There must be someone around with a collection of TIR optics that fit XR-E emitters (tipically Q3 or Q5) with a few different degrees of dispersion. I would like a few beamshots at lets say 2m distance from wall.
It will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance if there is a fellow soul who can be arsed to do that. :)
Interested the most in the degrees 10,20,45,60,90 others are also fine.
I don't have much to contribute but since there have been no responses I can at least do that :)
I don't have a collection of TIR's. I have only had one type. It was a DX available TIR and was a direct snap-on for a XR-E. The effect was that of a standard (23mm) reflector except that there was a little less spill (dimmer) and that extra light ends up in the corona.
The difference is noticeable from a standard reflector only in that the edge where spill goes to darkness isn't as hard a cut-off since the spill is dimmer in the first place.
To me that's always the most annoying aspect of reflectors. You have the usable part of the beam (hotspot/corona/spill) and then there is this large circle moving around in your periphery where the spill just stops. With the TIR I used the outer edge of the spill had more the appearance that you would expect from diffusion.
I don't have a camera available to post a beamshot however. I doubt that you would notice this difference in a photo anyway.
The only other optics I've had (other than aspheric) came in headlamps where the effect was just to more or less diffuse the hotspot. In most cases it was more like putting tape of the clear lens of a light with a reflector so most of the hotspot goes away but there is still directed flood rather than pure flood that only "throws" to 20 feet or so. It would project out to 60-80 feet in a diffused 90 degree beam or something like that.
Fair enough. I saw on fleabay sets going for 1 usd. I'll order a few and play with. :)
From what i gathered from your responses im definitely inclined to try them.
Thanks Bryan. :)
But where I am now it is daylight :cry:
That too shall pass 
Oh i ordered several and tinkered with them. Apart the obvious dislke many have with the word plastic these are quite good. :) Lovely to play with, but make sure you get the correct ones depending on emitter package you use. Osram tir optics sux for cree and TIR's for XR-E sux for X-PE or XP-G
I have a few , but what angle ? I just dont know ...and what emitter ? Heck I even have one that's SSC P4
Phew :O
:bigsmile:
No beam shots, but I noticed something convenient.
The original lens in the SIPIK SK68 is press fitted. So i pressed it out and voila, I now have a easy acces testing platform for the small diamer tirs that dealextreme sells. Mine are SKU 41690
Until now my thoughts on the whole thing is that someone named them wrong, they are not Total Internal Reflection lenses, they are Some Internal Reflection lenses.
A lot of light is being leaked out the sides of these.
EDIT: After I wrote that I got a bit upset because it pretty much sums up the disappointment I feel about these. So I went and used some clear glue on 2 different tir lenses from DX and glued some aluminium foil to the outside of them. Originally I had thought I could glue some highly reflective plastic to them, But I cannot for the life of me get it to stay in place because it has too much "spring" in it. Tomorrow night I´ll see if it makes a difference worthy of repeating.
Yes , there is no reflective coating to stop such on most ...
Test with reflector and with TIR ,
I found a slight boost to output with the TIR , maybe 40L or so [ My SSC P4 ] VS same SSC P4 fitted with reflector
Left - For Primary CR123A , has XR-E R2 and runs 300mAh on a Primary , single mode [ built to drain primaries of every drop of energy - runs well to , even on depleted cells ]
Middle - SSC P4 - Runs 17670 - 5 mode [ modified = Bitzer ]
On the right , Another Bitzer , XR-E P4 5 Mode runs 2x16340 to 17670
Bitzer = Built from bits and pieces
So would you say that you find the beam more usefull with the TIR lenses?
BTW: Like your idea of having a "draining" type light. And by the way I love the BITZER acronym :) LOL
Its something to play with , the 3rd one , the P4 , really benefited from the lens ,
The SSC P4 , it was necessity as a reflector would not fit in the head of the second light .. But a striped optic would [ It works - but is it better ? - its not worse ]
The first one was factory , I just took out the lousy emitter it had [ very early LED ] and put in the XR-E R2 , and it just worked - the beam is nothing special on white walls - but outside works well enough - and for some reason is regulated to 300mAh on primaries [ over 1A on 16340 ] , so is now dedicated to run on Primaries .
Bitzer goes way back ...
As far as I know , always meant built from bits n pieces [ mismatched ]
The TIR’s that I’ve gotten from DX come fitted in white plastic housings that just snap on a XR-E so I’m not sure what you’ve referring to with light leaking.
THe difference between the reflector beam and the TIR beam on the lights I have modified is a subtle one. The intensity of the spill is less (which I like) and less distracting and the spot is a bit brighter.
It has a small collimation lens over the actual emitter so some light that would have been spill is now directed into the spot.
The difference isn’t amazing or anything. I initially tried this with a backup dive light where less spill means less backscatter.
I’ve now tried it in several other lights mainly because I don’t like that sharp drop-off from spill to darkness as I find it can be annoying watching that large circle move around.
The TIR lessens the spill intensity and therefore that sharp drop-off is reduced as well.
Well you are lucky then, mine came without any housing. Allthought I do have a TIR from Ledil that is XP-G rated (if thats what you call it) and that one came with a black housing. I´ve tried taking it out of the housing an positioning it by hand, and there is also this light leaking phenomenon that I tanlk about. Its just what I call all the light that come out the sides of the lens instead of out the front.
Thats why I went and tried to glue some aluminium foil to the sides of two cheap DX lenses last night. And we´ll see if that pays off tonight.
BTW: Thanks for all your input. Its much appreciated.
@ Budgeteer: I´ve never met the Bitzer before so its all new to me. But thank for giving me that one :glasses:
:(
Oh what the hey :-)
My tests with the optics and the glue + alu foil are conkluded. That is not worth doing. First of all it changes the color to a way colder temperature. A good bit bluish to be frank. And second it does not really send noticeably more light out because it diffuses the hotspot somewhat and that makes it look less bright. So an that was a waste.
I do still suspect that if one was to obtain some high quality reflective silver paint it might be worth the effort. But I have no idea of where to get that.
If these are the ones you are looking at from DX...
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/23-36mm-optics-light-diffusers-for-cree-emitters-glass-5-pack-1920
...I will say I'm not impressed with them. I bought them hoping to remove one from the holder to use as a TIR mod for a C3, but since the emitter was off-center, I ended up de-doming the emitter in the process. I've tried to find a way of using them with some of my other lights but have been unsuccessful. They are not the right size for a P60 host, and I have found that they don't seem to offer any advantage over a reflector in ANY light I've experiemented with.
Well, i found some use for them but certainly not suitable to cram in a p60 host. Lots of work for little or no effect possibly even worse.