Favourite thrower LED?

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Favourite thrower LED? - LED Flashlights – General Info - BudgetLightForum.com

Is SFT-70 available anywhere yet?

What do you mean by best? Objectively, the Osram NM1 throws the furthest in the same host in comparison to any of the other contenders.

It’s better to ask what is your FAVORITE thrower Led.

The best is the smallest emitting surface that can handle decent current, paired with the largest reflector…?

You seem to like vague polls. What are you doing with all of these poll results since you joined the forum?

Simon had some SFT-70 for sale a while ago.

The best is not only about getting as much throw as possible, other factors are important as well such as light quality, beam quality and heat/efficiency.

That’s fair, I’ve changed the title of the poll.

I thought this would be good discussion for a flashlight forum. Sorry if this is not appropriate.

Missing Yinding 5050

Technically SST20 can be used a high CRI thrower

If only SFT20 was updated domeless version of SST20 but it’s not :rage:

SFT40 is practical use in most small and medium lights and it’s relatively inexpensive.

My favorite is still CSLNM in aspherical such as B198 or 1504, those are fun. I only wish patent trolls be damned and we could get inexpensive RLT collars for improved performance.

It depends on the application but the SBT90.2 is just about unbeatable imo, and not just as a thrower… I think it’s probably the best flashlight LED overall

It certainly throws out a massive amount of light. I recently had a chance to shine my Noctigon K1 Thrower off the top of 41 story building at the ocean. I could hit buildings that were easily a mile away and shoot a blast of light down to the ocean.

SBT90.2 is certainly the brightest, but I don’t care for it. Almost every light that uses it can’t sustain output for more than about a minute and it sucks batteries dry like there’s no tomorrow. It generates an immense amount of heat and most examples I’ve seen are horribly green except at turbo.

There are lights like WT90 that can actually maintain output with SBT90.2 reasonably well, but it will drain three 21700 cells in a matter of minutes. It’s great if you need a quick burst to check the other side of your property, but not super practical.

For max range I like the Osrams, though my favorite is probably XHP35 HI for CCT choices and decent tint. However, XHP35 HI are now discontinued and becoming difficult to find. XHP35.2 HI unfortunately has a larger LES than its predecessor.

SFT-40 is ok but also tends to be very green. I really just don’t like Luminus’ phosphor concoctions.

Sorry if that came across as busting your chops…just noticed you were new here and doing mostly polls. Wondering if you are seeking to learn about this stuff in more detail? If so, we’ve got tons of fantastic past threads on individual emitters, all parts of lights and modding/assembly, choosing parts or combinations, etc, etc. When the word “best” is posed, maybe that suggests someone isn’t knowledgeable just yet, y’know? In this case, throwers, there are just too many variables to determine “best” but even then there is still more than one way to skin a cat and arrive at the same or same-ish place. Maybe something like “best thrower emitter in a _mm x_mm reflector” or a particular host, or some of that while including a particular max current/driver, or some posed scenario like that, less vague. And then you can decide if you want a pencil beam thrower more like a laser, or a tight spot with a little spill, or attempt a larger spot while still being throwy. All that jazz. :slight_smile: With all the options today you can get anywhere you want to be, pretty much, and the “best” emitter may not be the best for what you’re trying to achieve, but then again it could be.

You mentioned lasers… a company I’ve bought from (Sanwu) makes a laser with red, green and blue diodes and you can vary the intensity of each with dimmer style switches to get different colors. They’re aligned somehow to create the effect of a single beam. They showed one combination that yielded what looked like a white laser beam. You have to wonder if 3 high powered diodes would make an extremely bright, true white laser flashlight; more intense than LEP

Well it wouldn’t be true white; it would be three distinct wavelengths like an RGB LED rather than a broad-spectrum phosphor converted pump. Though with the spot size and intensity of a laser it probably doesn’t matter much.

Yep exactly. And if you made the beam wider it almost have to separate into the individual colors, you would think.

They do have true white lasers but they’re still in development. They somehow emit light across a wide spectrum

SBT 90.2 is my favorite thrower LED, but you’re not kidding about the green. It might just have the ugliest tint I’ve ever seen on an LED, with honorable mention going to whatever the heck they put in the Surefire LX2 and EDCL2T.

I’d like Imalent to come out with a successor to the mighty MS18 with 24 SBT 90.2s.

I like the NM1 because it allows throwers to be small enough to EDC. Larger LEDs require larger hosts to get the same throw, so even if it makes a nicer beam, I generally won’t have it with me when I need it.

So I’ve found the Noctigon KR1 W1, in 18350 form, to be very practical. I leave it in my purse in lockout mode, so I can always have access to a thrower without much extra weight or bulk. I configured it to auto-lock and reset brightness after a few minutes, and I set its hybrid memory level to a moderate brightness, so usually I don’t even have to unlock it to use it. Just grab it and do 2H (press-release-hold) for momentary, then toss it in the purse again when I’m done.

Is yours green? I have that exact light and I carry it in 18350 config too. Amazing throw!

Helicopter spotlights use a 4 degree beam.

My favorite thrower is my 1 watt green laser with a beam expander lens (: