abbucket=12#detail

It should be interesting to gun with a 100W bulb (4-5mm arc?) but of course you’d get higher lumens. Only usd16 for such a 220 watt HID ballast. Shipping is pretty inexpensive to this part of the globe, just usd 3 per kilogram with a forwarder as part of a consolidated order (usd4 for the first kilogram).

I remember close to 10 years ago, there were still folks playing with such things and the hardcore ones going short arc like the Maxabeam (3-6 million cd for those generations) and tank lights like the short arc AN/VSS-1 etc, shelling out obscene amounts of money. Powerful lasers with large apertures (good for focusing) are nice, but monochromatic and you can’t even see much other than a dot even with a pair of 10 x 50 binos. :slight_smile:

I think and hope that 10 years later, we’d get a 150% or perhaps even 200% increase in surface brightness with LEDs. :slight_smile: That and a corresponding increase in efficiency, so that the heat management is still ok in our commonly sized aluminum hosts.
Imagine that and with a 130mm head like MF04 or BLF GT. Not sure if that is theorectically possible though.

You can see if the aliexpress chinese seller drops price from its 189usd current price (shipping included) when it’s nearer to 11th november? Quite a few sellers on aliexpress will drop their prices on this “singles day”.

On Taobao it’s usd 129 (rmb 888) so that gives you an idea, of course that is excluding international shipping, and i guess shipping to Norway is not gonna be cheap.
They might drop the price on 11/11.

This was pretty accurate. Today I got my MF02S and I get decent light out at 300-330meters but after that it’s to dim to be of any use. So the MF04 will give about 1000meters with the same light then if it’s similar?

You seem to prefer the 1/3 distance, like me. So the MF02S is rated to 1040 meters and 1/3 of that is 346 meters.

The MF04 is rated at 2400 meters, so 1/3 of that is 800 meters. That’s what I would call it’s usable distance.

Yes I should have said that it was my subjective obeservation. It did throw longer but then it got so dark that I couldn’t see much.

The ANSI-FL1 specs measure throw until it is at 1/4 lux. This brightness level is like a full moon on a clear night. It is pretty weak, but at least it’s a standard that most companies use.

I just divide by 3 (or convert meters to feet) to get what I call a realistic usable distance.

I realize that now. After reading up a bit on the Maxa Beam I see that they have rated it at 6925m (0.25lux) at that standard but they advertise 3500m (1 lux) since that’s more realistic usable distance. The MF04 is really tempting but those maxabeam numbers are just so crazy high :smiley: