Q8, PMS SEND TO THOSE WITH ISSUES BLF soda can light

Are the xp-g3’s out yet?

LOL, we are a full nine days underway in this group buy, in which a flashlight will be completely or partly new designed. The last two group buys that involved (re)designing flashlights (BLF-A6 and the X6/X5 lights) took more than a year before the lights were finally for sale.

So yes, there’s ample room for discussion! :slight_smile:

Please count me in for 1 :slight_smile:

Not sure, they are for sale at Cutter, I bought some for testing, but I doubt that they already have them. The performance should be close to the 70CRI Nichia 219C’s that Richard is selling now.

There could be two reasons to use the XP-G2 R3 in this light instead of XP-L Hi or Nichia 219C:
*they are dead cheap
*there’s 90CRI versions out there
I could imagine if the team/manufacturer decides on two led-options (which is certainly not yet decided upon), one could be cool white XP-L Hi, the other XP-G2 R3 4000K 90CRI. But then, sourcing specific leds has proven to be very difficult in the past for chinese companies.

I’m so hyped! XPL HI is okai I guess but wouldn’t that make it more throwy?

Count me in

Yes, it could potentially make it more throwy. But, the SRK style light is never going to be a thrower. On an imaginary scale of 1 to 100, if you arbitrarily call the SRK a 20 for throw, then a XP-L HI might make it a 22 at most. In other words, the difference is there, but it won’t magically transform a flooder to a thrower, or even come close. The difference is most notable in lights that are already designed for throw, where every tweak is being thrown in to maximize the final Kcd number.

I do not agee, David. The difference in throw when going from XP-L to XP-L Hi will be the same for every type of light. It is just that in the SRK you go from a mega-big hotspot to a big hotspot. Has anyone done a direct throw-comparison (same host, same tint) between a XP-L and a XP-L HI? I would at least expect an increase of spot-intensity of 35%, there certainly is something to say for that!

We have Barry from Thorfire and Neal from Banggood in our emailgroup.
We are discussing the actual light with Thorfire at the moment.

Primairy subprojects at the moment:
1 The driver
2 The software
3 The LEDs
4 The housing

1 and 2
Software and driver are intertwined, we will send Thorfire a list of ideal components for a driver that allows software with as much option we can think of and Tom E can program. Based on the talks we continue with this and Tom is going to programm features into the software that can be run on what we as Thorfire/Q-team decide is going to be used as components.

3 djozz, our LED expert has not have a chance to even hold these and no real tests are conducted.
So they are neither in nor out based on the lack of information and experience.

4 housing
Today I want to make some basic sketches of the way the reflector should be fitted, ready to email to Barry tomorrow morning. Also pics and details of the current SRK reflectors are prepared to send to Thorfire.

Making the current SRK reflector fit provides modders the opportunity to mod the Q8 into a light capable of using 3 up to 10 emitters with reflectors available since reflectors are ind of hard to make yourself :wink:

Since we are just starting yeah input is greatly appreciated!
Except maybe asking for cells in series and higher voltage LEDs, that has been covered several times and not the scope of this project.
The aim is making it a high quality light worthy of modding, so people can mod the XHPs etc. into it themselves and change the parallel setup into series as a mod.
So please read the OP for status quo and think along!

Hmmm… the XP-L HI is a typical “thrower” LED with a very small die which gives a concentrated narrow beam in a SMO reflector … do we want that?
I mean this was supposed to be a “monster flooder” (see thread title) and now it seems it will be more of a thrower than a flooder. If this light generates a strong wide reaching beam and only little narrow flood i´m definitely out.

The normal XP-L with OP reflectors would probably be a better choice for a flooder?

Just thinkin´.
K.

Great. So if the discussion is still open there are few questions to clarify. 1)why we need xp-l HI if we are making flooder (as stated in thread title). Are here any cons comparing to non HI version? 2)afaik 3*led reflector provides less beam artifactes comparing to 4-5…led reflectors. is that correct ? (i’m not sure where I’ve read that, here on blf, on cpf or on fonarevka). “nichia option” is for hi cri or ?

The closest I could find: XP-L High Intensity vs XP-L vs XP-L DeDomed

Pretty close I think, I forgot about that nice comparison by pflexpro. So using the XP-L HI could imply 20% less output and 50% more spot brightness, compared to the XP-L HD. More or less, because the comparison was not completely fair because of tint differences.

If it’s not going to be something off-the-shelf, please push for at least an attiny25 into it so it will have room for more fancy firmware. Or a 85 which costs nearly the same.

I’ve built small tube triples using 10507 optics over XP-L HI emitters. Pretty common thing to do because normal XP-L’s won’t fit under the optics without modification. For this application though, I can’t see a single benefit from using XP-L HI over XP-L HD, and there’s at least one negative — HIs are less efficient that HD emitters, so the light would be marginally dimmer.

So if we’re taking an informal poll, I prefer 219c’s to either. Yes they’re also less efficient than XP-L HD’s, but the big improvements in tint/CRI are worth it to me, plus there’s the Vf benefits. If Nichia is out and we have to go with Cree then my vote goes for XP-L HD for its increased efficiency, not to mention the added flood (which is the goal of this project, right?).

Down for one.

Okay, maybe I’m misunderstanding the way reflectors work. Here’s the way I see it. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m thinking that changing from XP-L HD to XP-L HI can be compared to adding horsepower to an engine. If you have a 50HP engine in your car, adding 10HP will not by any stretch of the imagination make it a racer. But if you already have a race car, adding 10HP can mean blowing your competition away.

Similarly, adding a XP-L HI to your SRK will by no means take away its floody beam profile, because the beam profile is mostly from the reflector. It will still be a Mega Flooder. It will just have a little bit more throw, maybe. But it won’t be a thrower by any stretch of the imagination.

If I’m wrong, then somewhere I’ve missed an important aspect of how this stuff works. So, please be kind enough to educate me.

You are riding along on out tgough-train here :wink:

Where is the “Q6” in this thread gone??

Q6 was a temp name, like X6 based on battery size.
For now the working title is Q8 and the smaller Q4/Q5 is not under development now, first the Q8 :slight_smile:

Yes Tom E is making a list of components and the 85 will be on the first version.
But understand that for small buyers the difference between for example $0.30 and $0,90 might seem small and a no brainer, for larger orders the difference can even grow if the 0.30 item is given at a price reduction while the 0.90 could stay the same because of it being less widely used.
Then multiply that difference by a lot of individual items and things are not as close as we might expect.

I started a topic yesterday: please if anybody know where to find a budget fashlight using the AT85 drop some pointers there: Budget flashlight with Attiny85 and electronic switch