Q8, PMS SEND TO THOSE WITH ISSUES BLF soda can light

[Tom_E]

@DB Custom

I like the V6 3D ok, but for me it’s a bit on the warm/rosy side. Won’t mind it at all in this light, don’t get me wrong, but given a choice I’d probably go with a 1D. Not going to shake the tree for it, mind you, but may end up changing em in my light when the time comes (sometimes I wonder if I do things like that just to be different, in the form of being Custom, not sure, but I do like to make things unique to me so they are clearly mine, been doing that for a very long time, half a century…)

Wonder maybe how 4 of the SST-40's at 6500K would look in tint. They are XM footprints, so, dang - we didn't do the double XM/XP deed for the MCPCB, but could use 16 or 20's individually. Could probably get 8,000 lumens out of it though .

The new Q8 MCPCB's are 2 mm thick, so probably need a little backing on the 16/20 MCPCB's to fit, or work out something else.

[patmurris]

@djozz

@patmurris

@djozz

@patmurris

@djozz

…

• you can calculate one from the other once you know that the light level drops by the square of the distance from the light source.

Sorry if this is off topic… but this seems only applicable to a light source spreading all around a sphere. When the light is focused it does not drop the same. The extreme example is a perfectly collimated light into a pencil like beam - or a laser, which will (theoretically) not decrease at all in empty space. Atmospheric scattering is another thing though.

It also applies to a focussed beam of a flashlight, and to a laser. In clear weather scattering hardly has an influence on the calculation.

Thanks for the firm answer. After a couple drawings i now understand it’s working the same. The circular cross section area of a cone also grows as the square of the distance from the source.

A bit too firm perhaps. It was late. I agree it is not directly intuitive but takes some thinking over.

No worries, i had to sleep on it to figure it out and learned something.
I heard of high gain antenna breaking the inverse square law but i may have misunderstood. I was under the impression the exponent would shrink as you narrow the beam - until the distance doesn’t matter anymore. Still scratching my head about the limit though.

[nodoubt]

seems this light is never going to happen……

[djozz]

@nodoubt

seems this light is never going to happen……

[fixed_it]

@patmurris

I heard of high gain antenna breaking the inverse square law but i may have misunderstood. I was under the impression the exponent would shrink as you narrow the beam - until the distance doesn’t matter anymore. Still scratching my head about the limit though.

Two things might make “break” the law here:

• The inverse square law works for a perfect cone. I think a flashlight’s beam is closer to a truncated cone, with the top being the size of the reflector. So it would probably work better by calculating from a point some distance behind the flashlight, where the cone’s apex would be. This would explain why people get better throw readings by measuring a bit further from the light (I remember reading about that being the case anyway).
• Diffusion from the air can change the shape of the beam to something which is not a cone, making the law somewhat wrong. The extreme case of this is a foggy night.

Antennas have even more complex beam patterns than flashlights so the inverse square law is only a rough approximation which works on a large scale (ie. it’s probably true if you measure the signal from 1, 2 and 4 km but not from 1, 2 and 4 meters for a TV antenna).

[hank]

OK, for those who like the idea of giving an award to manufacturers who meet spec and don’t let quality fade away — here’s a dedicated thread.
Let’s figure out who did it right and how to reward them.

Meeting spec; not fading away -- rewarding light manufacturers

OK, this was suggested in the Q8 thread (by me, initially) SB will support a post in the left sidebar above the “poll” square to commend manufacturers that actually did meet spec, didn’t have quality fade — made the people who dealt with them happy. You know who you are. Here’s a thread to collect the success stories. Pointers to the responses in other threads would be a good way to collect the informationl.

Meeting spec; not fading away — rewarding light manufacturers

[cabfrank]

@nodoubt

seems this light is never going to happen……

I’m pretty sure it will.

[DB_Custom (Dale)]

Fixed it, the result of measuring from a greater distance is due to focus on a thrower being further out… somewhat like sighting in a gun, it’s a fixed point that it’s sweet at and changes closer or further away. Similarly, tuning the focus to get the most throw the light really isn’t at it’s best until fairly far away, more so than the normal 5M test distances and in some cases all the way out to 30M or so.

[The_Miller]

@cabfrank

@nodoubt

seems this light is never going to happen……

I’m pretty sure it will.

