I am interested in this to smooth out the hotspot and reduce the donut hole on my dedomed XHP70 in supfire L6 (smooth C8 sized reflector). But I want to keep as much hotspot intensity as possible. I have seen tests where the overall light transmission is tested, but I haven’t seen any measurements of the hotspot intensity before and after. Does anyone have this information?
I have tried the “magic” scotch tape and it makes a nice beam, loses about 10% of the output, but it reduces the hotspot intensity by almost 60. Basically I am looking for something to diffuse just enough to get rid of most of the donut hole, but keep ~80 of the hotspot intensity.
Not only that, but you may be missing the fact that the hot spot and the donut hole are practically the same thing. The only way to get rid of the donut hole is to diffuse the hot spot. The intense brightness of the hotter parts of the beam must be spread out in order to cover the shadow area, which you refer to as the donut hole.
I realize the intensity must go down in order to even out the beam, but it is possible to even the beam to an acceptable level and not reduce the intensity to 30 or 40. For example, I am experimenting with SMO and OP reflectors for a XHP50, and the OP reflector virtually eliminated the donut hole and only reduced the intensity to ~82 of that of the SMO reflector.
for what it costs I’d say try it.you have nothiong to lose
I have experimented with dots of dc-fix in the center of the lens on tank 566 lights that had really bad ringy issues.It cleared up lots of issues without killing throw but i have no hard data for you .
Hence my suggestion of a light spray of poly on the reflector . It gives a light OP finish , less than a stock OP reflector .
It is irreversible , however .
The more you actually use your flashlights , the less important pure output becomes and the more important tint and beam profile become .
Yes, thank you. I tried the recommended Krylon clear acrylic gloss spray on the lens and it helped. Unfortunately I sort of killed the emitter of the light in question, but I think this method will allow me to get the right amount of diffusion for future builds.
Hi, I was wondering if you still have some DC-Fix left? I’d like to try some on my C8. I tried diffusing it with plain printer paper over the lens; it works fine, just the fact that the output is decimated…
I have tried matte sheet from an old LCD screen, it had 2 kinds in it: slightly matte and very matte.
Works as expected, but eats Lumens.
It’s probably because there’s space between film and lens.
So i’m interested too, but i’m in Europe so shipping costs might ruin the idea of buying from Boaz.
But maybe you could send a couple of post card sized pieces in a normal envelope?
Just to clarify: the advice is to spray clear coat on a reflector, not on a lens. The clear coat will make the reflector scatter the light a little more so that the beam is more even. For a lens, it’s probably better to use a high quality diffusion film like DC Fix. Another way to remove some of the Donut hole is to move the reflector just a bit out of focus. But, that will also reduce throw, possibly quite significantly.
You can remove it from a lens but not from a reflector.
None the less, good idea to use clear coat.
When you let it ‘rain down’ from some distance it will cause orange peel effect.
Maybe matte clear coat is good too. (?)
I use dc-fix on my throwers, it does not destroy throw, just turns them into normal lights with a good mix of throw and spill. I don’t like throwers. Put it on a normal light, Zebralight SC5 say, and it would indeed kill the throw totally, not a good idea. I bought some from the US via CPF, and I am in the UK. It was probably the same person as the OP. I still have plenty left.
