Yep, most of these look like ugly Frankenstein this would biass the sales probably. And it’s crucial to gurantee good sales since the volume will not be huge I believe.
How about three reflectors then? :laughing:
Anyway I do hope to have a bright and throwy red LED - anti-insect, no-blue, preserving night vission goodness…
In terms of blue&UV - I think there should be some warnings stated (inprinted on the body?). Also those regarding melanine, prostate cancer and eyes damage. I think these hazards are also covered by world standards (EN/ISO/UL/ASTM etc.)
Left picture is a beamshot of a single color LED in my RGBW D4 with TIR.
Right picture is a beamshot of a single color LED in my RGBW Q8 with quadruple reflector.
Which one do you like more (if you are not a Mickey Mouse fan)?
Yeah, headshot Mickey looks kind of bizzarre. Looks like one should take into account either separate reflectors or TIR optics. Seems the TIR is cheaper, easier and nicer, but it reduces the output a little.
Btw., when using a TIR, the white LED does not have to sit in the center, you will have the same perfect beam with any of the TIR lenses. You don’t even need a TIR with centered LED.
With the proposed 7-LED TIR I would rather prefer 3 or 4 powerful white LEDs and 1 LED for each extra color.
Okay, let's drop the whole idea about a multireflector light with independently running emitters. I think we should stick to the idea of a TIR optic.
I agree. As long as the output of one LED suffices it should be fine. I assume with the right (over)current applied one XP-E2 should emit up to 150-250 LED lumens depending on wavelength. Red XP-E2s are known to be more sensitive to overcurrent and heat than blue XP-E2s. I could also imagine the LEDIL ANNA-40-7 optic with the Osram S2WP in the center and some powerful white LEDs around it.
Not meaning to disagree with you Djozz but I find it very hard to get substantial feedback from Sofirn so far. I sent them quite some suggestions for improvements about hardware and user interfaces in the past, both here on BLF and also directly to the factory in Shenzhen. As usual, patience is the key but without proper mutual communication in place the odds to run a project like this are very remote.
I agree, there is a lot to be done right in a succesful multicolour flashlight. Sofirn not only must have the capability to build it but also the will to do it in close cooperation with BLF. My experience is that cooperation does not start smooth, only when after some prototyping they have the confidence that it will be a good product it becomes much easier get the last bits done well (see the lantern project).
I was wondering, is there any difference in the emitted light between a coloured LED, and a normal white LED with a coloured filter, like the ones available for some Acebeam flashlights ?
There is. Significant. White light is a mix of all colors. A color filter filters all wavelenghts except for the own color (so all other wavelengts are “wasted”). Monochrome led puts all it’s power to emit just one color (although it usually contains also some neigbour wavelenghts too).
I’m not an expert but if you search this forum you can find more information including those really PRO.
There is a catch though: white leds are more efficient than coloured leds, some colours are so inefficient (orange, lime) that filtered white light may come close in efficiency to dedicated colour leds. But a third option for colours are phosfor-converted colour leds (I know green, lime, amber and red exists), just like white leds the underlaying led is a highly efficient blue led but with a phosfor that converts in into a narrow(-ish) wavelength band instead of a wide white band. For lime and orange they are the most efficient leds.
The 7 emitter concept (Fireflies E07 style) has some appeal, although whether or not it makes sense depends on the driver.
Dr. Jones’ RGBW driver design for example, only provided 700mA to each channel, because it had the same 2x7135 on that channel as the color channels. There’s no reason to have more than 1 white LED for that, and even any of the color LED’s under discussion can handle it.
Flashy Mike went a bit further and made his white channel FET + 1. In that case, it would be possible to make proper use of multiple white LED’s, although even a single XP-L or LH351D should be good for 1500+ lumens.
Question for Flashy Mike: with the driver and firmware you created, are you able to ramp each color channel individually to create different mixes? It looks to me like what you have already created achieves the basics of what a lot of us are looking for.
Personally, I’m still attached to my idea of supporting RBGA for a little more variety (and again, because the E17A phosphor converted color LED’s should mix to a better white than standard color LED’s), but it sounds like I’m in the minority on that, so I’ll go along with what the majority wants.
Let’s just imagine we had a quintuple reflector as in Acebeam’s X65 flashlight. Now, the X65 is a heavy duty flashlight with a large reflector. So, please take this as reference for the reflector design only. Getting there entire reflector smaller the configuration could be:
center emitter: Cree XP-L HD V6 3D (4.885K) or for even more throw Cree XP-L HI V3 3D (4.885K) or - more cost effective - Luminus SST-20 4.000K 95CRI / SST-20 5.000K 70CRI
adjacent emitters: Cree XP-E2 red/green/blue/amber or just three colors and UV (e.g. LG LEUVA33W70RL00 365nm or Seoul Viosys Z5 365nm).
the adjacent reflectors would at least need to have a structured surface (orange peel) to reduce artifacts. However, I’m not sure if the shifted angle (not being in the center of the host) would cause an uneven beam shape.
Personally i like the reflector in the photo, and at first we have to decide the colors :will be red, blue, green,white, UV added may make things more complex,
Thank you for all the information. I am collecting now and will officially started this project process with factory in a near future, we will have a small meaning with factory, and i will also feedback their opinions here
Please note that with a reflector like mentioned above there's a high risk of an uneven beam pattern ("Mickey Mouse" pattern), see here for example...
If you intend to use a reflector, make sure each LED has its own reflector (see Wurkkos WK30 for example). However, the small WK30 reflector geometry wastes some potential we could gain with a deeper and wider reflector design. But then again you need a big flashlight head to take more area for multiple reflectors into account. That would interfere with the idea of a lightweigt and compact design we have in mind and it would also raise costs. The real downside with a reflector design is that color mixing will get almost impossible as the correct alignment of different LED sizes with different die areas and a uniform reflector geometry could possibly end in a nightmare.
Bottom line: If we want to go on with the idea of infinite color mixing, we shoud better focus on TIR optics.
On a side note:
Lumintop has recently changed their supplier for optics with the FW3A. They now appear to use a Chinese optic (without glas lens on top) that is more floody/frosty than Carclo's 10511 they used before. Since Carclo optics are more expensive and hard to source in China, this alternative optic or the supplier behind might be worth looking at. However, it's a triple optic design, so we would not have RGBW. If white is a prerequisite we need to use a quad optic design like Carclo's 1062x (where x=1 is used for clear narrow spot and x=4 for wide frosty spot) or we could go on with the LEDIL ANNA 40mm optic with 7 LEDs in place.
The hardest part will still be the driver and the UI. Maybe Sofirn can adopt the Dr. Jones driver design and develop something comparable on their own. Without knowing the Dr. Jones driver in detail I could imagine a basic user interface like this...
From OFF
single click = ON (white mode)
double click = ON (colorful mode)
triple click = ON (colorful strobe modes...consecutive double clicks switch to party-on-mode, psychedelic-drug-frenzy-mode, gaudy lightning storm mode... whatever :-D )
ten clicks = ATR configuration mode*
* Advanced Thermal Regulation can be set between 45°C - 55°C - 65°C as follows:
After 10 clicks the flashlight shows green color => click to set 45°C or wait for next color >>> color changes to blue => click to set 55°C or wait for next color >>> color changes to red => click to set 65°C or wait for flashlight shutting off without changes to settings.
There will be no time-triggered stepdowns. ATR default configuration from factory is set to 45°C.
From ON (white mode)
single click = OFF (mode memory)
click + hold = ramping brightness of white light
double click = 100% white light
quadruple click = sleep timer (each consecutive single click is an increment of 5min for instance)
From ON (colorful mode)
single click = OFF (mode memory)
click + hold = ramping brightness of colorful light
double click = infinite loop ramping through colors ( >>> red > violet > blue > cyan > green > yellow > orange >>>)
click to maintain selected color
triple click = 100% red light
consecutive double click = 100% blue light
consecutive double click = 100% green light
quadruple click = sleep timer (each consecutive single click is an increment of 5min for instance)
From ON (colorful strobe mode)
single click = OFF (no mode memory!)
click + hold = ramping brightness of colorful light
double click = change strobe modes
triple click = change strobe speed of selected strobe mode
quadruple click = sleep timer (each consecutive single click is an increment of 5min for instance)
Finally, i talked with factory and engineers, TIR optic will be first choice for this mixed color flashlight, and LEDs will be 4 or 5 color(amber added if 5 LEDs), the outside design, i’ll say, it is a totally Innovative design for a flashlight, i am not sure if it is a good design for lamp, more like an artwork. I do not like it very much at first time i saw it, but more and more interested in this design now, exciting…
