[PART 1] Official BLF GT Group Buy thread. Group buy officially closed! Lights shipping.

[Texas_Ace]

@The Miller

Lol
Yes will update list later
Just choose what you like most but it will not be the potato

I am heartbroken, that was my backup plan, it would be the ultimate survival light, once the light died you could eat it!

[Texas_Ace]

Also, just because I am firmly in favor of Design 2. I don’t want anyone to think I have anything against the other designs. They are great and a lot of hard work was put into them.

Just because they are not what I think this light was meant to look like, doesn’t distract from the fact they are great designs.

I would love to see each of them made into their own flashlight and I would gladly buy them.

Props to all of you!

[LloydV]

hi guys… been following this regularly. great job from the community. please put me on the interested list. thanks!

[RotorHead64]

@Texas_Ace

@pilotdog68

Just noticed the giant quad render. That thing would be absolutely nuts.

:smiling_imp: You have discovered my secrete plans, you must be silenced! quad xhp70, 500kcd+, 20,000 lumens, opps, I never said that, nope, not an option… Nor is quad XHP35’s, over 1MCD, 8,000+ lumens, nope, not an option at all. In all seriousness, none of these are an option till the single emitter version is completed and being sold but now people should see why I keep saying that there is no such thing as too much cooling.

Wow, when I saw that quad I fell in love! That's definitely my favorite so far.

This thread is insane. I missed a few days and it took me a week to catch back up! You guys are doing an awesome job with this project. Every single design is top notch.

Thanks guys!

[J-Dub74]

@thijsco19

I think you’ll need a whole lot of potato’s to power up the XHP35 at 2.5 A.

Dude, haven’t you been paying attention? This has all been worked out.
It will only require 4 potatoes provided they are a non-GMO/organic heirloom variety… or 8 standard potatoes provided they fit in the potato carrier.

[J-Dub74]

@Texas_Ace

Also, just because I am firmly in favor of Design 2. I don’t want anyone to think I have anything against the other designs. They are great and a lot of hard work was put into them.

Just because they are not what I think this light was meant to look like, doesn’t distract from the fact they are great designs.

I would love to see each of them made into their own flashlight and I would gladly buy them.

Props to all of you!

Well said brother. :+1: Not only are we looking at five four (no offense Mr. Potato Head) excellent designs, but I’ll challenge anyone who’s followed this thread from start to finish to tell me they haven’t learned along the way. This thread has been all over the map and even included a few bar-room-brawls but through it all the dominant theme here is pure BLF. Brilliant innovation, excellent discussion, massive amounts of data, charts, graphs and links to websites and tools to further all of our knowledge, passionate arguments for and against all sides of every issue…what more could you ask for?

[FBsLights]

Wow!
Very nice designs!
Put me in for one, whichever design is selected.

FB

[Norddeutscher]

Moin Moin

Thanks to everyone for their invested work.
I am interested in one or two lights.

Regards
Jens.

[Nicolaas]

@Jerommel

Allright guys, i’m done wrestling with the pixels…
Must say i ran into the limits of what i work with quite often, and still i had many many options, but i think it ain’t half bad like this:

The shelf for the LED sits in the middle of the fins.

Simple lines, not only because it’s very difficult (for me) to do otherwise, but also with the production costs in mind.
And i like simple lines too.

The anti rolling blocks are now milled into the head, which is easier to do properly.

This is with a 100mm deep reflector.

I hope you like it, although i only have this simple view of it, i have no 3D model.

I like these a lot too, especially the one on the right.
This design could improve by adding a bigger tailcap as well, thus incorporating more anti roll and giving a more balanced look.

Grtz
Nico

[DavidEF]

@Texas_Ace

@EasyB

The 260-300 lm/W value for LEDs is the theoretical maximum given the typical LED spectrum (blue peak and a yellowish peak) and it represents 100% conversion of input power to photons.

It seems we know that is not the case since LED’s making those kind of numbers still get hot, thus not all the power is going to photons?

Texas_Ace, it has been said before. Maybe you missed it. There are no LEDs that make anywhere near 300 lm/w at the currents that are needed for a decent flashlight. Try running any LED at a current where it gets 300 lm/w and see if it ever heats up. That’s the only way to know. By the way, does anyone know which emitter it is that reaches 300 lm/w efficiency? I couldn’t find one with a quick search in the PCT.

[Texas_Ace]

Like I said, I am not an expert on that, I just think is that was the actual limit they would not be knocking on it’s door already even if at low currents. We never get that close to perfection so quickly if ever.

That is all I have to go on though.

Regardless for whatever reason the numbers seem to work which is great.

It is kind of like calculating fuel injector sizes for cars. A lot of different cars will have “rules of thumb” that you divide / multiply the HP you want by x (in the case of the 3sgte hp / .63 is strangely close for pump gas) and it tells you the injector size in CC.

There is no scientific basis for these numbers at all, just what people have found to consistently be the case, but they still work.

[DavidEF]

@Texas_Ace

Like I said, I am not an expert on that, I just think is that was the actual limit they would not be knocking on it’s door already even if at low currents. We never get that close to perfection so quickly if ever.

That is all I have to go on though.

Regardless for whatever reason the numbers seem to work which is great.

It is kind of like calculating fuel injector sizes for cars. A lot of different cars will have “rules of thumb” that you divide / multiply the HP you want by x (in the case of the 3sgte hp / .63 is strangely close for pump gas) and it tells you the injector size in CC.

There is no scientific basis for these numbers at all, just what people have found to consistently be the case, but they still work.

