Well, here I am out in the "wilds". Unfortunately I forgot to bring the card reader or any way of attaching the cameras to the computer. Pictures will appear tomorrow night once I get home. So some measurements before I forget them. I mostly think in metric, but my measuring tape is in feet. The feet measurements are measured, any metric ones are approximations.
There is a post stuck into the ground 115 feet (35m) from the camera which I used as the aiming point for all these pics though with the less powerful lights, I couldn't even see the post.
The corner on the left of the barn is 26 feet (8m) from the camera, the young tree 38 feet.
The protrusion from the steading on the left (Where the tractor lives) is 69 feet (21m) from the camera, and the building on the right 88 feet (27m).
Just for Ted:
There are now four non house-trained horses here, all of whom were drinking out of an old bathtub. Never will crack having indoors horses... :wink:" class="smiley-class smileysProcessed" />
Or chickens. Those guys have no sense of responsibility at all!!!!!
The cats wouldn't know what to do if they didn't have hay bales to climb onto to get away from the dogs - and to eat on so the dogs don't get their food. Moving ton weight hay bales into the house is a bit tricky
I worked on a really remote island in '89. Will never forget visiting these 4 75+ year old brothers. None of the family had ever married and their sister who'd kept house for them had finally died of overwork a few years before. I'd been well warned not to accept anything to eat or drink from them. The reason for these warnings became clear when I discovered 3 sheep in their living room. And the pig.
Here are the assorted distances written over the RC-T6 High beamshot
The card reader I tried managed to corrupt the card I put in it. Fortunately the metadata survived data recovery and I'd taken a rough note of the times the shots were taken and which picture was which. There may be the odd error here though. Pictures uploading as I type. They'll be displayed more or less in the order they were taken which is roughly the order of light output. The RC-T6 ones don't look right to me though.
Someone has poured glue into Photobucket's upload servers again which isn't helping. Might try Imageshack in future to see if they are any quicker. I'm only getting half of what I am supposed to have for upload bandwidth.
Data recovery is incredibly boring.
Here's the test range and first control shot to be going on with. There will be a later one as there was much less light in the sky by the time I'd finished. The choice of range was deliberate as there are lots of features to see what is going on with the beams.
Test range - looking roughly WNW.
The tree is at 38 feet, the blue barrel at 65 feet, the protruding steading on the left just behind the barrel at 69 feet, the corner of the right-hand building at 88 feet and the post at 114 feet. The back wall is at 140 feet or thereabouts
Control 1
The faint glow in the lower right is one of those solar garden lights which is rather broken.
Some therapeutic ranting while they uploaded did help.
So here we go.
ROP High. The barrel on the right is about 3.5m away, the broken solar light at just short of 14 feet. The aiming point for all of these was the post I'd knocked into the ground at 115 feet. Will annotate a pic with the features and distances later.
This is a 2D mag with a pair of KD lithium D cells.
ROP Low. This is a 6D Mag running 6 NiMH cells. Good for something like 4 hours of lots of light. Bit bulky though.
Romisen RC-T6 High (Doesn't seem right to me but that's what the notes say.)
Romisen RC-T6 Medium
RC-T6 Low
Romisen RC-T5 High
Romisen RC-T5 Low
ElektroLumens Tri-Blaster. This is a triple Luxeon K2 emitter driven by 4 C NiMH cells. It is direct drive and I keep meaning to reduce the resistance in it and upgrade it to more recent K2 emitters. It has a huge chunk of copper in it as a heastink and it can still burn hands. Now seems sadly dim but was incredibly bright at the time. It wasn't even remotely close to a budget light - AFAIK it cost me $140 4 years ago.
Ultrafire WF-500 - another incan light. Probably around the 350-400 lumen range. Draws about 4A from the2 18650 cells. Has a slightly brighter Philips bulb in it. Pretty cheap for a 300 lumen plus light.
Aurora AK-P7 High - a single 18650 with an SSC P7 (essentially the same guts as the Cree MC-E LED as Cree make the dies for SSC. SSC's phosphors and beam pattern are preferred by some
Aurora AK-P7 Low. It uses a resistor for low and is basically a direct drive light - would probably be a fair bit brighter with IMR 18650 cells but those are not cheap.
