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

[JasonWW]

@Bob_McBob

@JasonWW

I would expect that output with the 219C, but I’m thinking the LH351D should be close to stock output levels, right?

With FET drivers it depends on the amperage it’s pulling. You need max voltage to get highest output. Are you using button top or solder blobbed 30Q? Have you tried measuring it with only 3 cells and 2 cells to see if you get reduced output?

Are the battery ends and driver ring clean? Are any springs looking burnt or collapsed? Do all the cells drop to the same voltage after using the light for a while?

Does it still heat up real fast?

The measurement is with button top 30Qs from a reliable source. Flat top GAs produce a proportionally lower turn-on output of 3270 lumens. Cells discharge evenly and the springs look perfect. There was a small amount of crud on the contact ring, but cleaning it made no difference. The surface temperature of the head reaches 60°C within 3 minutes.

Testing turn-on lumens with different numbers of cells:

1 cell (briefly) - 2140 lumens
2 cells - 2880 lumens
3 cells - 3300 lumens
4 cells - 3540 lumens

Hmm, I don’t know. You might try posting on the Modded Q8 thread. Maybe someone there has tried those leds in a Q8.

[Bob_McBob]

Well, has anyone measured a stock Q8 with 219C in the TA tube? That would also be relevant.

[JasonWW]

@Bob_McBob

Well, has anyone measured a stock Q8 with 219C in the TA tube? That would also be relevant.

Like Maukka said:

@maukka

The Q8 reads wildly different numbers depending on the sample and battery. Don’t use it as any sort of comparison.

I’m sure people have swapped 219C. They may just not be on this thread. I’d check the modded Q8 thread.

[Newlumen]

@Bob_McBob

Has anyone tested an emitter-swapped Q8? My tube is calibrated with maukka’s lights, and I get only 3340 FL1 lumens with an otherwise stock Q8 using LH351Ds and 30Qs. With 219Cs it was more like 2700 lumens.

I tested my q8 xpl a while ago with the TA tube… 4300 @ turn on… it dropped to 3330 lumen in 30 seconds…

How do you normally take a reading?

[The_Flashaholic]

The Texas_Ace Integrating Sphere 2.0

I’ve eradicated everything but diffuser bounce back from the TA design and my lights now measure relative to one another and close to Maukka’s results. No sidewalls before initial diffusion, no glue or ledges for spill to slide down the walls onto and be absorbed into, no advantage for sending most of the beam centrally through the 1st diffuser.

I’ve got thicker diffusion after TA’s 1st plastic clear diffuser to spread the light evenly, it’s just a case of getting the right thickness of diffusion before the sensor now to get readings up 20% on each light.

Strange thing is the Acebeam X80-GT is still reading higher than my DX80. If I added the theorised percentage increase on both the TA and my device then the X80-GT will be way over 30k.

[JasonWW]

I’m glad to see you make your own design, but unfortunately you can’t call it the “Texas_Ace” …… Integrating Sphere. You’ll have to use a different name like the Flashaholics Sphere or KG Tuning Sphere.

The one thing you still need is a calibrated reference light such as the one sold by Maukka. Now that I have mine, I plan to experiment with some ideas I have in my head.

I do see one flaw in your design, I think, and that is you have the light reflecting back almost 180° into the sensor tube. Matt at Adventure Sport Flashlights did this same thing. Ideally the light should bounce around in the box to become diffused. You might get more consistent readings if the flashlight opening was on the left side of the box in the picture firing over the top of the tube. This way you avoid direct reflections.

[The_Flashaholic]

@JasonWW

I’m glad to see you make your own design, but unfortunately you can’t name it Texas_Ace anything. You’ll have to call it Flashaholics xxx or KG Tuning xxx.

The one thing you still need is a calibrated reference light such as the one sold by Maukka.

I do see one flaw, I think, and that is you have the light reflecting back almost 180° into the sensor tube. Ideally the light should bounce around in the box to become diffused. You might get more consistent readings if the flashlight opening was on the left side of the box in the picture firing over the top of the tube. This way you avoid direct reflections.

I can push the sensor tube all way in so the opening faces the roof but tbh the inlet diffuser is so thick the light is very linear. Readings are relative no matter where the sensor is. I can seal the hole and put it inside the box.
I’m wondering if making the insides of a pyramid design reflective and using the same inlet/outlet arrangement will be as accurate.

[teacher]

TUNING Tube

.
Interesting design. :+1:

One question…. What calibration light, or lights; are you using to calibrate your device??

[JasonWW]

@teacher

.
Interesting design. :+1:

One question…. What calibration light, or lights; are you using to calibrate your device??

He’s not using a calibration light per se. He’s using his existing flashlights and assuming they have the same output as the ones that Maukka has measured in the past.

[JasonWW]

@KG_Tuning

@JasonWW

I’m glad to see you make your own design, but unfortunately you can’t name it Texas_Ace anything. You’ll have to call it Flashaholics xxx or KG Tuning xxx.

The one thing you still need is a calibrated reference light such as the one sold by Maukka.

I do see one flaw, I think, and that is you have the light reflecting back almost 180° into the sensor tube. Ideally the light should bounce around in the box to become diffused. You might get more consistent readings if the flashlight opening was on the left side of the box in the picture firing over the top of the tube. This way you avoid direct reflections.

I can push the sensor tube all way in so the opening faces the roof but tbh the inlet diffuser is so thick the light is very linear. Readings are relative no matter where the sensor is. I can seal the hole and put it inside the box.
I’m wondering if making the insides of a pyramid design reflective and using the same inlet/outlet arrangement will be as accurate.

The hardest part about using a box is that you get reflections which doesn’t mix the light around as well as a sphere shape. If you have some extra styrofoam pieces I would add some baffles inside maybe in the corners to try and get the light to spread around as evenly as possible. Make sure that the light hitting the tube inlet is all ambiant light. You don’t want direct light hitting that diffuser disc.

If you did mount the tube and sensor completely inside you would need to make sure it didn’t move around or fall over. It would need to be fixed in a permanent position so that you get repeatability.

[JasonWW]

If anyone wants to see some cool home made integrating spheres, Djozz has built several. He’s done some very scientific work.

djozz tests

I start this thread, or actually just a post, to make everything that I tested the last few years and posted on BLF, a bit more accessable (yesterday I tried to put everything in my sig-line but that just looks ugly, so now the sig-line just contains a link to this post). If I do more tests in the future, I will add links to them in this post. As a general disclaimer, the minimum that I try to achieve in my tests is a good impression of what is going on with a led, spring, or whatever it is tha…

[The_Flashaholic]

@JasonWW

@KG_Tuning

@JasonWW

I’m glad to see you make your own design, but unfortunately you can’t name it Texas_Ace anything. You’ll have to call it Flashaholics xxx or KG Tuning xxx.

The one thing you still need is a calibrated reference light such as the one sold by Maukka.

I do see one flaw, I think, and that is you have the light reflecting back almost 180° into the sensor tube. Ideally the light should bounce around in the box to become diffused. You might get more consistent readings if the flashlight opening was on the left side of the box in the picture firing over the top of the tube. This way you avoid direct reflections.

I can push the sensor tube all way in so the opening faces the roof but tbh the inlet diffuser is so thick the light is very linear. Readings are relative no matter where the sensor is. I can seal the hole and put it inside the box.
I’m wondering if making the insides of a pyramid design reflective and using the same inlet/outlet arrangement will be as accurate.

The hardest part about using a box is that you get reflections which doesn’t mix the light around as well as a sphere shape. If you have some extra styrofoam pieces I would add some baffles inside maybe in the corners to try and get the light to spread around as evenly as possible. Make sure that the light hitting the tube inlet is all ambiant light. You don’t want direct light hitting that diffuser disc.

If you did mount the tube and sensor completely inside you would need to make sure it didn’t move around or fall over. It would need to be fixed in a permanent position so that you get repeatability.

I’m using TA’s disks to block outside light, tbh I’m getting very similar readings to TA on my sub 6000 lumen lights, the Cometa is 200 odd fully zoomed!!! my X45, DX80 and X80 are right on what I thought but the X80-GT is reading phenomenally high, even on a system that may slightly favour throwers.
I hope Maukka tests it at some point. When sat on the diffusers it reads 12,000 lumens more than the X80 on my sphere and 10,000 more on TA’s sphere. So it’s undeniably comparatively bright.

I’ll post all readings tomorrow, I’m happy with them but 36,000 turn on lumens for the X80-GT is insane.

[Newlumen]

Here we go again… here is an general rule when shopping for an acebeam x80-gt… acebeam claimed 32500 lumen… general rule is lumen are off by 10 %…

X80-gt is about 29,250 lumen. Worst case scenrio…

[JasonWW]

Zoomies always read very widely depending on if they are zoomed or not. The majority of light gets absorbed inside the head due to no reflector.

[teacher]

I like where you are headed with the TUNING Tube, looks to have potential. :+1:

But again, I ask you; ‘what calibrated light source(s)’ are you using as a reference for the ‘calibration’ of your device?

[The_Flashaholic]

@JasonWW

Zoomies always read very widely depending on if they are zoomed or not. The majority of light gets absorbed inside the head due to no reflector.

For the Cometa zoomie I get what I got on the TA tube: 200ish throw, 700ish flood. I’m seeing absolutely no hint of a beam or elevated readings to throwers. I’m using a thick dense polystyrene sheet that is cratered on the front and TA’s plastic diffuser in front of it to prevent melt issues.

