Texas_Ace BLF Calibrated Lumen tube / Sphere No math skills needed - Several spheres still available

Texas_Ace · 2018-08-07T23:37:48.000Z

chops728:

JasonWW:

I got my CW S2+ calibration light from Maukka yesterday.

It turns out my TA Lumen Tube was one of those outliers. It was reading 7% too high.

So I was able to adjust my correction disc orientation plus add a little piece of matte tape to get it to read dead on. :+1:

I also tested my calibration light in my JoshK sphere to find out it was reading 6.3% too high.

This is all pretty surprising. I thought both my spheres measuring so close to one another meant they were pretty close to accurate. Turns out they were both a little on the high side.

Kind of depressing when you test those high lumen lights :person_facepalming:

If you want to get your sphere re-calibrated I can loan you one of my standard lights to fine tune the calibration. Since the first ones were not directly calibrated with the standard lights, they will have a larger tolerance of course since the correction discs themselves can have a few percent of variation.

KawiBoy1428 · 2018-08-08T00:03:33.000Z

Here is mine, set up exactly to the T/A diffuser disc instructions, using Maukka calibrated lights. Tube reads 58/278

Not too shabby!

Texas_Ace · 2018-08-08T00:26:17.000Z

Thanks for the update KB!

teacher · 2018-08-08T00:27:05.000Z

Thanks for sharing KawiBoy1428. That is excellent… :+1:

Newlumen · 2018-08-08T01:34:35.000Z

Thanks Kawi. Excellent results… TA tube is the best !

SKV89 · 2018-08-08T01:54:24.000Z

I got my Maukka lights a few days ago but just had time to test it on my 4” lumen sphere:
Convoy S2+ measures 318 lumens vs 274 lumens per Maukka = 16% too high
BLF 348 measures 44 lumens vs 38 lumens per Maukka = 15.8 % too high.

Please note that I only did a 0.70 calibration with the two correction disc instead of the recommended 0.68 because I was waiting for the Maukka lights to fine tune my sphere.

I’m once again disappointed to know that all my flashlights produces lumens so far less than advertised or from my previous measurements. I’m not disappointed at the TA lumen sphere though as it is such an easy fix having the Maukka lights in hand and the TA lumen sphere has been so very consistent compared to my calibrated ceiling bounce method. Thank you TA and Maukka for making it possible for us regular folks to be able to get accurate ANSI lumens for so little money!

Newlumen · 2018-08-08T02:28:20.000Z

Maybe switch the disc and play around until you get lumen number close to maukka.

SKV89 · 2018-08-08T02:38:08.000Z

Newlumen:

Maybe switch the disc and play around until you get lumen number close to maukka.

yea easy fix as long as I have the Maukka light. I might even put a plastic bag over the sensor like what you did

KawiBoy1428 · 2018-08-08T03:03:37.000Z

SKV89:

Newlumen:

Maybe switch the disc and play around until you get lumen number close to maukka.

yea easy fix as long as I have the Maukka light. I might even put a plastic bag over the sensor like what you did

Actually my Walmart bagged light sensor was not that far off. You can get lower readings by lengthening the bag an inch or two away from the sensor, or raise the readings by shortening the length from the sensor.

Newlumen · 2018-08-08T03:04:09.000Z

SKV89:

Newlumen:

Maybe switch the disc and play around until you get lumen number close to maukka.

yea easy fix as long as I have the Maukka light. I might even put a plastic bag over the sensor like what you did

You do whatever it works best for you… will you able to test the skylumen delta ?? You said you got 800 lumen… i would like to see what is it now after calibrated with makuua lights…

SKV89 · 2018-08-08T04:37:03.000Z

I haven’t had the time to calibrate yet, but basically if I divide 800/1.16 = 690 lumens.

JasonWW · 2018-08-08T04:44:08.000Z

SKV89:

I got my Maukka lights a few days ago but just had time to test it on my 4” lumen sphere:
Convoy S2+ measures 318 lumens vs 274 lumens per Maukka = 16% too high
BLF 348 measures 44 lumens vs 38 lumens per Maukka = 15.8 % too high.

Please note that I only did a 0.70 calibration with the two correction disc instead of the recommended 0.68 because I was waiting for the Maukka lights to fine tune my sphere.

For the S2+ I calculate you are 12% high, not 16%. Still, it’s higher than expected.

Any easy way to do the math is measure it without any calibration discs. Mine was 39% high, so when we subtract 32, I’m left with 7.

Geez, all these numbers are giving me a headache. :confounded:

contactcr · 2018-08-08T05:22:06.000Z

(318*0.98-274)/274=13.7

JasonWW · 2018-08-08T05:43:56.000Z

contactcr:

(318*0.98-274)/274=13.7

318*0.98=311
311-274=37
37÷311=11.9%

We are measuring a reduction which is why I divide by 311 and not 274.

contactcr · 2018-08-08T05:53:23.000Z

Everyone is talking about the calibrated actual so IMO it makes more sense, even how you word it, to do it the other way.

