The other million bet beam

Really incredible, and by the way, one of my best friends did Peace Corps in Albania and really loved it.

cabfrank thank you. my country is little bit unique in that regard, its very small but despite that, have a lot of sea with some very beautiful beach and in the same time some very rough mauntines with some interesting views and places.

ImA4Wheelr some more photos for you from different angles


for comparison i have put in one side ledlenser p7
and in the other side convoy M2

looking to the the led thru 2 lenses its not that easy job for the phone camera:

funny thing is when u ask what it has on top i was in the desk playing around with different setups.
I am from some times searching easy way to transform pure throw in one ordinary short search light. not that i need one but just for fun :stuck_out_tongue:

and one interesting result is this from yesterday:

like this on my desk it project this spot in the ceiling :

when u ask i was just putting this lens on the top :

in the same position on the desk :

and the result on the ceiling :

like an ordinary flashlight with reflector :stuck_out_tongue:
that’s why i like to play around with lenses. with the right ones and with imaginations you can do pretty much all you want :slight_smile:
now i can control how much spill i want in both ways in diameter(changing to other lens with the same diameter but different f ) or in intensity which mean how much of the entire output will go to spill (changing the diameter of the lens but with constant f ) or both of them (changing both diameter and f )
right now i am looking for a way to mimic corona we see with traditional reflectors :slight_smile:

I tried 5 precollimator lenses so far but they degrade the throw... Distances from 2-8mm above de domed emitter I tried to ask some other guys about this precoolimator thing and non of them had success, and some of them are in this job since very beginning of led flashlight.

No matter what lenses they tried throw was degraded a lot or just bit less than without precollimator lenses.

So it seems that you got some special lenses in your build. Is here any secret like polishing or something?

I love your work. I've said it before and I'll say it again. You're a master craftsman when it comes to wire and sheet metals. That is an awesome creation.

Love the pics in Post 29. You got me thinking about playing with lenses now. I got a 100mm that really needs a home. It won't look like a luminarium iaculator custom, but I'm sure I'll learn a lot.

Thanks for sharing. Keep up the great work.

Including the 750,000 mini-bunkers built by Hoxha…

These guys are getting 173 mile throw from a red Luxeon and big honkin’ fresnel lens:

in fact being addicted by lens and flashlights i have an big collection of quality lenses, big part even coated, but in project i am using only 2 ordinary ones. one is ~100 mm lens from fasttech and the other is the main lens u get from an ordinary UFT20 used as precollimator.
i thought i have made this clear when answered to member likevvii how my setup work and why i chose it. theoretically an precollimator will NOT ad in throw it will ADD in total output from flashlight or lumen numbers in other world. that can be easily perceived by human eye as more throw but in fact it is not. in reality we have even slightly less throw because we are introducing more resistance to the light depending on the type of lens transmittance.
for example if one lens have 98% transmittance it means it block 2% of source. hence if we use this type we should have 2% less throw than without it.
and this in the best case scenario when everything else is being implemented properly! chose the wrong setup and you could end losing more throw and even less output in lumen.
I have said it on the video, have explained to likevvii and am saying here again.

than why i complicated my design u may ask. i just cut the loses that are usually present in an ordinary zoom light. u have to see with your eyes what type of beam my flashlight throw with and without precollimator to understand better. i also get an more precisely focused beam and more clear and regular . also its more small than using only one lens and tho more ergonomic in the hand (more balanced in weight )

maybe you are wondering from where do come my high numbers and that type of beam u see in photos? i will try to concentrate as much as possible this hoping it will be more clear:

  1. first factor is main lens. although its not always true this is one of those rare exceptions that, BIGGER IS BETTER
  2. the smallest possible led with highest brightens possible.(i think i was very lucky here)
  3. lowest resistance thermal path possible FROM the die to the AIR
  4. in my type of driver implementations lowest ohmic resistance possible (i have an ultra low resistance battery section, switch, driver wires and led ones.one bad component here and it destroy all other good parts! )
  5. highest lv of focusing possible (to infinity and measured in big distances )
  6. lens must be cleaned very well.
    this are steps i check and check and check till all are in place. it is not that easy!

ImA4Wheelr thanks for the good words. your work with an dedomed xml and big lens has been an inspiration for my project :bigsmile:

texaspyro WW2 is crazy stuff i think we con not imagine it but some have lived it unfortunately. CW even not that crazy still its another era compared to what we are living now. that i think explain why people have done bizarre things all over the world during that period. the fanny thing is, now those bunker are another reason to make my country even more attractive to tourists !

and pretty interesting reading on the project for communicating in long distances with light. but even that the project is spectacular IMHO your tittle is misleading. what we call throw is very very far from what is capturing an optical signal with amplifying optical tools.
also if u like this kind of stuff i suggest reading on optical implementations of moon distance from earth. u could find some bizarre numbers there :slight_smile:
also i am not sure on this but i think there are some military communicating satellites with light. i often spend too much time reading and can not guaranty if this is in my mind or somewhere written on the net. i have no numbers but i think those systems could have some decent throwers too with some very big distances and numbers :bigsmile:

Somewhere (youtube?) there is a very good video about using the retro-reflectors placed on the moon by the Apollo astronauts to measure the earth-moon difference. Big laser into big telescope… you get a very few photons back… like one in 10^20 to 10^24. I once talked to a guy that built the time interval counters that they use.

Several military satellite constellations use laser links to talk between themselves… makes it harder to eavesdrop on the links.

Also apparently there are laser links to talk to submarines.

Hi Ervin,

Yes I got you now... I was not reading/watching carefully.

And thanks you confirmed my doubts. Double lens system can not improve performance of aspheric lights it can only make die projection larger.

Main optics is what really makes difference.

50mm apheric has maximum of 300kcd or less depending of emitter and lens lottery.

Did you try smaller lenses 8-10mm lense, 80-90 degree emitting angle?(around 7mm distance above emitter). They should have better performance than UFT20 lenses with same effect (doubling beam + less light loss) since they are smaller and much clearer.

I tried uf T20 lenses(more than 20% light loss) long time ago in my setup and they are not better than smaller lenses(around 10% light loss) from original de domed setup.

Beam is same around 70% bigger beam.

Sorry for not reading thoroughly. I am not that good in English language.

luminarium iaculator

no problem at all in fact i find attractive this kind of debates. Also reading about your results with UFT20 lens and big loses got me very curious and make me think about it.
I highly doubt an lens like this can be that bad and have 20% loses in its structure. the lens i have its very clear. i find it really hard to believe that this lens can hold back 20% of the light passing throw it. of course i can be wrong and when i find the time will make some measures from my SYRI with one lens and with 2 lenses to see what type of loses UFT20 lens introduce in my system.

right now only thinking about it, i think have found something which can explain big loses with this type of lens(very short focal length)

i quickly drew this :

there are three main scenarios how one can implement dual lens setup regarding total output of the system and throw.

A.
the first case is the ideal one. all emitted light from the led is captured from precollimator lens and is correctly projected to the exact dimensions of the main lens.
B.
all emitted light from the led is captured from precollimator lens, but is wrongly projected with a smaller spot in diameter compared to the diameter of the main lens.
C.
all emitted light from the led is captured from precollimator lens, but is wrongly projected with i bigger spot in diameter compared to the diameter of the main lens.

in case A. we should have max output with max throw. (i have ~ this case in my setup)
in case B. (which i think is the worst implementation!) we should have less total output in lumens and less throw in cd. the loss in output is correlated to the postilion of precollimator with a longer distance to the led and so capturing a smaller angle of emitted light. the loss in throw is due to smaller illuminated surface of the main lens and this is directly correlated with throw, less area mean less throw. i believe this can explain 20% loss in your experiments.
in case C. we should have less total output in lumen but approximately the same throw as case A and more than case B.

i plan to do some tests with my Syri to get some numbers to get an more clear idea soon.

Subscribed! Very informative thread, it goes somewhat hand in hand with this one by DrJones but this thread has pictures that make it better! DrJones' thread coupd use some simple diagrams!!

Ervin,

Please take a look at this thread on "other" forum: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?365868-Dereelight-DBS-with-de-domed-XP-G2-and-pre-collimator-lens

I have very similar configuration like Vinz from Germany. Those small pre-collimator lenses have 93-98% light transmission.

What I have is only 5% light loss and around 70% larger beam.

I really Tried with UFt20 lens but not on 100mm lenses(tried on 50 and 70mm) light loss is more than 5-10% so I will not strictly say 20% but it is really greater light loss than with small pre coolimators which are much clearer.

One more thing is that I think smaller lenses collects light better than bigger one since you can very accurately place it just bit above emitter.

So I would really like that you swap UF T20 aspheric with 8mm 80 degree lenses around 1mm above emitter.

But there are 2 profiles of main lenses so maybe that has some influence too:

I think about this difference (both are 50 mm lenses, left Tiablo A9 right Dereelight), Your 100 mm ones looks similar to left configuration.

A question about pre-collimation techniques, the main large aspheric lens is focused on the LED die or on the smaller aspheric lens?

