KG, we weren’t trying to be rude to you but wanted more info to diagnose the problem. Keep in mind we are all customers that bought the TA tube just like yourself and we have no reason to bash a fellow customer. All of us customers, like yourself, are hardcore enthusiasts and some with a great deal of knowledge in this matter. The only difference is except we are not experiencing what you are experiencing with this product (E.g., Your M43 measured 4,550 lumens, while mine measured 6,950 lumens.) It was easy for anyone to assume from your initial few posts that you had too much faith in manufacturer’s lumens, ceiling bounce, and other’s DIY lumen spheres calibrated using manufacturer’s ratings and since many of your readings were reasonable (e.g., 4,800 lumens for Q8), a very logical explanation would be some of your lights might be duds (I had three identical Zebralights that measure 44/68/74lux), experienced emitter degradation (like my D4 XP-L HI I explained above), or just manufacturer’s overrating their lights (I have about 100 lights or more but not all the ones you have so can’t confirm them all). With additional information you are giving us (e.g., you have multiples of the same lights though not sure what they measured), it seems more likely either you are using it incorrectly (have you tried unplugging and replugging in the lux sensor?) or there is a defect in your specific unit (which would make it the first).
The hundreds of comments in this long thread have been very constructive and we try to be objective and factual. Only until recently your posts initiated some emotions and sorry for your negative experience. But when you came out of no where and started attacking this product without providing more information to help us diagnose, to many hardcore flashlight enthusiasts/experts here, that may sound offensive (I’m not because I’m not that savvy). Customers here contributed a huge wealth of information through hundreds of posts in this threads that helped shape this product. Some of your comments made it sound like rest of the TA tube customers, all hardcore flashlight enthusiasts, are dumb for thinking this product works great and you’re the only one that realize it doesn’t (e.g., your quote in this post). Regardless, TA himself has been very professional and objective.
Just a FYI, Toykeeper, who contributed to the coding for the Emisar series and the upcoming FW3A summed up the “lumen” phenomena pretty well in here This is the reason why many of us here discount lumen measurements from other DIY solutions and manufacturer’s ratings.