Well would be such a shame if it didn’t. Knowing Thorfire we will receive an email stating they are ready out of the blue (and don’t forget listing on BG is prepared , we have seen videos and pics of manufacturing, so it would be so strange if it wouldn’t happen.)
It is just as before , it is not going fast

[djozz]

@The Miller

Knowing Thorfire we will receive an email stating they are ready out of the blue………
It is just as before , it is not going fast

Miller, out of curiosity, is Lumintop any different? I know thusfar they are much faster, but do they communicate well? (I’m in the Q8 team but not in one of the BLF-Lumintop cooperations).

[The_Miller]

Yes there is a difference, but that could very well be because we use an excel sheet with all comments, so LT answers in the next row, making it easy to see how things are and hard to miss things.
Certainly something we will be doing for future projects.
And I kind of want TF to do the Q16 making it possible to test if this works better then the avalanche of emails we have running for the Q8

[djozz]

Still want a Q4 with Eneloops.

Btw, has anyone ever considered a Q2, a flashlight on 4 AAA Eneloops with a Carclo quad? 7cm long, 3cm diameter (so slightly larger than a 26650) With 750 mAh it could run 2 amps for a bit less than half an hour, use 4 XP-E2 Torch leds and get 500 lumen OTF in a beautiful spot (XP-E and Carclo 10507 match very well). Easy to make versions with XP-E2 colour as well.
I know that one Aspire 18350 cell will blow it away in size, capacity and amps (in fact it is a less capable D4) but the point is safe chemistry that is universally available.

[The_Miller]

Yeah me too
And good idea a Q2
It would basically be the same driver as the Q4 so if a good driver can be done I see no reason not to go for it.

[djozz]

Yes, even the battery tube hooked to a D4 would already work.

[The_Miller]

Huh, does it work on 1,2-1,5V?
What MCU is that? Interesting!

[djozz]

@The Miller

Huh, does it work on 1,2-1,5V?
What MCU is that? Interesting!

No, the four Eneloops should be in series, for 4.8V nominal. It has a bit more overhead voltage than a li-ion, but for a common FET-driver that should be fine, and there’s losses in the battery carrier too.

[The_Miller]

Ah well hmm for me Q is cells in quad series, meaning the long wished for BLF AA/AAA boost driver for the Q4 and now Q2.
I find it really strange one can buy a $2 zoomie accepting AA and 14500 but we as a whole would not come up with a driver.
I’d rather have the Q4 and Q2 have a single LED then a single cell (which four cells in series would be for the driver)

[Zulumoose]

Wait, now there is talk of Q2, Q4, Q16?

Can someone translate for me please, which are real things, which are speculation or planned, and what is understood by those terms?

If Q4 is quad series 4x18650, what is Q2, it can’t be a quad with 2 cells? I am not standing under. Or is quad meaning 4 LEDs and 4 = 4 cells?

[g_sintornillos]

@djozz

Still want a Q4 with Eneloops.

Btw, has anyone ever considered a Q2, a flashlight on 4 AAA Eneloops with a Carclo quad? 7cm long, 3cm diameter (so slightly larger than a 26650) With 750 mAh it could run 2 amps for a bit less than half an hour, use 4 XP-E2 Torch leds and get 500 lumen OTF in a beautiful spot (XP-E and Carclo 10507 match very well). Easy to make versions with XP-E2 colour as well.
I know that one Aspire 18350 cell will blow it away in size, capacity and amps (in fact it is a less capable D4) but the point is safe chemistry that is universally available.

Great idea!

[The_Miller]

Q2, just posed by Djozz, me thinking cool 4*AAA parallel, he 4 in series, series vs parallel is gonna be main thing here, see Q4. Not really planned for but I think if we can do Q4 so a Q2

Q4 quad AA/14500 (then silent I don’t see it, the TK4A have one led, a boost from AA to give four LEDs the juice for nice brightness, argh. So this is a future thing no real planning going on. All must be debated, people will want series , see talk about future projects topic.)

Q8 quad 18650 series quad XPL, almost real for all, real for a few holding the samples.

Q16, quad parallel, two series 26650, Quad emitter
With Thijsco19 and Cawi the first sketches are made. Lumensmonster aim 16K lumens with active cooling to keep the output high as long as possible. When we are further a thread will be opened about it.
This is in my head, can make a picture of it
born when seeing all the super high lumen beasts come out that can only deliver those lumens at a short period, we should be able to do better.