The FF5 I ordered made it stateside and passed through customs and hopefully makes it here by or before the weekend. I expect it to be close in size to a DEFT X. I don’t have a DEFT X but I do a K40 and a TN32 and several other similar sized lights. But consider the performance difference. The performance of the DEFT X was incredible and still is really. Using light recycling to increase intensity of hand-binned XPG2s it produced like you said, over 1Mcd, all in a narrow beam with 700 Lumens. But the FF5 is going to have a warm beam with 1.2Mlux and 10,0000L. HIDs don’t have the droop like LED lights so heat sinking is less of a consideration compared to heat insulation or rather compartmentalization of the capsule from the electronics and batteries but they have significant considerations. LEDs can happily strobe at ms times at full brightness all day long. HIDs often take over 10s for the beam to fully mature. It’s also not good to turn HID on and off while the capsule components are phase changing. I’ve also noticed that bugs seem to go crazy when you strike up a HID. I am not certain the reason for this but I have always attributed it to the UV and other short wavelengths produced in addition to the thousands of lumens of light and IR. Also a consideration is bulb life, however I will admit that I’ve had many more LEDs die well before the claimed life but no HIDs even on my cars. But I already know that’s going to be the case because LEDs are usually pushed well beyond specifications.
What a time to be alive. My first thrower was the original DEFT around 12 yrs ago and it was mindblowing at 150k lux and maybe 300 lumens. Thrower lights and even most asperics at the time had 80-100klux. I would go up north and blast that thing at a cabins across a bay and see structures light up light alien tractor beam reaching out from the far side of the lake. I can calculate that far less light than that of moonlight was actually getting there. Probably not much need to worry about people freeking out from a twinkling light hitting their window, but we still would limit the Wow throw demonstrations. With these lights now, like the GT lights or the FF5, different story where moonlight is greatly exceeded at theoretical distances of over a mile.