3B? or 3D?
I think he meant 3D. I’m with you on the HI emitters, but I think this light will be great either way.
I honestly hope we don’t get a choice, because then I might have to buy two. :money_mouth_face:
If there is only one choice to purchase you’ll still need to buy 2 or more. That’s so when you give in to the need to mod one you have a basis to compare to. :smiling_imp:
Just fyi, there is no way a HI will ever throw as far, or have as tight a beam as a fully de-domed LED of the same type. HI's lose output, like de-doming, but they can't double the intensity like our own true de-doming does. Basically you get a nicer tint with a HI then you do de-doming, and that's about the only reason why you would use a HI, if you could do a de-dome that is... So it doesn't surprise me at all the 5X de-domed has a smaller hot spot than HI in a 4X.
With a HI, you are basically sacrificing throw to get a protected (covered) LED and a nice tint.
The classic HD2010, and many other similar size thrower has a flat bottom reflector, and they've always been considered very good throwers for their size. Actually a bunch of classic great throwers I have all have a flat bottom reflector: TN31, K40, MaxToch 2X, MaxToch BLF TE (Thrower Edition), Crelant 7G9, 7G10, BOSS1. The BOSS1 being the true "BOSS" of the throwers - highest kcd I've measured, modded with a de-domed XPL V6, and it's flat bottom section is huge.
Edit: Yes think'n typo -- 3B should be 3D... I hope??
Edit #2: If I was interested in improved throw for the BLF Q8, I'd pop out that beauty of a copper 4X MCPCB, soak the whole thing in warm gas til the domes loosen up, and clean them up with a toothpick under the glass, rinse with isop. alcohol. Not sure how the tint of a 3D would be de-domed - haven't tried or seen one myself. The "D"'s though do better than "C"'s. But for a cost of $0 invested, would be worth a try. Then you should get the similar results of ~10% drop in lumens, double the kcd, which should be 90-100 kcd.
If I were to throw some money at it, I'd use XPL V6 0D's or XP-G2 S4's. I'd use 0D's because the tint, dedomed, will come out look'n more white. Some do like the warm look of the dedomed NW's though.
Well, one thing I’ve learned: these amazing, BLF crowd-source-designed lights are not something to be passed up lightly! Especially if you don’t have a ‘type’ of light (I dont have a ‘Soup Can’ light, for instance), but have always considered one, if a true BLF version comes up, and the price is interesting… you gotta bite. In fact, I’ve only been buying BLF crowd-sourced lights lately.
So, add me to the interest list!
!!!I AM SO FREAKING PROUD OF BLF!!! What Mr. Admin started years ago (a refugee from CPF—let’s NEVER forget) no one could have foreseen amazing stuff like this happening now.
40 bucks, sweet, count me in!! I don’t understand all this work on design but it will be amazing. I’ve been wanting a “massive flood/wall of light” to complement my coming BLF Shooter 2x super-thrower.
I would be interested in speculated beam similarities/differences with another ongoing BLF project, the Convoy L6 with XHP70, similar amount of lumens, and price not far off.
As for tint, I don’t know the difference between 3C, 3D, and other 3’s, but I do now from the BLF A6 that the neutral tint was just fantastic. I mean, it’s just white (isn’t that what we all want?). When you see a reflection of your light in a window, there’s no blue or anything else, just white light. I don’t spend time thinking about the tint when using it because it’s not distracting me.
I know they tweaked the tint choice based on the slight greenish aspect of anti-reflective glass. Whatever it was, it worked. I got the warm 5-something (5D?) tint too, and the one I use outside is the Neutral and its my favorite/most-used light. The Neutral was more-Usefully brighter than the Warm; I didn’t think there’d be that much difference. You know where I use the Warm one now, it’s in the bedroom, basically to avoid turning on a bright lamp and waking me or others up. The warm tint does not jar your senses or wake you up much if you want to get back to sleep. Those low modes really come in handy. Really, experience seems to be leading us that Neutral is where it’s at for most people. And who wouldn’t want just pure white light anyway? (That’s always kind of been the Holy Grail with LEDs anyway.)