XP-G R4 dropin - used to be a 5 mode but now a single mode due to its lack of 8.4V compatibility. Not as bad as the R5 dropin that I thought was an 18V part but turned out to be a 4.2V part. When it got fed by 16.8V from 4 CR123's it died...
Next up a KD MC-E dropin. Pity I ordered an XP-G R5 dropin from them! I think it is a 4.2V part, since it shuts off after about 15 secs on high. It was being fed 8.4V in a Solarforce L2M host with extension tube. The reflector is completely unsuited to the LED and the ringiness of the beam can be seen even outdoors where you normally won't notice such nasties. You can see a bit of it in the ROP low beam as it just didn't want to give me clean focus last night.
Anyway Mystery KD MC-E dropin High. On 8.4V it is quite a bit brighter than the DX one - but it probably not going to be long-lived at 8.4V
For some reason i still like the beam of the T6 and 5, more of a flood if you know what i mean. You can see everything thats going on in the pic. Wonderful shots as always Don. Awesome throwers indeed.
Ultrafire WF-504B with the 5 mode R2 dropin it came with. This is nice
High
Medium
Low
Aurora SH-032 (Stainless Steel 18650 R2 emitter) I like it a lot.
Low
These two don't look right to me. Seem a bit on the dim side. Check my review of it here http://budgetlightforum.cz.cc/node/190
Now for some smaller sized lights. To give them a chance against the 18650 guys, all of these are running on 14500 or RCR123 lithium cells. Short runtimes, lots of heat, lots of light. Trustfire F22 stainless steel first. This is an R2 light.
High
Medium
Low
Ultrafire RL-118. A CR123 light that draws a LOT of current. Won't work with protected RCR123 cells on high. Works nicely with IMR 123 cells though. Another of my stainless steel lights.
High
Low
Uniquefire AA-S1 (14500). This is an Osram LED in the same body as the Akoray K-106. Review here http://budgetlightforum.cz.cc/node/142
Uniquefire S10. Mine is the single mode - there appear to be issues with the 6 mode one - review here http://budgetlightforum.cz.cc/node/122
Romisen RC-F4. Wonderful light designed for 2xRCR123. Not fat enough to take an 18650 but works fine on a 17670. This shot is with 2xRCR123 as it is less bright on a 17670. Single mode - Jayki gave it 6 stars.
It is a registered croft (small hill farm) though the only crop is grass for the horses. I'd guess the main house is around 250 years old, but it has been heavily modernised and hugely extended. The incredible collection of outbuildings, barns etc. is typical of this part of Scotland and may be typical of farms everywhere, I'd not know. It is about 5 miles north of the small town of Fyvie.
Pity the dogs kept "helping out". Ended up locking them indoors. Did take a bit of time though, charging batteries, organising lights and so on. I must arrange another tripod and light clamp so I can keep the aimpoint the same - it was very clear as I imported the pictures that the aimpoint wasn't the same in all of them. The ones that are off are usually to the left but one or two I'm aiming too low. Must check the toy budget for the month - not a large amount since these two guys just arrived.
Aurora SH-033 http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.33814 which is a Q5 light running on a CR2 (15266) cell and Aurora SH-034 which is an R2 running on a CR123. Both are quite large for their battery size. Time to put the cells in and play!
Given less than a minute of play - doesn't seem that bright but remember what I spent last night doing. Will need to play some more and stick them both on the lightbox to be sure. I think the problem is my perception. Just dug out my 160 lumen Orb Raw which gives me about 10 minutes on high. The SH-033 is quite a bit brighter and the SH-034 is brighter than the 033. By eye, the SH-032 (18650) is about the same brightness and has a bit better beam. The heads of the 32 and 34 are actually interchangeable, they may actually be the same other than the engraving. The 33 head is a lot smaller.
Will do the meters and stuff soon and write up a review soon.
Might even do a different thread for both. The 34 doesn't really tailstand.
I can't believe how much laying with the big stuff has skewed my perceptions - these little guys seem dim. Which they are not. At least not unless the Trustfire F22, Ultrafire C3 SS and Aurora SH-032 are dim. And they aren't.
