I'm shocked by this Shocker... (de-domed now, more info)

Damn, I already got three XM-L2 U2 1C on Noctigon around… :~

:bigsmile:

I’m currently waiting on another torch before doing some beam shots with the BTU Tom was kinda enough to do up for me but today I decides to do some measurements with my cheapo MS1010 light meter to see if it and the light were in the same ballpark as to what Tom observed. So down into the basement in my building I went with measuring tape in hand to mark out a 5meter and 15 meter (could have gone out to almost 50 meters down there) line to measure from. I took down three lights with me:

XIN TD V3 U3 with Samsung 20R
5meter:
low 71 x 25 = 1775kcd
med 359 x 25 = 8975kcd
high 1042 x 25 =26050kcd

Stock BTU with dry driver, U2, Samsung 20Q’s
5 meters:
low 259 x 25 = 6475kcd
med 1303 x 25 = 32575kcd
high 3010 x 25 = 75250kcd
turbo 4170 x 25 = 104250kcd

15meters:
low 29 x 225 = 6300kcd
med 149 x 225 = 33525kcd
high 342 x 225 = 76950kcd
turbo 479 x 225 = 107775kcd

Tom E Shocker with Samsung 20R’s
High:
5meter: 17900 x 25 = 447500kcd
15meters: 1994 x 225 = 448650kcd

I only measured on high for this one as I was interrupted…. and to be perfectly honest some of the people in this building I don’t want to be alone with in a dark basement… :open_mouth:

All torches were strapped to my new MacGyver’ed tripod mount while I went with the meter out in front to find the sweet spot for the reading. This is my first real decent attempt at taking readings so I don’t know how accurate I or the meter was in all this but the numbers look in the ball park. The distance should be within + or - 2 inches of those distances as I really focused on not moving horizontally and only vertically during the testing.

so your one of the lucky 3 that got one of his super shockers aye. those numbers are screamin, nice!

Wow! I feel somewhat relieved. Sometimes I dunno - am I the only crazy one seeing these #'s or am I just plain crazy ? Well Trent, you are the only chosen one at the moment - I'm having a tuff time repeating what I did there...

Oh - what's crazy is that your other lights are measuring a little low. A stock BTU with a DRY driver and 20Q's should be doing way better than that. Are you hunting for the brightest reading?

Crap! That mod'ed Shocker is freak'n awesome!! All the best with it! Oh btw, I'm ordering one of those FT camera lens bag you recommended for the Shocker (here), though I don't have a Shocker of my own yet .

I’m really sorry to hear your having problems with the others Tom… if you need me to take pictures of anything on this one just let me know and I am more than willing to and pass them back. I would love to be able to send it back for reference if needed but with shipping being what it is between us I definitely don’t think its worth it.

I tried hunting for the brightest reading but I think heat might have come into play with the other lights. I realized almost at the end of testing (just before the Tom E Shocker) that I definitely went the wrong way when testing. I tested from the lowest to highest settings with the lights on continuously which meant the stock BTU had been on for almost 5 minutes by the time I was done the measurements on turbo. This is the first time I have ever really tried to get accurate measurements for any of my torches and like all things a little practise will go a long way I’m sure. I will do a redo in the future just to confirm and add some additional known torches but perhaps my meter also reads a little on the low side of things.

The FT pouch is awesome. I just got another order with one of each in that series…. the largest one for my other shocker and the others to see what actual lenses will fit into them. Love those pouches especially for the money they are a killer deal! :bigsmile:

Thanx!! No, I think I know what's going on. But maybe you could do me a favor - put the Shocker on low mode and hold it up to a white wall from close in, maybe a 1/3 meter, and bring it to 2-3 meters. Let me know if you see any dark spots in the middle of the each of the 3 beams, or if dark spots appear close in and go away further you bring it out, if so, what distance do they first go away at.

I'm thinking yours is perfectly focused while the two I got here have a focusing problem. I'm seeing dark spots in the center of the beams on these, while I don't recall seeing any on yours. Makes sense because I can't get as high as throw #'s on these as yours, and I did a little tweek on one to bring the LED's closer into the reflector and the throw # improved and the dark spots weakened.


Taken at about 1 foot away from the wall, camera (phone) was just above the torch. The “holes/doughnuts” disappear completely at about 1 meter or 3 feet

IOS driver has visible PWM?

certainly not visible to the naked eye even on the low setting. What you see through the camera LCD and in this pic is definitely not what I see in person. I just sent the original to my computer to see what the EXIF was for the picture to get a better idea:
Shutter speed: 1/861s
F-Number:f2.65
ISO: iso32
Not sure what it all means for helping calculate the PWM (or even if that’s possible). I also counted about 70 lines in that pic….

These are the doughnuts I’ve been talking about. But 1 foot is too close and these should be normal for de-domed XM-Ls/XM-L2s. :slight_smile:

If you move to 2 to 3 meters and still get these doughnuts then I think there’s a problem with focus. If your doughnuts completely disappear at 1 meter then IMO you have a perfectly focused de-domed Shocker. :bigsmile:

Sam Fisher?

