ooh, that’s a cute little optic, never used that one.
Here’s the LXP for XP-G2 (LXM for XM-L/2)
If you do score with Mouser, see if they’ll mix XP and XM Emily optics. They’re often the same optic with a different holder (larger hole for XM-L). I’d be happy to split it with you. I have a new helmet and bar light on the build list (ha!), so it’d be neat to try something different.
If there’s a particular 20mm optic you want beamshots for, let me know and I’ll dig through my pics to see if I have one. I don’t have an exhaustive list, but I have tested quite a few.
I just got a Solarforce M8 in the mail. Straight out of the mailbox, I kid you not, my IR gun shows it at 104.8º!! Texas is breaking it in for me. I had to put new license plates on my car this morning, lay one down and remove 2 screws to take off the old one, put the 2 screws back in and go to pick up the other new one off the ground and it’s about too hot to hold onto from direct sunshine, and this before noon!
The M8, right out of the box, was 104.8º, no sunshine on it at all! Crazy stuff.
Lookin at that ledil, wondering why if optics are so efficient why can’t they have a tighter beam pattern?
Edit: Ok, thanks Matt, gonna have to get me a couple of those Leila RS you just showed…94% efficiency with a real spot beam pattern at 10º? Right down my alley and it looks like a drop-in for the L2 series lights, perfect!
that’s pretty hot I hope that the humidity is low or that’d be miserable.
TIR optics just work differently that’s all. I don’t understand all of the physics, but reflectors just seem better at collecting light into a spot, whereas TIR optics spread the light out more. All that internal reflection I guess! You can get spotty optics, but the beam is almost always smoother and rarely has the sharp cut off that reflectors have, which is why I like them. I don’t normally need to see more than 100ft in front of me as I don’t travel that fast, so throw is not so important.
Be aware with the Leila/ LXP that they’re not great throwers. If you want a narrow wall of light with little to no hotspot, they’re awesome though. They’re quite unique in that regard!
Well, today has been fun! Not an easy day, but interesting nonetheless. I spent about 6 hours making a pill for my Solarforce L2m shorty out of a 1” bar of 6061 aluminum. With a hole bored and threaded in one end of about a 3” long bar, I mounted it via a 1/4” ss screw into my Makita cordless drill and went at it with my rotary tool. First I shaped the pill to fit into the host. Then I shaped the reflector, not an easy straight sided reflector but a parabolic curve. Total guesstimate on my part on the depth and width and curve ratio and it might be total crap, I sure hope not! Then I cut the reflector off of the pill, shaped the end of the remaining portion to accept the driver and then cut that off. Easy enough, right? Wrong! lol
The piece wobbled and could not be totally made to rotate perfectly. Even though the hole was bored and tapped at the machine shop down the street from me in a manual lathe. Oh well. Ya does what ya can wit wat ya got! So the reflector is off center. Hopefully the lil XP-G2 on a Noctigon won’t mind at all.
Here’s what it looks like so far. Still have to fit it for the Noctigon/emitter combination, drill it for wires and mount it p.
Tomorrow will hopefully find out if it works as planned. At the very least, it’ll hopefully be better than the TIR that was intended to go in this light. If worst comes to worst, maybe I can put the TIR in place of this reflector. We’ll see.
For the record. Mothers Billet Polish is truly incredible! Even an old can mostly dried up.
That is totally amazing. That reflector looks better most commercial reflectors. I've read that aluminum can be made to be like 97?% reflective, but that has to be the best I have ever seen it done. Best wishes on its performance.
Thank you, keep your fingers crossed that it’s not a total flop after all the work I put into it. How far do you think I took it with the sandpaper? Would you believe 400 grit? Then I flipped the paper over and used the backside with Mothers Billet Polish. It says Incredible on the can, and that it is!
Really? I imagined some crazy elaborate process that just began after using 2000 grit paper. Thanks for the info. Now if I could figure out how to shape a reflector. I wonder if a small laser can be used to test where the light will reflect.
You ever planning to try to make a waven (spelling?) collar?
Well, some things just don’t work out. The reflector is a wash. I inset the Noctigon w/XP-G2 to get the emitter further up into the reflector. The entire die is inside the opening to the reflector, and above the lowest point. Still not enough. Big dark hole in the beam.
