I was thinking in experimenting with optical coated lenses in my throwers to concentrate the beam a little more without going full aspheric, has anyone tried it? What type of lens do you recommend? I don’t want to remove the reflector I just want replace the optical window with a lens to concentrate the beam a little more.
Here is a picture of the type of lenses I am considering
What type of lens and what FL (Focal lenght) should I try to just concentrate the beam a little without removing the reflector?
My guess would be a Positive Meniscus (PMN) a Plano or Bi convex (PCX / DCX) or an aspheric with a very long FL so the beam will converge way out in the distance.
It will not improve the beam of a reflector light. The rays are no longer point source (as much as an LED can be) but partially collimated. Potentially a small aspheric mounted to focus the light that doesn’t hit the lens could improve throw, but I’m not sure it’ll improve the beam.
Also, things are kind of slow around here on the weekends. People are with their families or modding. During the week they’re at work surfing BLF so you’ll get a lot more replies Monday. :bigsmile:
BTW something weird happened, have you unsoldered a led from the MPCB by overtorque of the reflector?
That just happened to me with an XP-L Hi using a centering ring, I was WTF, led started turning blue then went off, I was thinking I killed it, open it up, resolder the led to the MPCB and it works fine again… Weird!
The simple theory says that throw depends on the diameter of the optics, not the type or how many optical elements there are. In practice it is not as black and white as the theory, but don't expect more than a few percent improvement with anything.
Hold the lens and reflector stationary when unscrewing the bezel. A rubber eraser works well for this; get a soft “Mars” eraser from an art supply if you can. MEM seems to understand aspherics and lenses very well, I just follow along with him as I know little :bigsmile: But I’m pretty sure KKW is right- a reflector not designed for an aspheric will not be helped by adding that lens; you’ll need a more appropriate host.
