I’ve been looking for a TIR to try in my S2+ but it seems they’re either a fairly tight hotspot with little spill and weird beam artifacts, or an almost homogeneous beam without much of a hotspot at all. Any recommendations from your testing? I would want something just a bit floodier than a reflector setup as DC Fix is great but sometimes too floody.
Gotta order the beamspread you want, and you can pick’n’choose what suits ya, even change it later.
Eg, my RJ02 came with what’s most likely a 30° TIR, and I replaced it with a 60°. Much better spread, zero artifacts (either the come-with one or the replacement), and more useful at close range.
90° and especially 120° do have artifacts, a ring around the periphery that can be distracting. Plus, it dilutes the beam a bit much, forcing you to dial up the output to maintain the same brightness.
So offhand, I’d say go for a 60 first, then (assuming you don’t just get a few of each type right off), go wider/narrower as you want.
If there is no light emitting surface in the center of the LED array, the hotspot will look like a ring with somewhat dimmer center part (many people calls that donut hole).
Already with first generation XHP70, the missing crosshair shaped area is apparent, but with XHP50, the crosshair pattern is proportionally more pronounced, and with this quad above, it is even more pronounced.
When someone uses an SMO reflector with these emitter arrays, if the exact center of the beam is checked, one should see a crosshair shaped dark streak on the reflector as well, when looking into the flashlight (of course, very low current is needed then to check this to avoid eye injury) - this is just because of geometry, irregular things gets focused, and can be seen as beam artifacts.
For XHP70, the coarse OP pattern does its job within the Convoy L6, but for XHP50, it is already impossible to cancel this pattern with just an OP reflector, so then, SMO reflector, and this frosted lens would be better (of course, the beam will get much floodier).
And while this 3535 quad MCPCB gives even more pronounced crosshair pattern than the XHP50, sometimes this is the only solution to get good output of some LEDs with lower maximum recommended driving current - so here comes this frosted lens handy :partying_face:
And if there is not even an absence (or irregular shape) of the light emitting surface, this lens can also help with emitters, which have huge differences in tint depending on the direction of the emitted light compared to the center of beam.
And Simon.
For the lots of Plain torch owners out here.
A C8+ with single or triple LED. 26650 cell.
and basic ON/Ramp. Turbo. OFF. SIDE switch only.
A L2 Convoy the same would be nice tooo.
Rear switches are soo awkward I find.
Unless a person has small hands. the 26650 tube
is soo much more comfortable to hold.
Oww, I thought you mentioned that reflector and pill were the same as the S2, so a lot could be interchanged.
Are you planning to produce 20mm drivers with 7135*x single/5mode and Biscotti?