OTF lumens, losses and what can we do to regain them?

[Bort (BortyMcBortface)]

I am shocked at the 15-30% loss of lumens from the emitter to the outside world, imagine that a 1000 lumen XM-L output loses more lumens then comes out of a Romisen RC-G2, or more then the difference between xm-l and xm-l2 chips
I want to eliminate this (or at least reduce it)
According to many threads i’ve read, the glass absorbs a lot of lumens, so AR coated glass is recommended.
I’ve only found this link that someone has commented (comment #5) how much light is transmitted through glass, even if its correct, theres no thickness or type of glass included

What is Low-E Glass? (with picture)

Any thought on how to reclaim these lumens lost to bezels, glass, reflectors, etc?

[Bort (BortyMcBortface)]

@leaftye

@Bort

Any thought on how to reclaim these lumens lost to bezels, glass, reflectors, etc?

Take all those things off.

In addition to AR glass, having a good aluminum deposition mirror finish applied to the reflector should help, but unless you build your own hardware at great cost, I don’t think you’re going to find a shop that’ll do it at less than the price of a second flashlight. Of course that assumes that what comes with the light isn’t very good. As we saw in the ZL vs UF flashlight abuse test, even the budget light seems to have some coating applied to its reflector.

you have reminded me of one of my favourite webpages
its a long read, but specifically you reminded me of

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