Recently I've had several lights come back in with broken lenses from mechanical stress (drops / banging them on something) and customers have started asking for a shatterproof lens. I've also broke the lens in a few of my own lights doing stupid stuff (climbing a wall with the light in my hoodie pocket that fell out and dropped 10' down- light functioned perfect but shatters glass).
In the past I've used one of the UCLp AR acrylic lenses from Flashlightlenses.com and been extremely impressed with the lens (tho pretty damn expensive) so much so that the 2% lower transmittance doesn't concern me (97% which I believe vs the stated 99% of those cheap glass AR lenses from china that who knows about).
Is anyone else using these and if so have you ever had one break? What about have you ever had one melt in a high power LED application? I've used one in a fully built SRK and never had the slightest heat damage / deformation so I'm pretty sure they can handle anything an LED can dish out...
Not had any probs with them, the plastic is not brittle and they seem to handle high power leds just fine. Got a 110mm lens with mtg2@ 6A and a 73mm with xml @5A
They do scratch more easily than glass lenses, but not as easily as say a Mag lens.
While it’s not really on topic as far as the durability of the fll lenses…
I had a cheap c8 that I was always testing and rebuilding. One day I had to push down and twist really hard to get it on tight. Long story short the cheap lens broke and nearly chewed my hand all apart, luckily I only had minor cuts.
Anyways durable lenses would be nice, and I always wear cut resistant gloves screwing bezels down now.
No issues with mine either. ~77mm or so in front of ~7+ amps xp-g2. It was not as issue when it was in front of a mt-g2 at same amps either. Great lenses. Not that expensive compared to a broken one at half the price :-)
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