Well, my point was that the current level does make a huge difference in how you define “knocking on its door”. If 300 lm/w (edit: or whatever “perfect efficiency” turns out to be) were a house, I’d say we’re only now maybe getting within sight from a couple miles away. Nowhere near “knocking on its door” yet. And history has shown that getting within sight of “perfection” is the fast/easy part, compared to getting any closer. Think of it this way, though. If you happened to be the only one driving on a narrow two-lane road, do you automatically call that road a “superhighway” just because there is no traffic to slow you down? The terminology doesn’t work that way. If it’s only a “superhighway” when the load is miniscule, it doesn’t really count.

[Texas_Ace]

Fair points.

[Jerommel]

@Nicolaas

@Jerommel

Allright guys, i’m done wrestling with the pixels…
Must say i ran into the limits of what i work with quite often, and still i had many many options, but i think it ain’t half bad like this:

The shelf for the LED sits in the middle of the fins.

Simple lines, not only because it’s very difficult (for me) to do otherwise, but also with the production costs in mind.
And i like simple lines too.

The anti rolling blocks are now milled into the head, which is easier to do properly.

This is with a 100mm deep reflector.

I hope you like it, although i only have this simple view of it, i have no 3D model.

I like these a lot too, especially the one on the right.

Thanks Nico.
It seems you’re one of the few…

This design could improve by adding a bigger tailcap as well, thus incorporating more anti roll and giving a more balanced look.

I agree, but i ran out of time and possibilities.
I also tried to keep it simple and cheaper to produce.
But i think the blocks on the head would prevent it from rolling.

[fixed_it]

@DavidEF

Try running any LED at a current where it gets 300 lm/w and see if it ever heats up. That’s the only way to know.

Actually, I think that 300 figure is the maximum for a given process through which a LED produces light. Wikipedia says “Theoretical limit for a white LED with phosphorescence color mixing”, whatever that means. If I’m reading the chart correctly, that is still only about 40% efficient as far as thermodynamics are concerned so you’ll have plenty of heat even with a 300 lumen/W LED.

[teacher]

@Jerommel

But i think the blocks on the head would prevent it from rolling.

Exactly, with those blocks there would be no need for any anti-roll on the tail cap.
Looks pretty darn too good Jerommel. :+1:

[DavidEF]

@fixed it

@DavidEF

Try running any LED at a current where it gets 300 lm/w and see if it ever heats up. That’s the only way to know.

Actually, I think that 300 figure is the maximum for a given process through which a LED produces light. Wikipedia says “Theoretical limit for a white LED with phosphorescence color mixing”, whatever that means. If I’m reading the chart correctly, that is still only about 40% efficient as far as thermodynamics are concerned so you’ll have plenty of heat even with a 300 lumen/W LED.

Thanks, I didn’t realize that. I hadn’t taken the time to read about it, except the bits people are posting here. It makes perfect sense.

[J-Dub74]

@Jerommel

Thanks Nico.
It seems you’re one of the few…

This design could improve by adding a bigger tailcap as well, thus incorporating more anti roll and giving a more balanced look.

I agree, but i ran out of time and possibilities.
I also tried to keep it simple and cheaper to produce.
But i think the blocks on the head would prevent it from rolling.

Nico’s not the only one. I like it too, particularly the head. Very cool design. I too agree about making the tailcap a bit bigger and adding some blocks there similar to the head, not just for added anti-roll but also style and to tie it in with the head. I suppose I’d probably like a bit deeper fins too but that’s not to say I don’t like the design. For the record, there are things I would change on four of the five designs combining aspects of each. Not the potato though. That one’s spot-on.

Don’t be discouraged Jerromel. You contributed plenty here and I like what you did. :+1:

[Jerommel]

@J-Dub74

@Jerommel

Thanks Nico.
It seems you’re one of the few…

This design could improve by adding a bigger tailcap as well, thus incorporating more anti roll and giving a more balanced look.

I agree, but i ran out of time and possibilities.
I also tried to keep it simple and cheaper to produce.
But i think the blocks on the head would prevent it from rolling.

Nico’s not the only one. I like it too, particularly the head. Very cool design. I too agree about making the tailcap a bit bigger and adding some blocks there similar to the head, not just for added anti-roll but also style and to tie it in with the head.

I was planning to try that, but it would take hours with my simple 2D image editor…
Wouldn’t have made the deadline…

I suppose I’d probably like a bit deeper fins too but that’s not to say I don’t like the design. For the record, there are things I would change on four of the five designs combining aspects of each. Not the potato though. That one’s spot-on.

Don’t be discouraged Jerromel. You contributed plenty here and I like what you did. :+1:

Thanks buddy …ehm Dubby

[EasyB]

@fixed it

@DavidEF

Try running any LED at a current where it gets 300 lm/w and see if it ever heats up. That’s the only way to know.

Actually, I think that 300 figure is the maximum for a given process through which a LED produces light. Wikipedia says “Theoretical limit for a white LED with phosphorescence color mixing”, whatever that means. If I’m reading the chart correctly, that is still only about 40% efficient as far as thermodynamics are concerned so you’ll have plenty of heat even with a 300 lumen/W LED.

I don’t think this is right. As I talked about in my post on the previous page, that efficiency is relative to the efficacy of monochromatic 555nm light, which happens to be the maximum of our eye’s sensitivity curve, and is not really relevant to the efficacy of white light.

The 300lm/W number represents 100% efficiency and is based just on the shape of the spectrum. It does not include any other details of light production in an LED. Of course that number is just an estimate; for different color temperatures and phosphor combinations the number will be different, though not by a huge amount.