5D Mag - SST-90 - 95mm Aspheric - 9+amp build - Finished on 03/17/15 and beam shots are in Post #1

Auto generated by youtube most likely. I didn’t do it. It was uploaded in english, so youtube must take it over.

A few more photos in the OP, of testing the SST-90 and PVC head.

Looking cool, that’s already a nicely projected die, even with all the spill that the white tube must produce!

Looks like you’re well on your way with this approach but I just had this thought.
To save yourself the trouble of painting up the plumbing pipe, finishing it all nicely etc. Have you considered looking for cheap camera lens hoods on ebay to do the job of a lens host/shell instead. They tend to be pretty cheap, nicely anodized matte black aluminium and available in all sorts of sizes and step-up step-down configurations. I’ve been looking at what’s available out there and with a bit of luck and searching for compatible bits they could give a nice looking finish on the outside for minimum hassle/cost. Of course you’d have to find something that would work with this gigantic lens. This is the closest I could find that could fit in a quick search.

105mm lens hood
That’s 105mm at the filter thread at the back and about 115 at the front, should fit the lens nicely. It’s also 80mm long so you’re already half way to your focal length goal. Find another hood with a front filter size of 105mm to mate to this one and you’ll have yourself a suitably long and purdy looking host?

The nice thing about these is they all use standard filter size threads on the front and back, so you can lego them together rather nicely and use filter adapters to get down close to the OD of your maglight. I think you can basically build an entire flashlight host that way. This build and my desire for a dedicated large lens aspheric have really gotten the mental gears turning a bit on this, I could see it working quite well.

Anyway, just a thought, I’m sure you’ve got this all covered already and I’ll be keeping a close eye on how you get on with that lens and the lovely SST-90 that’s for sure :slight_smile:
Cheers

Very cool. The faint spill could be very helpful in the wild. Enough light to move around without bumping into stuff, but not enough to ruin night vision. Watching with interest.

@LinusHoffman - Yes, I have thought about hoods, but with the fact that I need almost 175mm total distance, it's hard to use a hood. Two or three, but not just one. I have used hoods before, the last SST-90 build was with a hood. Thanks for the thoughts though. They do work well for builds.

OL i have my large 4inch 2bbl aspheric build im working on and i considered using a stainless steel muffler might sound funny but will look sweet when done :)

what im using http://www.ebay.com/itm/130868231716?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

then im going to polish a mag tube to match the stainless

So, I haven't done much with this build, but today I did a test of 4 lenses. I ended up reordering the KD lens, because of defects and I went ahead and ordered some Edmund/Anchor Optics lenses. Condenser lenses. Grade 1 and grade 2. Here's the four lenses:

Here's the info on the four lenses:

Kaidomain Lens

  • Outer diameter: 108mm
  • Inner diameter: 101mm
  • Height: 22.2mm
  • Epitaxial thickness: 2mm
  • Focal length: 190mm

Edmund AX42448 Grade 2

  • LENS COND PCX 113MM DIA X 212MM FL
  • 20mm thick and 3mm at the rim

Edmund AX32345 Grade 1

  • LENS PCX 95MM DIA X 166MM FL
  • 16mm thick and 3mm at the rim

Edmund AX99668 Grade 1

  • LENS COND PCX 94.5MM DIA X 125MM FL

The worst lens of the bunch, as far as clarity and condition is the KD lens. The next worse is the grade 2 Edmunds lens. The best one is the AX32345 Grade 1 Edmunds lens. It's really clean, clear and the coating is great.

An XM-L2 on my aluminum heat sink.

I will be trying to get the highest lux at one meter, with all four lenses.

Here's the results:

Edmunds AX42448 105,700 - also the smallest diameter spot, no shock there.

Edmunds AX32345 104,800

KD 108mm 104,300

Edmunds AX99668 104,200 - although the lux is close, the spot was noticeably bigger.

If Edmunds can get me another AX42448 in better condition, I will use it. If not, then I will be using the AX32345 and that will change everything, as it's a smaller diameter lens, so the PVC pipe idea goes out the window. Probably I will have to form a metal head, but I really don't want to have to try that.

I really like the AX32345 due to the fact that it's flawless and has a great coating on the lens. It's the best of the bunch for clarity and the lux is so close, who really cares?

What did I prove out? The lens with the longest focal length, gives the smallest spot and the highest lux. I just wanted to see how big a difference between a shorter focal length lens and a longer one. It's not much difference, but there is some.

The other interesting thing to me, was the fact that the lux did not change at all with or without a head around the lens. The lux read the same when the lenses were held in open air, over the led and inside the PVC head, so no head is really necessary, since the lens is only going to catch the light straight off the led and any stray light has no affect on the center spot. Maybe I should just use a wire cage and leave it at that.

That's it for now, back to the drawing board and waiting for more parts to come in.

Good work OL. Thanks for posting the detailed results, including the stuff you didn’t like.

Isn’t an approximately equal lux w/ a larger spot a good thing? I thought that would indicate more light OTF w/ the same throw.

Its probably minutia, but I wonder how the lux comparisons would differ at farther distances… say, over 100 yards. It might be interesting, if you’re able.

Appreciate the details on these lenses. Watching closely and taking notes :slight_smile:

Well, I would think so too and I would think number crunching formulas would prove that out, but visually, the smaller spot seems more intense. I think that’s just a trick to the eyes. The size of the bigger spot is only a tiny bit bigger, as in a couple of mm, but that is only at 10’. The farther out it goes, the bigger it’s going to get. The other thing was that I got higher lux readings with the spot slightly out of focus. Once I focused to the lined die image, lux decreased and when I defocused it just a tiny bit, the lux increased.

I wish I had a place to test at longer distances, but that won't happen around here. Not till the assembled light goes out on it's maiden voyage.

Sounds like you’re already on the same page here, but I think that higher defocused lux indicates that the testing distance is behind the crossover point. Maybe I’ve got that backwards. In any case there’s not much you can do about that, I understand.

I guess that the key for getting ideal measurements is to be a reasonable distance farther away than where the beam crosses over? Lux measurements and calculations are not really my strong suite…

an quality coated lens sound very good to me, i wish i could afford one for some experiments. Subscribed !

The 113mm Edmund lens looks very interesting to me. Would you mind telling me how thick the lens is at the rim and in the middle?

Thanks

20mm thick and 3mm at the rim.

Great, thanks! :slight_smile:

I am going to go with the:

Edmund AX32345 Grade 1

  • LENS PCX 95MM DIA X 166MM FL
  • 16mm thick and 3mm at the rim
Being a grade 1, it's crystal clear and coated, with no flaws. I will have to rethink the head. 3" PVC would work, well a 3" to 2" reducer, a 3" coupling and 3" pipe. That will reduce the size of the head. I also found a 95mm lens hood, but I would have to put 2 or 3 of them together because of the long FL. That would be very expensive, so PVC will probably still be the material I use.

Still if u like the beam and the light in the end you could dedicate some more time and create an metallic head. And it could help, driving one led at 10 amps need some serious mass and big surface to radiate heat.
Really curious to see how this will evolve.

So, I decided against PVC. I went to speedymetals online and bought 4" OD 6061 Aluminum pipe. That gives me 3.750" ID and the lens is 3.740" OD. I also bought a sheet of .050" 6061 Aluminum, to use inside the pipe, to let the lens rest on. I will form it to fit in the pipe and also on top, to sandwich the lens and hold it in place. The bottom, where it reduces to the OD of the Mag head, will be a piece of 1.750" 6061 Aluminum round stock. That fits in the pipe and I will drill and dremel the opening for the Mag head. It will have to be a press fit. Inside the Mag head will be a big heat sink, that will fit tight in the head and the LED on top. It should take a bunch of heat and it will be so heavy it will need a shoulder strap, LOL.

Argh, MRsDNF must be rubbing off! :slight_smile: