The tiny light in my Avatar, The Texas Poker. $800 custom light by Photon Fanatic.
I was talking with a friend on CPF a few years ago and mentioned that I had a wide diameter but short length of surgical grade Titanium with no clue what to do with it. He suggested I give it to Fred, he’d find a use for it, I was told. And so I did. Fred being Photon Fanatic. When I discovered that he makes custom lights, I remembered another piece of surgical grade Ti (grade 23) about 5.2” long and 1” diameter that I’ve been sitting on for 13 years at the time. So I asked Fred if he could make me a light out of it. He suggested I sketch a design, said he’d do a 3D rendering, and we’d be off to the races. Well, I like a Leupold rife scope, so I hobbled a sketch together in Photoshop from a Leupold 2X Gold (or something like that) and sent it to Fred, with the question how much is this gonna cost me? Not too much, I was told, since your’e supplying the raw materials and all.
Several months later, I had my gorgeous little Titanium and Copper Texas Poker (named by Fred) It’s a 10440 cell and it was doing 135 lumens when I got it. Horrible UI. The bill? $500 on top of the materials! And he was being nice! I got a receipt from him so I could put it on my Photography Insurance as a tool that I use for work, true enough. $800 on the receipt. Replacement cost. Legit, as I don’t have another bar of that ti.
I have since learned how to build drivers, my TP is sporting a single sided 10mm driver that Richard drew up for me in Eagle, and it’s now doing right at 800 lumens on a Nichia 219C . (I’ve redone it numerous times)
This little index finger sized light has been around my neck on a Titanium curb chain for 3 years now. I take it off to bathe, and little else.
The next closest expensive light I have is the Titanium X6 from Rey, with all it’s Tritium vials and quad 219C, it cost me right about $320 to build. Didn’t see that coming! And for all that, I just realized I have one small light that trumps both of those put together. Almost, are you sitting down? $1200. Whole nuther story…