I my self evaluate DrJones’ articles one of the best sources on the net for our hobby.

luminarium iaculator that is a beautifully machined flashlight there and i really like what i see. in my case covering to one smaller lens need a lot of extra work in my SYRI. till the moment i manage to build one i can not give precise answer how it compared with this big lens i have now.
but i make some quick measurements and the results are little bit unexpected to me.
i measure lux only with big main lens without precollimator and compared it with precollimator on.

i was expecting that dual setup performed little bit less regarding throw because of loses introduced by precollimator, but in fact i got the opposite results :open_mouth:

3.5m with precollimator i got ~126 reading on my light meter 3.5m only with main lens i got ~116 reading on my light meter
i was expecting the opposite. repeated the test another day and again get ~ the same e difference 128 with 120 in favor of dual lens setup!!!

i have thinking about this these days, and this is how i can explain:
1. measuring @3.5 meter disfavor single lens setup. the spot is not well formed and is that small that fit in the white part of light meter. with the dual setup the spot is much bigger in my case and i can easy find the “hottest” part of the die and measure them.
2. in single setup i hold the main lens with hand trying to make the perfect focus and maybe i have not managed to do it correctly(but i repeated for this reason the measure and get same results :expressionless: ) . in dual lens setup everything is more than precisely calibrated.
3. my big precollimator lens act as some sort of collar together with the part that i build to hold the lens. i have an idea how this could be happening and will make an diagram later to explain better what i mean. if this is the case for sure was an pleasant surprise to me because was unpredicted by me when i build the light.

this is tricky. the main lens is not focused on the die, it sits near. also the precollimator. but if we look at the dual system as one big lens than we can say that this “hybrid lens” IS focused on the die. not much time now will try to make an diagram later.

Hmmm...

What I know is that in certain configurations light intensity or candela of certain flashlight could be increased for 70% or more % by using doubler type of lenses.

Doubler? Telephoto lenses for dsrl cameras with x2 magnification.

What could have happen here is that you probably have very low profile 100 mm lenses (but still not as low as doubler) which acts similar as doubler lens and it is quite possible that you got slightly better results with precoolimator than without it.

With higher profile lenses like dereelight(right lenses on upper picture) you would have decrease. But you have flat one.

Hint: Try to order 52mm telephoto lens and try to put it over UF T20 lenses candela will rise for more than 70% with tighter beam profile.

I have seen a lot of mods on T20 flashlights using this doubler so in this case doubler( which is constructed of 2x lens system) so when you put doubler over uft20 main lenses you have triple lenses system and real gain in throw. If you have 100kcd uft20 it will jump somewhere to 180kcd+-

Final product looks like this:

Looking forward for your further testings.

Very cool stuff going on here! Fantastic build, I especially like the copper cooling coils! :slight_smile:
I’m not sure if you mentioned it but could you give the source for the main lens used in this build?

Cheers
Linus

@ luminarium iaculator

its interesting to me this design because i have done this myself some time ago :

and indeed i can confirm it throw further, but let me disagree on the reasons why . IMHO i think that the gain is correlated to the different surfaces the two lens have and not to the shape and different f they have. more info on my build and the theory here:

@ LinusHofmann

thank you, you sure know how to make superb build too it seems, I am constantly checking your thrower build :slight_smile:
the main lens is from fasttech

playing around with my flashlight i wanted to test its burning capabilities :bigsmile:
this is my old dream and with pure throw i was able to realize it .
first i make an measurement test to see what can be done with the beam :

sorry for the mess it was a quick try with my hand bag that i carry with me every day, it burn a little but not a problem :stuck_out_tongue:
than the real test :

it was a fast fire :stuck_out_tongue: with the right lenses the setup could be smaller, way more smaller and i am working on it

i have made some new long distances beam shots but not much time to post now

Hmm, anyone else getting an error when trying to play the videos?

i can not get the videos to play either.

its strange, i am trying all possible ways to put the video, the sec one is now working the first one not yet, but you can see it in direct link in the middle. is there any kind of policy on youtube or here that restrict some kind of videos maybe, that I am not aware ?

by the way for you that can see the videos can you replicate the results ? the probe on the first video measure the tem. in grade Celsius as shown in multimeter. i stop at around 170 C because of smoke and was afraid of damaging probes. I am just curious because i think is somehow correlated with the fact that my zoom have hi performance in total lumens too apart from throw. but if can be done without precollimator than clearly its not the case. amps on my case are around ~4~4.5 i believe. (was testing with 3 panaB protected @4.1 V and not with sony hi drain that I use for max results )
in the sec video of putting the mach on fire i use another stage of lens to tighten beam more, because only with one lense it needed more time and it was harder.

i am doing some basic maths, the led is burning around 15W of power but lets say only 5W is emitted as light. if i am capturing 70% ~80% of this light and projecting it in the beam that i should have ~3.5W minus some loses from optics than maybe i have ~2.5W on target? hm … I have not enough expertise in this area so i can be wrong of course.