New 21700, Osram CULNM1.TG Boost, 5a, Zoomie, possible group buy from.....

We’ll after months, actually just over a year of talking to a few friendly folks at a certain company in Shenzhen I am proud to announce the possibility of a group purchase for a slightly custom light.

However before I am going to ask for people to throw their money at an unproven manufacturer, I would like to point out that tons of you are familiar with this certain OEM/ODM company even if you don’t know them, in fact many of you have one of their spectacular lights or may have even participated in the last BLF group buy from them. I’m speaking of Nitesun, the umbrella parent company of Odepro, Brintyte and offers licences to Assfee, Securitying and Orcatorch. The last group buy from Brintyte had a few difficulties and troubles so I decided way back then if they ever made a new Zoomie that offers a wide variety of cool features I was going to make it my mission to make it possible.

so without further ado…

The Nitesun HT Series B.L.F. Custom

for those of you unfamiliar with the HT series of flashlight from Nitesun, they are the next iteration of the B158 that so many still cherish. the HT series offers an improved lens, sleeker and smoother body without necessary bumps and bulges, a DC tailcap addition for hunters, and the same quality craftsmanship that you will find in the B158 that still sells like crazy.

Here’s a few links to review of this particular light.

s://youtu.be/2dCnw79KYSU

For those of you on mobile or that prefer to read,

So if you haven’t watched or read any of the fun specs stats and nerdy bits I’ll break it down for you.

The custom light will include:

25.4mm body without tube with 1.6mm added internal Diameter removed to accomodate 21700 batteries. the length is already adequate for up to 74mm cells without any modifications whatsoever.

driver swapped out for a 5000mA constant current driver, modes will be ML-L-M-H with a possibility of Turbo as the highest, there’s already some predome drivers I have looked at that offer 4 or 5 modes with hidden moonlight. NO STROBE

LED swapped out for a Osram KW CULNM1.TG on a copper DTP 20mm board.

The brass pill will have been nearly flattened from the b158 predecessor to accomodate up to 20mm board with 17mm driver.

Tailcap tested and rated for 6-10a with the fancy Copper Bwrrylium spring.

4 interchangable heads that cover sizes from 30-66mm and everything inbetween. Not sure which base model will be the final group buy, but probably going to be the 40ish or 55ish mm head so it’s accessable to the most people.

This light also comes not standard with every that you’ve come to love from the B158, double rings on the tail and body, quality matte/semi satin ha3, and just about anything else you could want from a quality Zoomie.

So, now that I have some of your attention, I haven’t finalized the deal with Nitesun, although I have gotten a quote, If we go with the largest 66mm lens, and they are able to provide everything they say they can, the price just for this first limited run of lights will be $50 BLF members and should normally retail for $75. Additional Heads for the light will run for this limited time between $14-20.

So all in all if you were to but in now it’s about $105 for the best Zoomie light available, with the best throw emitter, ran at 5amps, and with 4 different sized flashlight heads all from a trusted manufacturer, Nitesun (Brintyte). I am having palpations just imagining it.

The caveats….

in order to produce a sample they are going to need $2000 up front, then an additional $36,000 to do a run of 1000. After talking with them for a long time I believe all they will need to do we costs for the run will be 33% down or in simpler terms in order for this light to become a reality there would need to be 200 people willing to sign up for a flashlight on pre-order status., OR about 125 if people average 2 extra flashlight heads with their purchase.

I know this may be a pretty big number for the economic climate right now, but then again this is BLF and I am not sure if I am severely underestimating or overestimating you guys.

So hopefully this isn’t against the rules of BLF or the spirit of this place. I was just hoping to get a chance to see this project through to deliver the bestest possible Zoomie available.

So, NOT TAKING ANY ORDERS NOW, this is just to gauge interest in this light.

if you are willing to purchase this on pre-order status can we please start a possible spreadsheet or list of names, purchase quantity and any additional Heads that you’d buy (30mm, 40mm, 50mm 66mm) and get a running total? once we hit the 125-200 orders threshold I can get the prototype started and shared here and maybe we can get this thing made.

s. Custom laser engraved “B.L.F. Custom” was what I was hoping to go with for the side, but more than happy to take suggestions.

im not a very hardcore flashaholic, so i would need to see some pictures and specs to get a better understanding of what this light is like. but i do have one suggestion, i think just “B.L.F” is better than “B.L.F. Custom” for side engraving.

Noted on the BLF engraving.

If you want to get a better idea for the light itself and are familiar with the Brintyte b158… Or really any of Brintytes flashlights you’ll get the asthetic. If not, the first YouTube link is a 20 minute video focusing on the current HT12, The modifications that are preposed to it include no real cosmetic changes, however it will be running 1.8X higher amperage, with a LED with nearly double the flux and a quarter the size. This makes for a hotspot that is much smaller, much tighter and throws
….

Well I would put a rough estimate at close to 700k. Stock with the 66mm lens it’s been tested at 190k so doubling the brightness of the led and cutting down the size by half should present an 8x increase in brightness, however it isn’t a perfect world, so I’m not hoping for 1.6mcd but anything over 750k should be adequate for most folks and this thing should with a rough guess and comparison to my B158 with CULNM1 this thing should throw quite a bit further.

If you have any other questions please please let me know I want to get this light made for real.

i just watched a video on the b158, i guess the only thing i dont quite understand is the heads, when you say interchangeable heads, do you mean the LEDs like the b158? white, green, red, infrared? or do you mean actual reflector head with different sizes? if the latter, whats the purpose of having different size heads? im assuming the biggest one would throw the best, but since its a zoomie, how does this come into play?

So it will be a variation of the b158 with 1mm2 led and 5 amp driver?

Before I watch these long movies - is it push pull or a twisty zoomie?

Twist.

This light needs a real copper pill not brass like is pictured. A shorter tailcap option without DC plug would be nice too.

If BLF members are going to foot the bill for a cheap zoomie that already exist in 18650 form you should do more than the minimum changes.

What size lens are you using? The B158 is like a 50mm aspheric, If this light is using the 66mm lens its more like the UF 1504? I have both lights with a flat white in them.

Personally I have never heard of or seen this of this make before. (Any of the variants being mentioned by the op.)

What sort of money do they normally go for? of those HT models for sale.

BTW - can buy a 5amp driver and Osram on a copper star for about $10 so it would be good to know how this group buy price compares to their regular model price wise.

Also am I understanding this correct. You want 200 orders just to get a prototype built (which I assume would go only to the op). How many orders would you need to allow this to go into production?

Thanks to the link posted above, looks like these are $40 today.

The value added would be a new driver/LED/bored out tube/springs

However, the brass pill is probably going to become inadequate after those upgrades. The tail switch is clearly bad if you look at the remote switch it’s the kind with the “cap” on the spring which is always a bad sign. Something to have the “BLF” version stand out would be like a stainless bezel but these cheap brands never seem to make that happen.

It could be good if the lens is decent but it probably needs a few more improvements to really stand out.

Too bad, I’m out then.

Personally I wouldn’t be fussed at all about boring out for a 21700. The real world gains are fairly minimal IMO if at all noticeable without measuring equipment. Plenty of good 18650 batteries.

No idea about the switch. And not saying I wouldn’t ultimately be interested. I just can’t quite get the figures to add up.

Its always nice to see someone try to make BLF a nicer place to be. Trying to set up a project like this takes a lot of work and patience. Im not sure if you followed the blf gt project, but that sure took some effort.

I know this is still some sort of gauge of intrest but for me there is some information missing.

who is going to collect the money and how are you involved?

Also you do not seem to active of a user. If you are going to do a project like this people will have a lot of questions and issues. Have you thought of asking other more experienced members to help you?

