Coppertop, I didn't mean it in a negative way that you were in a fantasy land. What I meant was that your wanted light only exists right now in your fantasies. My fantasies too as I also enjoy f2z lights. I have seen XM-L lights with aspheric lenses that work and work great but not until the lens diameter exceeded 50mm. Due to physics, what you want (an xm-l f2z smaller than a standard p60 light) is just not going to happen.
XR-E emitters work best simply because the LED dome focuses the light in a relatively tight 90° spread. The XM-L spreads its light 125° and a lens less than 50mm just can't catch enough of it to make a bright enough focus spot. I firmly believe that what you want can be made but not unless you are willing to compromise your small size requirement.
Good luck on your hunt though because if you happen to find exactly what you want please let us all know too. 80% of the folks on BLF are wanting the same light including me! ;)
A couple of thoughts come to mind. Aspherics aren’t designed for the older emitters (or the newer emitters) they are just what they are…aspherics!
Regarding your last point. I’d agree that many on here who like flood-to-throw lights would like a better quality one as would presumable be the case if Solarforce made one. Some of the issues would remain the same however.
Regarding your main point in the quote above however I think something different is happening (where you are comparing the two lights with the same emitter).
If one truly is brighter than the other then one is being driven harder than the other. The other effect you are describing is just the difference in focal length.
Focal length doesn’t effect the throw or the brightness (lux). It just affects the “spot” size. You are getting more lumens from the bigger spot but the lux readings would be the same (if they are both driven the same).
That’s just the physics of the thing. The lens isn’t really compressing the beam making the smaller beam brighter. It’s just making it smaller.
A larger diameter optic will make the beam smaller and brighter however. If that’s actually happening in your case then the brighter one has to be driven harder.
By the way, the only reason that I know these things is because I (and many others) have an interest in aspherics and throw as well and have experimented and as read up on the physics involved. Dr. Jones on this forum is a good source as well.
The interesting thing about throw is that experimenting isn’t necessary in one sense and that is that the end results of any experiment can be predicted without the experiment! It’s all surface brightness and reflector/optic diameter. Experimenting is good as far as finding the right sized optic for a specific host and all the practical aspects of modifying a light it’s just that the physics involved is pretty straightforward.
Thanks for your thoughts GB and Jonny… great thread and ideas…that C10 does look very interesting… and I might personally get one… but by buddies who want a light on their belt for everyday cary use (they have a larger light on a bigger clip for night time patrol) want a light the x2000 size… they have already ruled out the c8 I have.It seems a lot of people are after “somewhat” the same idea in a zoomie… maybe it is time for something better I think… great discussions.
GB… It may not appear like I understand what you are saying… believe me when I say I do… and all you say is dead on… the XRE per surface density is brighter than an XML.. no question on that, also with the same optics the XRE will always be “brighter” –no problem there either…
But let me run something by you… Just for “theory” sake
All any light source want s to do is illuminate… all we want to do is control it to get it to do what we desire.We want to control… for throw for example to bend or reflect all those scattered rays into the most concentrated parallel beams that we can get…and without getting into a big discussion –we know the Lumens will not change no matter what I do to the light -I can only concentrate it or spread it around… only the “perception” of the brightness or lux, the apparent illumination to my eye will change, it may “appear” brighter or dimmer to me depending upon what I do to it, but the “actual” brightness in the strictest sense does not change.
In theory I can have a LED emitter say 8”x8” big… huge right… the lumens that that LED actually puts out will never change… no matter what I do… but I can concentrate or if I like spread out the luminance and measure that in lux…. So here is where theory comes into play…. In theory I can place a collimator TIR lens on that huge LED –optimized for that size and radiation pattern and force the direction of a great amount of that light into parallel beams in the direction I want it to go…. Then I can via a series of optics continue to reduce the area of those beams smaller and smaller until I get a very concentrated “beam” of light. Technically not any brighter in terms of true lumens… but for real purposes could burn a hole in your eye. Now just for fun… if you reverse this whole process –you have pretty much how a camera lens works… it takes the wall of light from many directions and continues to directionally control it down to an intense very small focal point when it hits the CCD… but the image is really no “brighter” than the world it came from.Now it is interesting that the diameter of the camera lens varies from as small as a cell phone lens to as big a hundred millimeters… but the “theory” is the same.
I need to take some more pictures of some of the stuff I did a few years ago… I started with K2 emitters and through trial and error with a series of collimators and optics was able to get a 1” beam to be very intense for what I was making… “starwars light sabers”… this light traveled down a ¾” inside diameter acrylic tube for 3’ from a 20mm tube…. this graduated to XRE’s then XPG then the whole thing went out the window with the colored triple rebels and XPE’s collimated… blew everything away and you would not believe the wow factor these light sabers produce.That was two or three years ago and just now I am back into seeing if the X2000 can be improved all around….
So back to my “theory” –about the XML… I believe with the right collimator…55°-I hope as small as 20-37mm to fit the size I would like… coupled with a plano-convex (maybe?) … “could” give us what we want. The Led is fixed with the collimated lens inside the housing and the convex slides from right touching the collimator to maybe about ¾” slide away –where ever the focal plane is, but both collimator and lens have to be optimized and designed to work together. I have many lens and collimators for different LEDs… probably a hundred or so… but only recently did anything with some XML’s jacked into the X2000, and was not inpressed. So I may be way out in left field here…. But… some thought went into it anyways … we’ll see
And... regardless the LED... I still want an L2T sliding zoom!!!
I don’t even like zoom lights (but do like aspherics) and yet I have 2 zoom lights on order. One is a 18650 twist focus with a side switch. I like the twist and side switch feature.
I also have the C10 size zoom light someone started a thread about which also has a twist focus and of course the largest aspheric I’ve seen in these lights…about 40 mm or so.
Wait till you think you found the perfect light and start buying multiples of the same light. Then you change your mind..... There is no perfect light for all situations.
I should have worded that a bit differently I also have (on order) the C10 size zoom light
I can’t wait for it to arrive either! Even though I’m sure the C10 will throw further I’m even more interested I think in the 30mm sized zoom light from DX with the side switch and twist focus!
Dr. Jones should receive his DX version a few days before mine however so maybe we’ll get a review on that one!
Coppertop, having the ultraok one as I do, I highly recommend you the Yezl T9, replace its lens by the one from Ultraok, they are the same diameter, they look the same, but the one from ultraok is by far better optics, with an XM-L you can get roughly a bit more than 300m, where with an XR-E you can get about 400m,and 300m is not bad at all, and it has a really really nice flood mode, quite big are covered.
*I have the Yezl Direct drived to get that distance, it will depend on the driver you get it, and the distances I mention are approximations from what I had been able to check from my window, I am affraid I haven't any lux reading, but I can try to get them from a friend who has a lux meter.
If I can convince myself of good deal somewhere I will see about getting one of these Yezl T9’s… any special leads on a “great buy”… do you know what they are pulling amp wise via your direct drive?
Hello CopperTod, the one at Manafont has less head travel, so the floodest it can be will illuminate a smaller area,(if both have the same focal length) I think YEZL was 140cm at 1m against the wall which is a lot, the YEZL is also a slider by the way.
As I haven't found any better lens on that diameter, please confirm when you receive the one from Manafont if it is as good as the ultraok one.
Direct drived will differ with different batteries, with trustfire flames it is about 3.6A for example when fully charged.
I to started with the X-2000 its a great light to learn about LEDs with, easy to mod does a lot of things good but nothing great. I recently made a custom driver for my EDI T P-4 I would say its close to perfect now, but I really think you should start there.
FYI: I make custom P-60 drop in if you have some ideas you want to experiment with I can help you out although shipping to Canada has been a problem even though I only live a couple hours from the border.
The reason over the P4 is I have another sliding zoom that is tube style -instead of the larger head and it is too hard to open one handed and pinches my fingers when the head is slid backwards… but this order still being a EDI-T (or a clone) I hope it to hold up to the high standards.
Thanks for the idea and offer of the P60 work, I appreciate it … I have made several different drop ins and still have 2 solid copper ones and one aluminum that I use for custom testing… they fit rather snugly into my L2P bodies…(you can see a couple in my picture of the “stuff” above in the lower centre) - tried everything from tri XPG’s driven at 4.2 amps(4 additional 7135’s stacked on a 2.8amp driver) to XM-LU2’s with 25mm aspherics … but unfortunately I still finding myself drawn back to the need for a good zoomie –Mega flood to pinpoint spot down range.
FYI: this is my current favorite of all my zoomie’s…:
I just started the above forum topic with talking about the X2000 (and how I would like a BETTER light) because I still do like and use it, and it is probably very familiar to a lot of people, but for usability and build quality –this one from UltraOk is my best…(you can see it in the “stuff” picture above as well)
I also have (on order) the C10 size zoom light