I don’t think you understand the ANSI FL1 specs. You see, light in general can travel very far distances as observed by the stars in the sky. Those little photons just travel forever, basically, unless they hit something (things like fog and dust are our biggest concerns). In a flashlight we shoot out a big bunch of photons that we try to focus in a beam the best we can. As the light moves away from it’s source we get this inverse square law that says the intensity drops by 3/4 or down to 25% every time we double the measured distance.
So when someone measures a flashlights throw distance we have to decide where to stop measuring. The ANSI FL1 specs chose a specific brightness level to stop at.
The full name is ANSI/NEMA FL 1-2009 Flashlight Basic Performance Standard.
ANSI = American National Standards Institute
NEMA = National Electrical Manufacturers Association
The FL1 standard sets all the lumen, run time, distance and water proof-ness standards.
Anyway, the throw is the distance in meters at which the flashlight produces a light intensity of 0.25 lux after being on 30 seconds. This is not very bright, about equal to a full moon on a clear night. So the beam of light does continue on further, but it’s below this set brightness level.
It’s not a practical or perfect level for us flashlight people, but at least it’s a standard we can all calculate easily and use to compare flashlights with. Typically the “usable” distance is closer to 1/3 or 1/2 the measured distance depending on the person. I prefer 1/3. So if I have a light that measures 600 meters I know I will see clearly out to 200 meters with it. Or I might take that 600 meters and convert it to roughly 600 feet (no math involved). I know it will be nice and bright to my eyes at that distance. Of course, you will be able to spot large, lightly colored objects at much further distances on a really dark or cloudy night.
How the heck does the charging work? I’ve tried plugging in both my laptop charger and phone charger into the light overnight and it does not charge the battery at all. Does it only work with a certain amperage or does it require a mode setting?
Welp, I must have gotten a lemon. I guess I’ll have to contact astrolux and see if I can get an exchange. Battery at 3.2 V, no change in light color when a USB c cable is plugged in and the charger does not indicate it’s being plugged in either.
,And I think you have too much time on your hands with all these explanations and graphs, not just to me but others also.I am far from an expert, you seem to provide a lot of information that I already know…like your a teacher or something!
I also think you may be related to the LATE Dr. Gauss163!
He stirs up a lot of trouble here on BLF, plus acts like a vindictive jerk. He screwed up the eBay seller ratings of Texas_Ace just to prove a point. He’s already changed his username once and has come close to being banned. He’s persona non grata around here as far as I’m concerned.
The light was in my mailbox when I got home, I need to charge some 26650’s, it’s got a 40T in it so I haven’t went to turbo but surprisingly I like the tint at lower power! Usually I strongly dislike green but this one isn’t so bad, yall had me expecting puke color…
My meter reads low but once a 26650 is charged I’m gonna get measurements (for comparison later) and then take it apart.
Looking at reviews, I just noticed that the FT-03 manual says ” it is fitted with one luminous SST40.2 “.
A google search finds no reference to the SST40.2 except in the group buy and pre-order threads on BLF and CPF and then only because of freeme’s original post containing the product release info from Astrolux (or Banggood).
The Banggood item page says only “SST40-W”. Does “SST40.2” or “SST40(2)” have any special meaning? It would almost appear that someone is mimicking Cree’s XHPxx.2 naming scheme and those are 2nd-generation products.
P.S. My order status just changed from “Back Order” to “Processing” again, which typically implies that it will ship soon. You never know, though.
Mine didn’t stayed stock for long :-p
I sliced and diced a 3V XHP50.2 6000K and put it in my FT03… 14,2A at the tail, 166kCd and an unknown lot of photons from the bright end (guesstimate 3000+ lumens ?)
It does heat quite fast for such as massive host, and the hotspot is bigger than stock.
The tint is warmer than the dome on LED of course, and the dicing get rid of the ugly green corona around the hotspot