JasonWW · 2018-08-08T06:40:23.000Z

contactcr:

Everyone is talking about the calibrated actual.

Are they? I wasn’t. I didn’t think anyone else was either.

See, this is what’s confusing me. We’ve always started at a higher than normal lumen number and had to reduce by a certain percentage. Initially we were guessing we had to reduce by 35-40. Then when TA got his calibration lights from Maukka, he stated that we should use 32 as the average reduction rate. On my particular tube I needed a total reduction of 39% (32% plus 7% more) to match up to my Maukka calibration light.

If I look at my calibrated light (267 lm) and measure how much more the reading was I got from the tube with no calibration discs I could say it was reading 64% too high. (267 and 438)

With the calibration discs in (dropping output by 32) I get a reading of 298 instead of 267. This is 11.6 high.

When I go back to my flashlight chart of raw lumen measurements I made back when I first got my tube, I need to reduce the numbers by 39%. So I multiply them by 0.61

Ugh, my brain needs a break. :weary:

contactcr · 2018-08-08T07:00:23.000Z

So his tube was reading 13.7% high and to fix it he reduces the light transmission by 11.9%

It’s all in the wording

JasonWW · 2018-08-08T07:33:26.000Z

contactcr:

So his tube was reading 13.7% high and to fix it he reduces the light transmission by 11.9%

It’s all in the wording

Yes, you have to be specific with the wording because it’s two seperate percentages depending on if you are going up or going down.

The_Flashaholic · 2018-08-08T08:22:03.000Z

JasonWW:

I got my CW S2+ calibration light from Maukka yesterday.

It turns out my TA Lumen Tube was one of those outliers. It was reading 7% too high.

So I was able to adjust my correction disc orientation plus add a little piece of matte tape to get it to read dead on. :+1:

I also tested my calibration light in my JoshK sphere to find out it was reading 6.3% too high.

This is all pretty surprising. I thought both my spheres measuring so close to one another meant they were pretty close to accurate. Turns out they were both a little on the high side.

I found the problem with tubes is that if you re-calibrate it for one light then the another light that read dead-on will now be out again.

It’s hard to make a tube a 1 device reads all system.

I think a lot of my spilled lumens slide down the initial tube wall into the glue as well as being absorbed. The Q8 seems to read high on everyone’s tube as it’s one of the less floodier popcan lights. Try slightly rotating the Q8 when testing to see how sharply the reading drops off, if indeed the 1st chamber before the first diffuser was fundamentally for spreading out beams then ideally losses should be negligible from light to light.

I’m using Styrofoam now to try and get all light to get a unbias passage.

SKV89 · 2018-08-08T16:33:15.000Z

KG_Tuning:

I found the problem with tubes is that if you re-calibrate it for one light then the another light that read dead-on will now be out again.

It’s hard to make a tube a 1 device reads all system.

I think a lot of my spilled lumens slide down the initial tube wall into the glue as well as being absorbed. The Q8 seems to read high on everyone’s tube as it’s one of the less floodier popcan lights. Try slightly rotating the Q8 when testing to see how sharply the reading drops off, if indeed the 1st chamber before the first diffuser was fundamentally for spreading out beams then ideally losses should be negligible from light to light.

I’m using Styrofoam now to try and get all light to get a unbias passage.

I’m not sure why I’m still responding to you. It’s been explained multiple times to you in the past on this thread that it’s not the case. Here’s one instance.

The purpose of the first diffuser is to spread out the beam so it doesn’t favor throwers over flooder like you see with ceiling bounce method. Others have explained this much better than I can.

Now I just did another measurement to prove this case:

Emisar D4 XPL-2 with the throwiest Carclo 10621 optic: 379 lumens
Emisar D4 XPL-2 with no optics (180 degree flood mule): 386 lumens

These readings are are not calibrated yet to the Maukka ANSI lights which will read lower but doesn’t affect the relative difference between the flood and non flood readings.

I tested the same with the M43 with and without optics a while back but not going to waste time to redo it and post numbers, which you are probably going to ignore again anyways.

With that said, you should aim the light as perpendicular to the diffuser as possible. Although it has tolerance for slight angling of the light unlike the highly sensitive ceiling bounce method, however, if you intentionally angle it 45 degree and aim the light at the pipe wall, which it is not designed to be used that way, of course the lumen readings will be low.

Now if you are really wanting to find out why you are the only one experiencing the problems you reported, people here are happy to help you but if your sole intent is to prove yourself right and bash on TA’s creation, then let’s drop it.