So, I put the Carclo TIR in from the top of the head by removing the lens and cutting the locator tab off the optic. The bezel screws down against the TIR, sealing it against the rubber washer that the glass lens formerly occupied. So it’s got the waterproofness that it came with, but a somewhat more delicate “lens” in the polycarbonate optic.
Very large solid chunk of aluminum for the heatsink, so the XP-G2 at 3.04A(driver spec, have yet to take a reading) should be able to run without getting too hot and still make pretty intense light. Looks good to me! I had some flickering issues, so I drilled a very small hole beside the driver and put a small bolt in, and of course that broke off right about the point it was making contact, but the “stud” is engaged with the ground ring so it’s all good, solid light now.
Whole lot of work went into that reflector, might be able to salvage it later…but not this time.
Edit: This little shorty is making .06A Lo, .70A Med, and 2.76A Hi with an Efest IMR18350 cell. Will try to get some beamshots tonight to show the TIR at work.
To my surprise, the XP-G2 in a P-60 drop-in outdoes the XP-G2 in a TIR Optic. I took the XM-L2 out of a Solarforce P-60 drop-in, 3 mode version, and used the remaining XP-G2 R5 2B on Noctigon so these 2 Solarforce L2m’s share emitters, but their drivers are quite different. The Q-Lite has 4 added chips and of course that light has the Carclo TIR on top of a solid host filling aluminum 6061 heat sink. The 18350 IMR’s from Efest can’t fulfill the chip demands, but do quite well at some 2.76A with the QLite and 1.86A from the stock Solarforce driver. Kind of crazy they’re this close together in output with such radically different drivers and amperage pulls.
First at 24yds, 28mm wide angle, Then zoomed in to 112mm, then at 97yds zoomed in at 112mm. I put the 2 lights side by side for comparison in the pics with the Solarforce driver being first(the one on the left) in these 3 sets.
The TIR puts all the light in a tighter area, while the P-60 drop-in has some spill and a tighter hot spot. I do believe I like the XP-G2 in the drop-in pill better! Hope this makes sense! I’m tired, and frustrated that my reflector didn’t work…would have been totally amazed if it had with zero prior experience making reflectors.
From the drawn idea up above, to the actual that I managed to make looking something like this.
Pretty easy to see that I didn’t follow tried and true design paramaters for an XP-G2 LED. And the beam pattern shows it. But all in all it’s not bad, so I’m ok with it.
Totally recut the reflector. Top to bottom, in order to seat the reflector further onto the emitter. Nice salad bowl shape, if I do this again I’ll have to figure out how to stretch that shape out a bit. Oh well, at least now the beam has a hot spot, even if it’s a bit ringy. Part of that is the bezel itself, easy to see the indentions cut for tightening the bezel into the head. But I got to play with the Mothers Incredible Billet Polish again and I must say, this stuff is Incredible! Even an old mostly dried up can works wonders on 6061 aluminum. I’m happy with this, will now leave well enough alone.
But of course I have made some adjustments and gotten the beam to look a little better. Did y’all really believe I could leave it alone?
I got caught up in the moment and made it a half circle. My bad.
The how got me more involved than the why. Left hand holding a cordless drill stable, right hand manipulating a dremel tool with a worn down 20mm cut-off wheel. Between stabilizing the equipment and focusing on the entry point, I lost sight of the emittance angle.
Oh well, I have more of the 1” aluminum 6061 still mounted, might just have another go at it…after recuperating from this one that is! lol With any luck at all, having done it so wrong will assist me in doing it right.
I am glad you are keeping us entertained. I love to watch your madness!
LED reflector "V" shaped, Incandescent reflector "U" shaped. That is all...
That is a really nice looking finish on it. I am impressed with that polish. Guess I might have to get some. I have some "Blue" stick rouge compound and it works well with a dremel and MAAS polish. I want to get some of the cloth wheels for the dremel. I don't care much for the felt ones.
Of course I knew the “U” vs. “V” thing, but my first attempt failed and when I was recutting it I got so caught up in holding everything. Once I got the bowl going it dawned on me I was going to be missing a lot of the beam emanated from the 115º emitter but by then I was already committed. Couldn’t get out of the straight jacket at that point.
