109 LED mod and other aspherical lights

So I became a flashaholic about a year ago, and I've been modding some lights just for fun. I finally bought a lux meter recently and I think I can share some numbers to pay back for all the information I got from BLF. Enjoy!

Measured at 3.17m with LX1010B and converted to 1m;

x2000: 9000lux

502b xml 25mm dx aspherical lens: 24k lux

c8 Lumapower xml 21500lux

X9 xml 44k lux

ZY C10 aspheric 35k lux

Tiablo aspheric R2 73K lux

109 LED XML 3.0amp 75mm lens 135k lux

Here are some other number I got by holding the lens in front of LED.

XML 3.5amp C10 lens 43k lux

XML 3.5amp Tiablo aspheric lens 65k lux

XML 3.5amp 66mm lens 95k lux

XML 3.5amp 75mm lens 150k lux

Xre R2 c10 lens 50k lux

Xre R2 66mm lens 125k lux

Xre R2 75mm lens 174k lux.

If anyone Interested 109 LED was modded with a C2 light and o-ring is made of silicone putty.

25, 66 and 75mm lenses are all from dx.

updated some beam shots.

Top XML 75mm lens, middle Tiablo R2, bottom ZY C10 at 10 yards

Tiablo R2 at ~ 50 yards

XML 66mm lens ( spill is from inside the shiny surface of bezel)

XML 75mm lens

good stuff!

SWEET! I have to get a light meter. Where did you find your 109 host? I have an Optolife 80mm and am looking for a host. Most of my aspherical mods are on 50mm Optolife lenses. Have ordered several DX 50mm but went to Opto cause my reject ratio was 1in4 good.

Great job! I'd love to see a beam shot of that 109 LED.

Does anyone have experience with this host? 109 LED from Harbor Freight

They list lens as 3 3/16" (80mm) so I'm sure a 75-80mm aspheric can be made to work. I've been eyeing this up for some time but hate to waste $20 on junk if it's no good to modify. I'm mainly worried about having enough focal length for the lens to work with an XM-L but it looks pretty similar to what Zizo used.

I have been waiting for that light to go on sale. Everything at HF eventually goes on sale. Want to mod the head to my 4D Mag PT120.

Right now it’s on sale for like $17.95. Has it gone for less in the past?

$17.95 is the sale price. I've looked at that light many times but haven't been convinced to buy it yet. The one item I want them to put on sale, they never do! Technically it is on sale now, but only $2 off... I think it's a good candidate for a 20%-off coupon.

http://www.harborfreight.com/5-in-1-digital-multimeter-98674.html

Great ideas there!!

I am curious about the build of the 109LED aspherical light. May I know is this http://www.manafont.com/product_info.php/uniquefire-c2-t6-900lumen-3mode-memory-led-flashlight-18650-p-7017 is the same C2 that you used? Any machining is needed and how did you adjust the focal point?

Does the C2 host screw in perfect ??? And where did u buy them at

Yes, almost! There was about .2mm gap between the C2 and 109 LED bezel, but you can push it hard and it will fit. I epoxy glued mine and it looks like one solid piece. The focal length is about 1-2mm long for dx aspheric. I didn't like raising the LED so I just trimmed the top of bezel where the lens seats, and the lens looks more protected with the bezel now.

The left light is in the wrong focal length just for comparison.

Can you measure the back focal length of Optolife 80mm? If it's around 50mm it should work. The quality of dx lenses are getting worse everyday. I ordered 5x75mm lenses and only 2 were usable. 50mm lenses are just junk and 66mm are the best but no good host to use it for.

Nice job Zizo !!!

Nice job! Looks cool as well.

Now for the lights with lux of 100K or higher, you need to measure at 10 meter or longer distance to avoid artificially high readings.

So tempting to me... and i'm going to build one, too :P

Any source to buy the 109LED flashlight?

ebay

HA! Yes, I have some experience with that host LoL. I bought it when it was on sale and then used a coupon on it. It looked cool so I figured I would see what it looked like. About 3 minutes into using it, it shut off, so I opened it to see why...

The top of the battery carrier spring melted into the plastic from the current flow and shorted out inside the head :)

As I recall the metal of the light felt like cheap pot-metal. You might want to give it a shot though since you wont be using the factory battery carrier anyway. You can always return it if you don't like it.

zizo,

What do you do to covert your 3M measurements to 1M measurements? I have a light meter but never bothered testing out the lux values on my throwers...

Lux@ 1meter = Measured Lux x Square of measuring distance in meters

3 meters

Lux@1 meter = measured lux@ 3 meters x9

5 Meters

Lux@1 meter = measured lux@5meters x25

10 meters

Lux@1 meter = measured lux @10 meters x100

Most flashlight light beams coming out of flashlight first converge & then diverge, the point of this converge/diverge junction gives extremely high lux but it's not accurate indication of throw.

The longer the throw capability of a flashlight, the smaller the beam spread angle will be, thus the converge/diverge junction will be further away from the flashlight, thus the measurement needs to be taken further away from flashlight to be more accurate.

Typically, I measure at 10 meters for lights ~100 Klux or higher & 100 meters for lights with 1 million lux or higher. If questionable, then increase the measuring distance & try again.

10 meters is not always enough, I have a light that measured ~2Million cps (CP=lux@1meter) at 10 meters,

but only 800,000 cps when measured out at 100 meter distance.

Why measure at longer distance but lux reading less, because there are many dust , vapor , scattering of light , etc.. in the air.

(Maybe I will measure at space )