Ahh, ok, thanx! Yes, this makes some sense now. I'm seeing the donut holes further out, so worse than yours. The PWM's do exist in med and low modes on this driver, just not as bad as a DRY driver for example. It's listed at 3900 Hz.

Update:

To improve the clearance for the wire connections on the de-domed Shocker I'm working on, I dremel'ed out the backside of the reflector on each side of the LED holes, taking out 1 mm or so of aluminum. Think that did the trick - measured 436 kcd at 5 meters with Samsung 20Q's reading 6.0A. I'll post pics of the cutouts. Was worried about the alum shavings but was able to clean out the reflectors with blown air from one of the squeeze bulbs. Think that's the best I'm gonna get out of this unit - not sure why I got a little better (467 kcd) in the first one. At 3 feet, the dark spots go away but still quite evident at 1 foot.

The LED's:

rotary tool used to create the depressions:

Cleaned up:

Sanded down a little:

wow that’s a ton of work Tom. I can definitely see why you don’t care to mod more BTU’s in the future…. at least not these de-domed ones with the amount of time/effort that goes into focusing them. I’m also extremely and unbelievably appreciative of the time and patients you have for your work rather than just slapping it together and calling it a day. :bigsmile:

I may have another (or possible more) request for a mod from you in the near future, but I promise these ones are much more straight forward (and cheaper)! :stuck_out_tongue:

Dang Tom, these lights are a LOT of work. BTU’s have some serious aluminum in their reflectors. Looks like you took a good chunk out in each spot and its still safe. Very smart mod.
And your seeing some nice numbers. Your latest results are good enough to out throw a 7000 lumen 60wt FF4 HID.
So on the IOS driver when running on protected cells it has full regulation and appx 3.5A per LED, correct? And with free flow cells lioke the 20R’s it basically puts it into a direct mode and powers it at about 6A, right? Just trying to understand that driver a little better. If that’s the case its pretty cool that you can have the option of a “moderate” regulated appx 3400 lumens and 350k on 3400mah protected cells, along with decent run time. Or you can “turbo” charge it with 20R’s and get a boost of maybe 25% in power and throw, though at the cost of a short runtime.
Pretty cool have either option with one driver.

Can’t be more agree on the focusing part which is the most PITA. I have done few mods by myself with T08 and T20 and I’ve had some difficult time with their focusing issue.

Well, to get the high amps of 5-6A, I bridged the resistors on the IOS driver, so, with 20Q's its 6A, but higher resistance cells will get lower amps. I'm thinking 3.5-4.5A on good KeepPower's - can easily check. Though I don't believe it's regulated, but it will work like you are saying - longer runtime on 3400's, while crazy output on 20R's or 20Q', etc. Pana PD's are somewhere in between. You can actually get protected Pana PD's - HKJ reviewed them here: http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/EnerPower+%2018650%202900mAh%203C%20(Blue)%20UK.html. Little better than KP 3400's but less capacity.

Bad thing of course is no regulation to speak of but you do get advantages with the copper boards of course. The XM-L2's on copper have the high Vf demand, so even with the regulated BTU driver, the amps drops to even 3.2A I've seen when run with XM-L2's on copper.

Truthfully on a big light like this runtime is a non issue for me. It’s not like I’m going to be out walking a dog with a light like the BTU. It’s always been a “fun” light for me. So lacking regulation on a IOS dedomed version won’t matter. I have the bad habit of charging my cells up before any beamshots or light testing. Well not bad habit, but bad for battery life.
Plus I have my regulated BTU driver version just in case I want to actually use one for true flashlight duty requiring more runtime. 3740 lumens, 184K, with 3 x 3400mah cells driven at a regulated 3.5A range will have decent runtime. Not as good of runtime as a TK75 or RC40, but still reasonable.
Man, carrying a BTU in each hand I bet would be a workout though. Like two little dumbbells.
Anyway, love seeing your threads like this showing what all it takes to make all of these lights perform outstanding like they do. Keep up the awesome work!

Wow! :open_mouth:

This keeps getting better and better. I think I’ll be doing this mod on my BTU too, TomE and push it even farther. Thanx for sharing all these. :bigsmile:

Ok, this is final #'s on this Shocker for rdrfronty:

fresh charged Samsung 20Q's, 6A tail reading:

lumens: 4,437 @start, 4,182 @30 secs, throw: 420 kcd (measured at 5m)

fresh charged KP 3400's, 4.4A tail reading:

lumens: 3,638 @start, 3,519 @30 secs, throw: 355 kcd (measured at 5m)

Maybe with 20R's it might be better, but it's all close enough. I got 436 kcd yesterday but couldn't repeat it. I think the 5 meters is too short for this light - needs more distance to focus.