Felt wheels tend to leave scratches in my experience. Honestly, this stuff is so incredibly easy it’s ridiculous! I got a pretty good cut with the cut-off wheel, cleaned it up in just a few minutes with 400 grit, no lower grades used, then hit it with 600 grit briefly before flipping the paper over and using the paper side for the polish. Worked like a champ, the polish turned black very quick and after wiping it out with a sleeve cut off an old T shirt it took about 2 more of those runs and it was a mirror. A few minutes on the polish side, seriously.
I left the reflector taped to the 1” bar with 3M automotive weatherstrip adhesive, spun the reflector and held the polish paper with my finger. Piece of cake.
I had a brainstorm! All is not lost! (yet) I made the classic U shape that an incandescent bulb likes, instead of the V shape an LED likes, right? Well, what’s the standard there? The dome on the emitter! Without the dome, the LED emits light in a near 180º pattern, much like an incandescent bulb.
So the XP-G2 is In The Gas!
I didn’t just leap to conclusions, I put the hand made reflector on top of a de-domed XM-L already in a light. And the beam was much tighter, much nicer. So yeah, it should work just fine. An hour or two will tell the story….
I hope it works for you. Unfortunately, both domed and dedomed emitters have similar beam patterns according to DrJones. Maybe the smaller more intense emitter area will help.
Not quite 2 hours in the gas and it’s clean. But, it’s got a bit of a green tint to it now that wasn’t there before. Can’t win for losing. It did tighten up the beam pattern in my reflector, leaving a square center with a ringy spill in several layers. Still not exactly good. Maybe even more so than before the de-dome.
The TIR likes the de-dome better though, it gives a tight enough beam that you can see the beam outdoors and it throws well over 50 yds, surprising how much more focused the beam is in the optic. Still a bit off color, but not quite as bad somehow.
These shots are confusing to me. And I’m sure it’s partly that I’m not having a great day physically. But oh well. The first one is my reflector with the wrong cut. I believe it’s on medium and I didn’t get one on hi, silly me.
This is the TIR on med as well, considerably tighter now than before but still with some outer rings that aren’t visible here.
And this is the TIR on high, the camera is showing more green than the eye sees, but it is pretty intense at some ~2.97A for the XP-G2 R5 2B
I was laying on the floor shooting at the ceiling, 1’ square white Styrofoam ceiling tiles. After I put the TIR back in and got it centered, I discovered I hadn’t caught my reflector on hi for a matching shot. Too late, not taking it back apart. Outside, the TIR is realling putting it out, that blue streak through the night air is pretty impressive, especially considering this is a palmable light that will easily slip into a front pocket…the L2m shorty.
This is 2 lights that are the same, yet vastly different. Both Solarforce L2m hosts. Both have XP-G2 R5 2B emitters. Both have Noctigon pcbs. Both are using an AW IMR18350 cell. The 1st one has a TIR optic over a de-domed emitter, a Q-Lite driver and is running 2.97A. The second one has a Solarforce P-60 3 mode drop-in that has had the XM-L2 U2 swapped for the XP-G2. That’s it, 2nd light just had an emitter swap in a common P-60 drop in. And is running some sub 2A output. The driver must be doing some boosting, as it’s made to run 1 or 2 cells. It comes very close to performing as well as the overly modified 1st light.
TIR will be 1st, P-60 light is 2nd, my reflector is 3rd (this is as adjusted as I can get it, sort of a glorified mule as it were), 1st set is at 97 yds to the red oil drum, zoomed out at 28mm then zoomed in to 112mm. 2nd set is at 37 yds to shed, wide then zoomed to the same degree. All settings on camera remained the same at ISO1600 F/5.8 (F5.6 for wide angle) and .5 sec exposure.
While the TIR performs much better with the de-domed emitter, I’m still liking the P-60 conversion better.
If it didn't have that bright inner ring, I would prefer your homemade reflector for walking and working in the yard. I like the wide spill. I don't have the best eye for it, but it seems it also has slightly better cri too.
I had to put new license plates on my car this morning, lay one down and remove 2 screws to take off the old one, put the 2 screws back in and go to pick up the other new one off the ground and it’s about too hot to hold onto from direct sunshine, and this before noon!