Whether it’s 3-this-letter, or 3-that-letter, I’m sure that whatever gets decided—will be wonderful.
Gee, thanks. Enabler!
This is really going into a very nice direction :+1:
I’d also prefer the 3D tint.
I’ll probably dedome for extra throw (good point Texas-ace).
Wonder what the tint will be like… Or reflow XPL-HI 4D’s on it if the tint turns out to be hideous after dedome :confounded:
Oh cr@p
V6 3D
Sorry for confusion
That’s a good point about de-doming.
Do de-domes still tint-shift the way they used to? Maybe if the light were purchsed specifically for de-doming, 3x tints wouldn’t end up where they started off?
The recent BLF Maxtoch Shooter 2x came FACTORY de-domed (that’s a first to me). I can’t remember what tint they chose, but it may be good to review. Maxtoch never revealed how they were doing the de-domes.
Then again, I kind of like the idea of major flood (why else would I be interested?), so I’d probably like it either way. (That would make an amazing Mule.)
I could even run it with no reflector… for a true, even flood (would have some odd shadows at the edges).
Somehow I have missed this thread.
I need to be in on this one. It is a good deal and looks like if it makes the specs, will be a great light.
IN for one please 3D if not then still in.
TomE was so kind to set me up with parts for a Q8 v3 driver. The intent was to put the driver through its paces and to verify proper electrical operation.
The Q8 driver is basically a FET+1 driver (direct drive with the addition of one 7135 chip for regulated low modes). The basic design is the same as other BLF DD drivers. We did try to improve the design somewhat, notably by cleaning up the power feed to the MCU chip (proper decoupling layout) and switching the FET ‘softer’. This was to mitigate instability seen with this design in high-power applications, particularly when using the more temperamental tiny25/85 MCUs.
The driver did prove to be electrically stable in TomE’s tests, but what I saw on the oscilloscope was still less than ideal. The good news is there is a very simple solution and after this small addition I think we are ready for production. I will post more information on this solution in the attiny25/45/85 thread for those interested.
I used this setup for the driver tests:
The emitters are three XM-L2 U2s with a lone XP-L from a Manker A6. The cells are four 30Q’s (frequently recharged!). The wiring is mostly AWG 14. The setup gets 15.5 A on a set of fresh cells.
This animation gives a conclusion of all the testing (and double-checking in SPICE) that was done:
The traces show voltages in various parts of the circuit. The PWM duty-cycle is at around 30% here (so about 30% light output in theory). The PWM frequency is at 15.6 kHz, as set in the firmware of the MCU. The LEDs are powered when the power transistor is on. This is where the purple trace is at zero (0 V is at the first division from the bottom for all traces). Pay attention to the yellow trace. That is the voltage present at pin 8 of the MCU. The improvement is remarkable in the second image of the animation. These MCUs are rated for 6 V absolute maximum, and prior to the modification we are right there when the cells are fresh. The added resistor isolates the main capacitor of the driver from the power part of the driver, breaking the resonant ringing and resulting voltage boosting we see in the first image. This ringing was occurring every time the LEDs are turned off, at the end of each PWM cycle. In hindsight the solution was fairly obvious but I think it is valuable one, applicable to all DD drivers, brought along by the Q8 project for the benefit of BLF.
EDIT: Took out the scaling on the animation to clear up the text.
This is an awesome break-through. I think it's gonna take some time to settle, but we'll see.
Wow DEL. Those lines remind me of the machine that goes beep. 
Thanks for all the work.
This is awesome!
Thanks for these tests and oscilloscope images!
As I wrote in the PMs, never thought these little electrical components could be so exciting.
Seeing all this work is more thrilling then the best of movies!
so Q8 use 3D? same as on BLF A6? i love my A6 3D tint :heart_eyes:
I hope this project eventually settle into one nice light…just give me hoot and where to buy, one for me.
Count me in for one (maybe two).
Ok, put me down for one. Guess I’ll have to try an 18650 light sometime. Really like my tn4a though.
We're gonna aim for the 3D, not sure how definite, request or demand, etc.