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

Add me to the list!

Just got my first li-ion flashlight, and is new to this forum.
But this looks like a must have haha

Okay, so the last few comments (culminating with a wording change in the project’s title) have led me to believe that I may have had the wrong impression of what this light is supposed to be. See, I’ve never had an SRK because by the time I came around the hobby they were all crap. But I thought they were very floody lights, basically a budget Meteor, and I let that mindset inform my thoughts and comments about it. That seems to be the wrong idea. So I’ll step down off my “no-HI” soapbox now :slight_smile: Carry on guys!

emarkd you are not alone. many blf-ers think the same. And as I’ve already said doomed domed XP-L is more applicable for SRK flooder. I have none of 4*LED SRK like flashlights to compare with but I’d definitely prefer more flood light from my 3*XM-L2 SRK clone and roche M170 (again 3*XM-L2).

I’m interested, please put me on the list.

@Tjhosan Welcome to BLF.

@all, let me try to make some pics of the SRK and 4 reflector.
No way it won’t produce massive flood :wink: they even do that with a rappy driver and LB leds now :wink:

My fault here as well - I’m guilty of taking many things for granted, as common knowledge, where the reality is readers cover the entire spectrum. I’ll post details on my XM-L2 4 LED SRK clone later this evening - amps, lumens, throw. Can also post 3 LED and the 5 LED modded SRK light numbers so everyone can get some perspective. It’s hard - some of us know SRK’s very well, but clearly it’s also a new, or different form factor light to many.

Totally agree though - the SRK’s out there now are 98% junk: no decent heat path, fake under performing LED’s. Couple of rare exceptions, like the famous SupFire M6, but it has no 4 LED or 5 LED option.

Tom E yes, please.
And and as soon as you have different… from your pov what led configuration provides better beams ? 3, 4, 5 ?

After just looking at four soda can lights here is a little theory.
The lights
SRK 3 led
SRK 4 led (identical to the first apart from reflector and LEDs)
Silver 3 led thing
Uniquefire 1401 (4 LEDs)

The latter two have 1 whole reflector for each led, while the first two have a reflector that is like three or four reflectors where a piece has been cut off so they could merge.

The 3 LED SRK
About 1/3 of the single reflector is missing while that is about half (1/2) of the 4 LED SRK

Less reflector wall to direct the light forward, ergo more flood, simply by design.

So how many emitters?

4000 lumens is single XHP70 territory! This thing should be going on for 5 figures really :wink:

With the 3,4,5 led reflectors, the 3 and 4 reflectors are fastened to the shelf with a bolt in the middle and the 5 up are fastened with 2 small bolts due to having a led in the middle, I have two of these (5 led) and the reflectors have the holes for the bolts in different places, its only 1~2mm and not a problem when making your own shelf, however this shelf is integrated :sunglasses:

Cheers David

Edit,
Jeansy, more lumens = more heat 4~5000 lm is about all this body will cope with for anymore than a minute.

OK, had to use the phone and also loosely in the hands, sorry for poor quality pics.
Also the quad SRK is much warmer tint and the phones picks up the blue lB tint of the triple much more and makes it seem brighter while the quad seems dimmer.

The heads

The heads

Ceiling visible beam around 2.3m high, just out of frame above the pic beam around 2.8m high
distance light to hotspot aroud 2,5m
cannot get the whole lit area in the pic, they actually light up the whole kitchen (10m at longest, 6m at widest, and high) NOW, as poorly made stock LBed SRKs, no other light I have can do this so well, not even the S70 or the also floody Uniquefire 1401 with better LEDs that out throws my SRKs easy.

triple

Quad

Outside, little less then 25 meter to the windows at ground level
Triple

Quad

When I go 1 floor up and shine onto the field, the phone does not register it, but the quad has both a better throw (the centre beam is wider) and more flood.
The blue tint of the triple makes it looks brighter then the warm quad on the pics but I see more of the field in terms of lighted area with the quad.

I’m guessing this is far more than 4K and lasts just over a minute before getting too hot to handle, plenty for a turbo mode…

From Mike C’s build here Link

I ran a 5,000 lumens SRK style 5X (Fing below) light for 2 1/2 minutes, and it began to get warm/hot, but this was a well heat sinked modded light, so the idea is to get the heat to the outside. Can't really compare a 12K-15K light (4K-5K per XHP-70 LED) that Mike C built with what we are talking about. He's pulling 15A at twice the voltage, equal to 30A from 4P cells. No idea what you are trying to say here, or compare to, but Mike C's custom build is wayyyy different. I can't find him mentioning cells, but the only way I see that working is with up to 8 18350's, so about half the capacity of 4 18650's we got here. Besides getting hot after one minute, the cells would probably deplete in 10-12 minutes, if I did the math correct.

Just for comparison purposes:


A SecurityLng SF55 4X SRK clone, modded by replacing the LED's with U2 3C's on the stock aluminum MCPCB, upgrading LED wires, and adding some thermal grease for the contact to the large MCPCB, does:

Lumens: 2,686 @start, 2,492 @ 30secs, 22.5 kcd (300 meters)


A TangsPower Fing 5X SRK clone, has smaller reflectors, fully modded with 4 U3 3D's and 1 U4 1C in the center on Noctigons, 2.5 mm thick copper shelf, 7135 based driver, 14.66A measured at the tail (clamp meter):

Lumens: 5,134 @start, 4,910 @ 30secs, 41.5 kcd (407 meters)


A SupFire M6 3X SRK clone, heavily modded with U3-2A's on 20mm Noctigons, FET+1 DD driver:

Lumens: 5,202 @start, 4,991 @ 30secs, 65.5 kcd (512 meters)


Note: An SRK running at a stable 15A on 4 Samsung 30Q BT's would run for 48 minutes (12Ah/15A = 0.8 hours).

I’m in thank you.

What I’m saying is that you can buy stock, single emitter lights right now that do 4000lumens, all be it maybe not soda can style.

A BLF special with input from plenty of modders should maybe aim for more? Runtime is a mute point as this would probably be a 1 minute step down turbo and at the other end we can have a nice moon that runs for the 500hrs.

A BLF SRK would be nice, but it would be nicer if it genuinely was special.

Maybe a poll, would you prefer:
A. 4000lumens constant max
B. 10000lumens turbo with step down to 4000constant high

I’d like a high mode that would allow for the highest brightness that could be run continuously (until the cells start to run out of juice) without causing thermal issues. Turbo could of course go much higher.

With 6V emitters we have to use a battery-carryer like the TN36 or similar. And a mod to 12V would be easy.
I would prefer higher lumens. But the price would be more than the actual planing with 3V emitters.

My 3 emitter SRK has XHP50 with 4.3 Amps for each emitter and a thick chopper heatsink.

4000 lumens out of a soupcan is only achieved with modding or spending a lot.
That there are stock lights using series configuration and do 4000+ lumens is not really relevant here.
Show me a stock parallel configuration light doing 4K and one that does 10K and we will look at them with interest and in awe.

This is a hard one to judge, will it be for use in this great land where evening temps are often in the mid 20c or in one of the northern states of the USA or northern Europe where they are often below freezing ?
I have one light, an XPH50 at 5A, that is a pain to hold when ambient is around 25c but real nice hand warmer when its down to less than 10c :smiley:

Cheers David

I realize that a super low mode could run for hundreds of hours, but I would like see a medium-ish mode that allows for significant run time and also plenty of light.

I’m wondering if any of you gurus can guesstimate the most efficient medium/high lumen output with extended runtime for this type of SRK setup.

Cheers!