I purchased 21 glass aspheric/convex lenses from wellparts about 2 weeks ago. I wanted to see what the quality was like and if any of them were something I could use for aspheric builds.
They came today. They were packaged in a sturdy box and wrapped well with foam padding. Each lens was in a plastic bag. Overall, the packaging was great.
Out of 21 lenses I found 3-4 that I probably would not use. Two had black spots in the glass and three were not fully formed (all 3 were in the 13mm batch).
The biggest lens (and the one I really wanted) is a "75mm" and it measures 74.75mm OD. I am going to use it in a shower head, fitted to a Maglite with an SST-90.
Here are the 13mm (13.21mm OD) and 15mm (15.12mm OD), notice how the 13mm is deformed.
The 23mm (22.86mm OD)
The 28mm (27.98mm OD) Notice the chip and the black specs, which wiped off with a cloth. Some of the black specs were embedded in the glass.
Overall, I am satisfied with the purchase. The lenses came within two weeks from ordering and most of them are usable. The OD varies from lens to lens, but I haven't found any that wasn't "close enough", except for the 13mm, which seem to be deformed.
I wanted to find something I might be able to use in a AA or AAA Maglite and I "think" I can use the smaller ones for that. I also wanted the 28mm for a tractor supply light.
I would recommend give a positive to wellparts for packaging and shipping times, but like anything from overseas, it's still a crap shoot. EDIT: (per the post from willie) I have not tested any of these lenses and I won't be testing any till fall, so take it with a grain of salt. I do not know how they will work with a LED. (How's that?)
OL, I think you are being objective but until a LED is put behind these lenses don’t give them a thumbs up. Many of the lens that looked good for me ended up putting out multiple images or a blurry spot. All of us have different acceptability levels. Hope all your lenses fit your needs.
I didn’t see a problem with it.
Now I’m going to do what I should have done and test the 28mm one tonight when I get home. I held the 75mm one to my maglite and it focuses to a square die or to a round beam, as I move it, but that’s not a good test. I have a light to put the 28mm one into, so I will know by tomorrow.
Well, it was a poor test. I just used cardboard around it and held it up to the maglite body (my wife’s), I had, with a U2 in it and slid it forward and back. At 10 feet, I could focus a square die on the wall and it was in focus well enough to see the typical details and I could go the other way to get a clean round beam, but I have no clue as to distances from the led to the lens. It seemed to me that it was a long distance to focus a square die, but for what I’m going to do (a shower head attached to a maglite head), I’m going to have plenty of room to get the adjustment right.
I will try the 28mm tonight by putting it into a light I got at Tractor Supply and see what it does. I may try putting the 75mm in the shower head to see, but I think it will not fit without some “massaging”. I hadn’t planned on it till this fall, but I might get round to testing it.
Hell, for the price of these, it’s not really a loss if someone buys one to try out.
I appreciate your reply. I have more than 10 75mm lenses from different shops, but only 2 are usable. One of them is even better than 66mm lens from DX. If you think your lens is also good, I might buy a couple.
Here is a quick beam shot from my 2 good lenses. Other ones have all sorts of halos around the die image. The good one is a perfect die image with all the bars and wires in focus.
OL, Can’t argue cuz I’m cheap and one of the reasons BFL is my preferred forum. My gripe was the first aspherical lenses purchased from DX were the best. Maglites are great with an adjustable focus. Don’t know if you remember my TR1200 PT54 red aspheric build but there were four of them built. After my initial purchase of my 52mm DX lens every other lense (28&52) from DX,KD,Lightake and Wellparts was bad. Between ordering was the waiting of several months. Finally found Optolife 50mm (A286) lenses. Totally smoked the best DX lens. Not only that but they were dimensionally identical and was able to machine all four TR1200 host to the exact same focal point with total interchangeable parts. Run a AR coated aspheric on my green PT120 4D Maglite. Image is so clean can see the ”Photo Lattice” wires on the wall (where the name PHLATlight comes from). Hopefully the old quality has returned. Willie
I have the 66mm and 75mm from DX (these are essentially car HID projector lens copies) and also some smaller ones from KD (50mm? 44mm?). The 28mm ones for P60 drop-in are also very good and frankly as much throw as practically necessary. Those just replace P60 lenses and headstand with the Solarforce L2 strike bezel. It’s a 1 min aspheric mod. They all form a die image with at most some barrel distortion which is perfectly reasonable for our application.
Okay, Okay, maybe I should rephrase that. My wife’s Maglite. The one that I made for her, but I keep taking it back for every little experiment that comes up.
She’s a lot better looking than a Maglite (I would say that even if she weren’t reading over my shoulder).
There is something that I’d like to see someone do (I don’t have machining skills) and that is to make a fixed aspheric thrower where the emitter is mounted on a heatsink with a pedestal profile.
I think Match did something like that in copper but it wasn’t used in an aspheric application.
I have some experience experimenting with aspheric throwers and modifying those types of lights.
Flood to throw lights generally have more rings than in a fixed application. The Smallsun ZY-C10-S (or my copy at least) has one of the cleaned beams but it still has rings.
When I used that same lens in another (fixed) application most of the rings disappeared. They would almost all disappear if the emitter was mounted on a pedestal.
The rings (for the most part) come from the other internal parts of the light that are on the same plane as the emitter. If you focus the lens on the emitter and have the emitter raised several mm from the rest of the heat sink then there will be nothing else that will come into focus.
If anyone is able to do this or has done this I’d like to hear about it.
What a coincidence (for me). I just bookmarked some aspheric lenses from ebay seller wellparts the other day. I’m just trying to decide which hosts I want to uses.
