This is my best thrower right now. It's a Trustfire X7 that cranks over 500kcd without breaking a sweat. Hold it just right and the meter will hit 600. It's been modded to use a side switch, it runs off of a single 26650. There is no tailcap switch at all (just unscrew a little for lockout) and I used 18 gauge wire. It's got a BLF ultra low resistance FET Driver with a TomE code programmed four mode (Thanks Tom), with hidden strobe. XP-G2 S4 super cool tine De-domed on a noctigon that sits on another copper disc. Fantastic heatsinking so it can just run and run on turbo. At a quarter mile it still has a tight hotspot hitting the side of a forest. I don't have a camera that will take that far of a pic though. The trick on this one is to remove the bottom of the reflector so the de-domed emitter can sit up in it just a little bit. It will focus perfectly but takes a bit to get it right.
So what kind of super thrower do you guys bust out when you want to go long distance?
ProV1 and my driver. Tee it high and let it fly. Damn, lake again. Actually, the only dedicated thrower I’ve made is a Utilitech AAA with a direct to copper XRE that ran ~2.5A from a 10440. It had a pretty well focused die. I think maybe Bort has it now as was it was one of my first gaw’s. Probably fried the switch already. I think I have a few other aspherics to fit a p60 and Minimag AA and AAA but haven’t gotten around to a build. What else is new.
I just got a bunch of XP-E2’s that I’m playing with right now. I’m not sure yet what I plan to do with them though. Is 2.8 really the max on them with a noctigon? Do they get dimmer if you go over that?
My farthest throwers are factory, unmodified lights - Olight M3SX-UT at 1km (I measured 270k, 1040m) and SR52-UT at 800m (I measured 197k, 888m). I’m anxiously awaiting my BLF-TE Maxtoch Sniper as well.
The thrower I’m most proud of, however, is my XinTD C8 with de-domed XP-G2 at 4.5 amps. It measures 158k, 795m. Its an S2 bin emitter though - I want to swap in an S4 and maybe a better lens and see if I can’t squeeze a bit more out of it. I’m sure its not the strongest C8 on this forum, but I’m pretty happy with it
Nice collection! I bet the C8 is a blast to play with. I have one kinda like that and use it a lot. It’s just a cheap ultrafire C8 but it’s loaded up about the same as yours. Pretty incredible to get that many kcd out of such a small light but it can be done, especially if you have a really good reflector.
That X7 sure looks cool! Glad to hear the firmware worked out well. Is there a mod thread or details somewhere? I'm interested in how you did the side switch.
I've got a few dedicated throwers, some aspherics, but some are getting quite dated. Hopefully when I get a chance, I'll post some details on my best ones.
I came close a bunch of times to buying an FF4 I still want one too. One of these days! Yeah I think that was about right on the kcd too. I remember the threads and beamshots from them. That’s a cool light.
Thanks Tom. I haven’t posted any build threads in a while. I’ll try and post a nice thread the next time I do a switch like this one. I have put that same switch in all kinds of lights, mostly SRK’s and Plunger lights, even a Trustfire J20. Not much too it, it’s just a momentary “button” switch, millions of them for sale on google. Then just drill a hole. I guess the key is to find a place to fit it. I like this button switch because it’s Really “clicky”. It’s a nice firm Click and it snaps back. They are rated for something like a million clicks and you can even run current through them if you want to. It’s a switch I used on E-cig mods that I used to sell.
Thanks again for posting the code and I’ll look forward to seeing some of your throwers. I know you built a bunch of Super Shockers that were amazing, did you ever end up keeping one of them? I wonder what one of them would do with these S4’s in it?
No, didn't keep even one Shocker. I bought one with the intent of keeping it, but even that one got committed before I got it. No more Shockers for me - I'm done...
Dang, really want to know bout how you did the side switches. There's been some mod threads showing it, but I'm sure there's a variety ways. I have a stock of one size I needed to replace one, but never built one into a host myself. I got tons of questions on details of how exactly to do it, what parts are needed, etc. I'd love to add a side switch to the new Convoy L2 for example - really nice thrower host. Got a few HD2010's around that I'd love to get a side e-switch in as well, plus a lot more lights can't think of at the moment...
Have one in the works. Details SR90 reflector, UCL lens on order, XPG2 S4 on order, two different drivers rated at 6-7A & will test the best, have copper for heat sink to be turned/machined and have finished turned finned aluminum reflector/heatsink housing for Maglite.
I didn’t keep any of my shockers either, in fact right now the only big head triple I have left is a Lustefire one.
I’ll probably do another side switch in a week or two and post that one with some pics. The problem is that it all really depends on the individual light. I’m getting into doing some really small switches too those would work on light like the HD2010 that has very little room to do anything with. These large lights and the plunger style ones are easy to put switches in because of the large empty area.
It really depends on how well you mount it. On a regular aluminum star you can’t get close to that. You won’t even get smoke, it will just go Poof! gone. To get into the 6amp region you need not only a good copper star like a sinkpad or noctigon but you also have to do a really good job mounting it. I “lap” my pads and the surface area that they are going to be attached to. This means that I mate together the pad and the surface area. I’m basically polishing both the pad and the surface so that they are both perfectly flat in relation to one another. Then you use a very thin coating of thermal paste or epoxy. Just enough to take the place of any tiny air pockets. The goal is really to have as much metal to metal contact while filling the air pockets anyplace where there isn’t metal to metal contact. If you get that all correct then you still have to have a light that can transfer the heat away from that point of contact. If you create a bottleneck where the heat can’t escape from it will overheat and burn out. You can either transfer the heat away from that point of contact by allowing it to reach the surface of the light and transfer the heat into the air or into your hand or you can build a heatsink in the light itself. Build a heatsink and it has to be big enough to handle all that heat and still you must find a way to transfer it out or you are time limited to how long it takes for the heatsink to get too hot. In fact your entire light, including the batteries is your heatsink, you can add more mass to create a larger one but ultimately you need to get the heat out of the light.
Get all of this right and you can hit 7amps without frying your emitter. However, there is even more yet. The Driver must not have any errant current that spikes above that or it too will kill the emitter. It’s a very tricky business trying to run these emitters as high as possible. I have a box full of parts that didn’t make it for one reason or another. I used to get upset when I fried a driver or emitter now I just add it to the box and count it as a lesson learned. If I could get back the money I spent for the contents of that box it would be worth hundreds of dollars but the knowledge I gained has value too as do the products of that knowledge. I wonder what that box would be worth if everyone here on BLF tossed their broken drivers and fried emitters into it? It would have to be thousands and thousands of dollars, who knows how many man hours too!
