I remember these from long ago, and nowadays they’re cheap on ebay — lots of varieties.
Basically: a battery case with a socket for a flashbulb, and around that a fan-fold metal reflector.
Usually the battery case is at right angles to the light source, but some of them are inline.
The reflector pieces are either smooth or pebble-textured, the curve is defined by the shape — and the reflector leaves, depending on what they’re made of, might work as a heat diffuser when spread out.
I wonder if a decent reflector could be made from reflective mylar and be inflated into proper shape? That would save space for single use emergency signal lights.
Not likely anytime soon, I’m barely getting SK68s modded myself, I’ll work up to it.
So just thinking, tossing the idea out in case someone happens across one.
I’m old enough to remember using these for flashguns. They were well made — they had to produce an even light distribution across the image and hold up under repeated opening and closing.
The leaves didn’t slide across one another, they were springy enough to separate and stay separate til you pulled the thing around to make a full circle, and that pulled them into the bowl/reflector position. Unclipping them let them separate slightly and stay that way as they were folded, then a clip would press them together for storage.
And the surface was often chrome plate (some shiny, some orangepeel) on some moderately flexible metal, likely bronze or steel. That surface didn’t scratch easily.
(chrome plating used to be easy to get done locally; I used to take brass and bronze sculpture pieces to a local shop — no longer open nearby though.)
I mention it because they’re now around cheap for a while, til they get landfilled. Grab one if you see one and think it might be worth fiddling with, before they’re gone.
Those reflectors were made for flood, not throw, and for a bulb that shines in all directions, about half of the light going backwards, while a led shines only forward: this reflector will hardly catch any light from a led unless it is mounted inwards, the recoil thrower set-up.
And if you do a recoil setup a lot of the light coming directly forward from the LED will hit the center section where there’s no reflector and be absorbed. My guess is you’d get less flood than you would with a mule setup with no reflector.
It still has the cone of light (115°), coming from a wee (less wee than an XP-G, granted) flat plate. Still not the kind of light source the Parabolic reflector was designed to accommodate. Still a dirty kludge with no real hope except to get more people to notice we don’t have any decent reflectors for LEDs yet. At least these folders get out of the way when you’re not using them. And it’s still possible to recurve them to catch more of the main light output…
I still wonder how hard it would be to grow an LED on a ball, instead of a flat plate…
Or why Cree, etc. can’t hire Engineers to design some way to make their LEDs work right. And no, I don’t mean TIRs, although they do seem more likely to provide Joy ATM… But TIRs can’t replace all the missing spectrum.
Meanwhile, I’m learning to ignore the “Rotten Cat Urine Green” ring, separating the “NW” (“NonWhite”) or “CW” (“ColoredWhite”) or “WW” (“WannabeWhite”) light from the Lurid Lavender outer ring… Not learning it well, but slowly realizing it does no good to worry over it. Until it starts friggin BLINKING…
Laugh with me, light lovers, so we don’t go mad screaming…
Or (since this is the Budget Light Forum, not the Budget LED Forum…) we could go back to Thomas Edison’s way, the burning wire. That still works fine.