I’ve got over 30 lights reading as expected but It’s bothering me why the X80-GT is reading so high. I think maybe the bounce back is responsible for the low readings on the Cometa, light reflecting back into a fairly dark deep reflectorless head. And the X80-GT is relatively flat…
So again I’m thinking a ceiling bounce is a more reliable way providing you have calibrated/trusted lights of differing beams.

[The_Flashaholic]

@teacher

I like where you are headed with the TUNING Tube, looks to have potential. :+1:

But again, I ask you; ‘what calibrated light source(s)’ are you using as a reference for the ‘calibration’ of your device?

I use the average measurements of 30+ lights.

I.e Acebeam rate the X45 at 16500, Maukka measured it at 14890, AKB measured it at 14820 and I measured it at 14500, several other reviewers measured it similar, so it should really be around 14.8k, now I apply the same logic to my other 30+ lights. I.e if a Calibrated system is giving me 14800 for the X45 then it should also return approx 4300 for the D4 XPL-HI an 900ish for the Olight S1R. Maukka got 890 for the S1R, I have 3 S1R’s/4 XPL-HI that all read roughly the same to each other. If a mate’s X45 reads 9000 on my system or his S1R reads 500 then I know he’s got a dud. 1 Maukka calibrated light wouldn’t help, I’d need 4 for low/high flood/throw lumens.
It’s just a case of data collecting to see relative patterns. So if something doesn’t add up I can then theorise why.

(I have many of the same lights too, 3 Olight S1R’s, 2 S2R’s, 2 DQG Tiny’s, 2 Cometas, 3 Blitzwolfs, 3 Nitecore Tips, and 5 Emisar D4’s! and know they measure very close to each other with the same battery and charge level.)

[teacher]

@KG_Tuning

@teacher

I like where you are headed with the TUNING Tube, looks to have potential. :+1:

But again, I ask you; ‘what calibrated light source(s)’ are you using as a reference for the ‘calibration’ of your device?

I use the average measurements of 30+ lights.

I.e Acebeam rate the X45 at 16500, Maukka measured it at 14890, AKB measured it at 14820 and I measured it at 14500, several other reviewers measured it similar, so it should really be around 14.8k, now I apply the same logic to my other 30+ lights. I.e if a Calibrated system is giving me 14800 for the X45 then it should also return approx 4300 for the D4 XPL-HI an 900ish for the Olight S1R. Maukka got 890 for the S1R, I have 3 S1R’s/4 XPL-HI that all read roughly the same to each other. If a mate’s X45 reads 9000 on my system or his S1R reads 500 then I know he’s got a dud. 1 Maukka calibrated light wouldn’t help, I’d need 4 for low/high flood/throw lumens.
It’s just a case of data collecting to see relative patterns. So if something doesn’t add up I can then theorise why.

(I have many of the same lights too, 3 Olight S1R’s, 2 S2R’s, 2 DQG Tiny’s, 2 Cometas, 3 Blitzwolfs, 3 Nitecore Tips, and 5 Emisar D4’s! and know they measure very close to each other with the same battery and charge level.)

OK… thanks for that info.

[djozz]

I understand that the tube design is convenient and gives very acceptable results.

An integrating box (which includes the integrating milk carton and the integrating bathroom (shine in one corner, measure in the opposite corner, make sure the light source, yourself and your tooth brush are a consistent colour and position)) in theory (and probably also in practice) gives better results (better integration).

But if you are not happy with how well the tube design integrates, why not go the one extra step and make it a sphere instead of a box, with entrance and measuring hole at 90 degrees and a proper baffle in between? Just because for the past 100 years it is the way to get the best integration.

[The_Flashaholic]

@djozz

I understand that the tube design is convenient and gives very acceptable results.

An integrating box (which includes the integrating milk carton and the integrating bathroom (shine in one corner, measure in the opposite corner, make sure the light source, yourself and your tooth brush are a consistent colour and position)) in theory (and probably also in practice) gives better results (better integration).

But if you are not happy with how well the tube design integrates, why not go the one extra step and make it a sphere instead of a box, with entrance and measuring hole at 90 degrees and a proper baffle in between? Just because for the past 100 years it is the way to get the best integration.

It’s the only way, as different lights absorb light differently that reflects back from the diffuser. It might only be 5% off one light and 10% off another but it’d bother me. The TA system has another problem that wider heads will absorb more reflection than smaller heads.

Vinh used to say his Sphere maxed out at 20-25k? I can’t remember if he ever said why and surely the baffle on a sphere is gonna f* over the unfeasibly floody X80, X80-GT, DX80 and X45?