The 9th BLF Old Lumens Challenge Is Closed and Winners Have Been Named

Giveaways and Contests
1

EDIT, 2021/12/07
Thanks to all the entrants
The time for completing entries and posting the final information in the 9th BLF Old Lumens Challenge has ENDED. The countdown timer for this year’s BLF Old Lumens Challenge has run out.

Entries completed before the closing deadline will move to the next stages; the judging, the people’s choice poll, and the awarding of prizes.

This year the challenge coordinators have decided to do something a little different. Rather than run the People’s Choice poll after the judges have completed their task and those prizes have been awarded, we will be running the People’s Choice poll first. The community will speak before the judges.

The People’s Choice poll will run for 14 days from the time it is opened. Vote for your favorite.

The poll will be posted soon in its own thread. I will insert a link to the poll here at that time.
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Here is the link to the poll. Sample images of each project are posted there with links to each of the project topics.

The sponsor and prizes list has been updated by everydaysurvivalgear on the sponsors and judges thread…
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/67929 In the first post over there!

Hello everyone! What a great day! The BLF Old Lumens 9th Challenge is now open.

The challenge will run for 90 days plus a few hours. All work must be completed and all build posts dated by the official close date/time which will be when the countdown timer below hits zero.

2022/01/20 I REMOVED THE COUNTER. NO SENSE WASTING COMPUTER TICKS. :wink:

If I figured that correctly, the closing date is at the end of the day, Tuesday, December 7, UTC time. I may have the exact hour wrong but the countdown timer is what we all can see at any time of the day or night. Just believe what the countdown clock indicates. What the countdown timer shows is what the official closing time will be.

Post #2 lists some general background information and the rules. Please read the rules and information carefully. If you have any questions about any construction or challenge details please ask myself or everydaysurvivalgear. Let’s all have some fun!

Post #3 is where I will maintain a categorized list of all participants, broken down into the three classifications. Links to the project pages will be provided. Info and links for the participants will be posted at the top of that post.

NOTE: Everydaysurvivalgear is the co-cordinator, looking after judges and prizes. He has a topic dedicated to Judges and Prizes.
CLICK THIS LINK: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/67929

Thank you all sincerely, we look forward to watching your builds come to life!

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POST #2

Some history of how the yearly contest started:
Old-Lumens was a predominant member of Budget Light Forum who loved to make things, particularly flashlights and related items, with his own hands.
He went even further and encouraged others to do likewise by starting the annual Old-Lumens Contest which involves members making their own flashlight using only hand tools in one category or machines in another.
Sadly Justin (Old-Lumens) passed away in 2016, we here at BLF wish him to rest in peace and to continue to celebrate his life by hosting the yearly Old-Lumens Competition.

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You may enter into only one of the three categories below with a single build.

Hand Made:

  • Your light must be made from scratch.

  • You must make a build thread, show images, give an explanation of the build progress. Remember we can only judge on what you show us in your thread.

  • No outside services are allowed.

  • Single or multiple emitter, driver and alternate power configurations are allowed.

  • Should be a portable and battery-operated light such as lanterns, headlamps and similar devices.

  • All small hand tools are acceptable, as well as these power tools:

    • Soldering gun/ station

    • Electric Drill/ Drill Press

    • Dremel style Rotary Tool

    • Electric Saws

    • Disc or Belt Sander

  • You may use some manufactured components related to flashlights such as reflectors, drivers, LEDs, MCPCB's, O-rings, switches, lenses, optics and clips.

  • You may not use manufactured flashlight parts such as a bezel, a body, a tail cap, a head or a pill. Basically anything originally designed specifically for a flashlight host may not be used.

Machine Made:

  • Your light must be made from scratch.

  • You must make a build thread, show images, give an explanation of the build progress. Remember we can only judge on what you show us in your thread.

  • No outside services are allowed.

  • Single or multiple emitter, driver and alternate power configurations are allowed.

  • Should be a portable and battery operated light such as lanterns, headlamps and similar devices.

  • All machine shop tools are allowed, such as:

    • Lathe

    • End Mill

    • Programmed Automated machines

    • Standard 3D Printers

    • Plus all small hand tools

  • You may use some manufactured flashlight related components such as reflectors, drivers, LEDs, MCPCB's, O-rings, switches, lenses, optics and clips.

  • You may not use manufactured flashlight parts such as a bezel, a body, a tail cap, a head or a pill. Basically anything originally designed specifically for a flashlight host may not be used.

Modified Light Category:

  • Enter this category with a light you have modified or something you have modified for or into a light.