This is totally a concern I have to address. If this would garner enough attention to actually go through with the large purchase order I would like to get another member here to handle the financials. I know there’s folks that have been around here for years and are trusted as well as others that have their websites or livelihoods tied to the LED and flashlight industry.

After talking with Brinyte I was also considering setting up an online escrow account through one of the larger guys, it would be a total of 3% probably but if the funds didn’t make it to the necessary amount we’d get back 97% of what was offered. Kinda like indigogo or that other stupid platform where people invest in stuff…… Kickstarter.

But to answer a few more questions, the LED pill module is interchangeable, they offer White, Red,Green, IR at 850-930 and UV 365 and 385i think.

The interchangeable heads thing is really a cool idea. With Brinyte they have a double body design where the head always remains constant and the inner tube of the body rotates within the outer tube. This allows way better waterproofing than other methods and allows this cool system as well.

So if you remove the head from one of their lights you have a tail, body and pill as one price with the head anf lens assembly completely free, looks like a s8 or s12 from convoy. The head then can be changed between any of their 4 models, 32mm44mm55,mm and 70mm. The lens sizes are 20/40/54/66. This means that one flashlight turns Into a good walking light at 30mm, a fun thrower at 40-50 and an ultimate wicked laser of wow at 66mm Lens size.

This is again the same system in the B158 and b158b.

Another concern was the 21700 body conversion. The body is a dual tube system and already was one of the thicker options out there. I measured and the wall thickness is over 4mm just for the inner cylinder, that’s because threads have to be cutninto the inner tube to allow for the awesome zoomie system.

In regards to the tail I had spoken with Brinyte and they have shown me a cool idea with having a small knob on the twilcap to twist for brightness, double click to ML, triple click to turbo. Thought it may be an interesting idea.

But the Brinyte tails have always been on the longer size, another reason I wanted 21700 there’s a ton of room in there to squeeze some extra battery!

Forgot to answer this one….

The HT series is a slightly upgraded and updated b158, in so much as it’s actually a new light itself. But the closest proxy is the b158b. The HT just stream lines the body, upgrades the driver slot in the pill, better lens, far less weigh, better HA3 method for softer matte black, less travel on the Zoom system, more like the b168 than the 158, stock throw for the large lens is 192kcd with the lovely xpl-hi v3 and we should smash they number quite easily.

But for the group buy we’d be paying about 10$ more than the on sale price right now, and for that 10 buck you get an Osram Boost culnm, 5a driver with regulation, larger 21700 batter, and sweet custom engraving.

Then since you have the full light if you wanted larger /smaller light you just spend 13-20 bucks and bam your 66mm. Wicked thrower is now 44mm and c8 sized

i see, so if this is the case, can we then choose which head it comes with? instead of only one default stock option, and then having to buy extra even if we only want one? i think thats a lot more buyer friendly, its like choosing led options for a light

That’s a great idea I did t think of it that way. I was quoted in the low 40s without shipping and factoring in that and distribution I chocked on an additional 18% to make it a round 50. If they are willing to work with us on this, maybe we can get the price down a significant amount, the difference between the largest head and smallest is a good 10 bucks and that’s huge when spread out across such a large irder. I’ll contact them and get back to you

After some deliberation - I’m in for 2.
If I get them, I’ll try to convert them to push-pull Like Firelight2 did.

ADDED:
BTW, it would be useful to be able to buy heads and pills separately.
Ideally I’d like 2 bodies, 2 pc of the largest head, 1 pc of every other head and several spare pills.

ADDED2:
I wonder if help from a large distributor would ease the MOQ requirements.

I’ve been interested in this zoomie since I first found them but never pulled the trigger because they didn’t sell the heads separately. Now with these being 21700 and already with a 4040 Osram, I don’t think I could resist. I’ll be in for one if this happens relatively soon. I think the cost of LEPs coming down will kill large diameter zoomies (for me at least).