  • You must show us something that was modified by you and how it was done.

  • You can make a new thread or link to a mod you have posted on BLF within the stated time-frame.

  • You can build or modify by any means at your disposal and your mod can also be some form of self built flashlight attachment(s), clips, lanyards, paracord wraps, pouch or other related paraphernalia.

Judging the entries and prizes:

Everydaysurvivalgear is supervising the judges and prizes.

The following points are the judging criteria used in previous years.

  • Skill Level/ Finished Build Quality: Judged fairly on the persons access to tools, materials and abilities. Is the finished build functional & looking good? Difficult to make? Was the build completed, started or no work done at all?

  • Uniqueness/ Inventiveness of the build: Is the light unique, one of a kind or does it operate in a special way?

  • Build Thread Quality: Did the contestant do a good job of showing and explaining to the forum how they did the steps in the build? Good thread organization, pictures and descriptions of the methods used?

  • Purpose Built: Was the light purpose built for a specific use? Is it a special new EDC, upgrade or something for use that simply can't be bought easily?

  • Technical Details: Including new driver firmware, PCB designs, new technical ideas, programming and special switches etc.

  • Problem Solving & Obstacles: Were any specific problems encountered, documented and resolved by the contestant? Documenting the obstacles and using the power of the BLF community to solve them is seen as a big plus!

  • Enthusiasm to Participate: Did the contestant give it their best shot even knowing they would be up against more skilled veterans? Did they support other contestants build threads by posting encouragement and even giving help?

  • Following the Guidelines: Did the contestant follow the rules and guidance given?

  • Shown Operational: Did the contestant show us the light operating, its functions, beam-shots, videos etc?

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POST #3

If you are participating please make a build topic in the Giveaways and Contests forum and please PM me (MtnDon) with the topic URL.

The entrants are listed below in the three categories in the order they announced their participation.

HAND MADE CATEGORY
MtnDon
Asian8640
FearOfTheDark
wcddesign

MACHINE MADE CATEGORY
gChart
xqwerty151x {dnf due to problem :cry: }

MODDED LIGHT CATEGORY
YuvalS
EasyB
Skylight
Scallywag
Pip
Haukkeli

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reserved

5

Fantastic, thanks so much to the organizers this year! Happy building, and best of luck to all the participants!

Sticky’d.

6

I will be making an entry for the hand-made class.

We did have a brief discussion about this.

7

Woohoo it’s on again :partying_face:

8

Hey, thanks for opening the contest and wish good builds/mods to the ones involved in the competition this year :wink:
I am not sure if I will be able to enter the contest, but if I do, I will say it later on :wink:

As I said, good luck to all and show us how good BLF builders/modders are :sunglasses: :student: :beer:

9

Here we go! :sunglasses: Great, that the contest is happening again and many thanks to the organizers. :person_with_crown: :+1:

I am already checking my reflectors, hosts and leds to see what would be suitable this year.

May I ask why the modified light topics should go to the Flashlight Modding section while in the last years all threads were in the Giveaways and Contests section?

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That is a great question, and shows that sample size can be important.

By that I mean that I looked at the modded category list in last years challenge and randomly selected one; that of djozz. That one was in the Modding section. A further random selection today found that the two I selected today had placed themselves in the Giveaways and Contest section. That prompted a look at all last years modded entries. All but two were in the Giveaways and Contests category.

Therefore I believe it would make some sense to place all three category entries in Giveaways and Contests. I am changing the original posting.

Thank you.

11

We need a sub section for comp entries, if we compiled all entries over the years the thread would be full.

12

Count me in! Hand made. Now I just need to decide what to build…

13

A similar idea was presented a while ago… Maybe build on that thread? Maybe have sb make it sticky?

14

Thank you so much for organizing everything.
Here is my modification thread.

Hope to see more participants soon.
Maybe more people will join after you post the prizes....

15

Just a bump in case someone new might see this and a reminder that the challenge does exist again.

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Bump for inspiration

17

Did you have to bump ALL the old threads too? I mean really?

18

Yeh, there’s a lot of builds that can inspire. If you’re not interested you don’t have to look at them…

19

I just posted my entry thread for the modified light category: Skylight's Modification Class entry for the 9th BLF OL contest [COMPLETED]

80 days left is not too much. I’m quite busy but I think I will manage to squeeze this in.

Fortunately, I have most of the material on hand.

I see pinkpanda is in charge of the advertising. :wink: The OL contest is taking over BLF again. No way to ignore it. :smiley:

20

I’m in! modded light category!