Thanks, subscribed!
And a clickable link to the C8 addicts thread. 
But that’s what I’m getting at, you’re not “projecting” a spill beam with a parabolic reflector, the spill is simply made up of light that is exiting the emitter and not hitting any part of the reflector on it’s way. It’s absolutely the same intensity (minus lens transmission losses) as the light you’d see coming off the bare emitter with no reflector in place e.g a mule light. And it’s intensity is solely dependent on the emitter’s emission profile.
The difference that the depth of the reflector makes and how it looks to constrict the angle of the spill beam is by “blocking” more of this unhindered light. And because the thing blocking that light is a parabolic reflector it has to project that light forward along with all the other light from deeper inside the reflector to form the central hotspot and corona.
And provided we’re still talking about parabolic reflectors I don’t think there is such a thing as different geometry, all you can do is scale up or down a parabola and decide how much to cut off on the front end to get to your desired O/D and distance to focal point. And if we’re talking about a fixed O/D application like a flashlight then to get a reflector that has more depth (more of the parabolic shape is used) we have to scale down the parabolic shape overall. If you look at a Tn31 reflector which has the same O/D of the bighead light but far greater depth, you’ll also see that the flat part at the base of the reflector (focus plane?) is far narrower. So the parabola from which the reflector section is cut is smaller overall. This should also be the case when comparing your two C8 reflectors.
I don’t know how much impact these things have on an already fairly small reflector like the C8 but it’s interesting stuff.
Clearly Thrunite decided to go with a deep 1:1 ratio reflector in their flagship thrower when they could have also gone with a reflector cut using a larger parabola that would have been shorter just like the one in the Courui “Bighead”.
I’m really fascinated by Buckets thread because so much interesting information is being brought forward regarding parabolic reflectors. Much more interesting and less mysterious than I always thought.
That is all.
I don’t care how the light gets there, which one is better, deeper or shallow?
No simple answer I’m afraid as with everything else.
Understanding the voodoo will help you make an educated decision for yourself.
-
But you can probably sum it up like this, for a given emitter size and reflector diameter. So let’s take two XML lights with the same head diameter.
If you want absolute maximum hotspot intensity (throw) and are ok with a narrow spill beam then a deep reflector is what you want. Seems what we call “deep” reflectors tend to have a ratio of width to depth that’s close to 1:1.
If on the other hand you prefer to have a fairly wide spill beam and are ok with sacrificing some hotspot intensity to have a more useful walking-round light then a shallower reflector will probably suit you better. I certainly prefer this kind of light myself.
-
As I said above my personal preference and ideal throw to spill combination is something like those old halogen lanterns with massive but very shallow parabolic reflectors, the ones that look kinda like a dish. They have a very tight hotspot but also a very, very wide and useful spill that projects out at what seems like 150-180degrees or something close to that. There is no doubt this light setup is not going to give you the ultimate throw performance because so much of the light is missing the reflector completely but it is a very useful combination.
Unfortunately that kind of reflector setup is only possible with a halogen bulb since the light source is omni directional rather than the 120degree directional leds we have now. That allows designers to place the light source and the focal point of the reflector very far forward almost at the rim of the reflector itself and get this combination of throw and spill.
What I’m not sure about is how this scaling of the parabola affects the projection of the hotspot. I wouldn’t think overall size is massively affected since the widest part of the relfector is still the same size in relation to the emitter die size. But since you’re using more of a smaller parabola and less of a larger parabola surely that should affect something about the projected hotspot…maybe the definition/focus of the corona? I need to look into this more, it’s quite fascinating.
the problem here now is, many of us would pick a light we like and MAKE THE DAMMED THING THROW, I’m not sure this is what the op wants to do. And fifty bucks isnt much, even modding it constricts you to a zyt08 of hd2010, my personal choice busts the budget (convoy l2, dedomed xp-g2 on a noctigon and 5a lck driver) so it depends on both tge budget flexibility and tge op’s ability to shove something different in a host and make it work.
it also depends on their happiness with either very short run time at full output or using series cells. imo its easier to get high output and useful runtime out of two or more cells, and you dont need special high outout high drain cells.
if you’ve not played with much snd live in the states. a defiant 3c super thrower is a good place to start with plenty of mod options.
if you can’t mod and 50 or so kcd wont do it, your probably going to have to up your budget.
What CD are you getting the L2 up to gords?
Chris
This one is still for sale
An amazing light!
200ish kcd off my cheapo meter, how that relates to anything else? who knows, it amuses me and is still usefull in terms of beam and runtime. thats all that really matters to me.
yea, i already accepted the fact that i will either have to up the budget or to “mod” and to tell you the truth i am warming up for “modding”…
modding wise.
it depends on your skills and what you want. many like xm-l/l2 based throwers, I’m in a minority as I prefer xp - g/g2 based throwers, others want an aspheric xp-e/e2/xre laser beam with no spill.
the answer is, buy a zy-t08/hd2010 AND a jacobs a60 AND the aspheric wolf eyes clone (someone will supply the model here, I think its a t20 ultrafire) I think you’ll just about tip fifty dollars.
from there, see which beam profile suits and then start modding.
personally I hate aspherics, so I wouldn’t consider one, others love them and get great results, I’m just old and feel a beam should be round and cone shaped.
I also like usefull spill, if I was on a boat, my needs would change, foggy/pollen clouded atmosphere, it’d change again, for my use, a hard driven copper mounted dedomed xpg2 in a big reflector works well, for you, it might not.
Also, dedoming is easiest to succeed with petrol, if your petrol is poor quality or hard to get, dedoming becomes much more of sn artform.
It’s the UniqueFire UF-T20. It has a cool white XM-L standard, mine pulls about 1.5 Amps. I’m planning to mod it with a dedomed XP-G2 on copper and drive it at 3 Amps.
Pointless question unless you define your personal idea of better. Mine is usually as little spill as possible in a thrower, but varies with circumstance. That what you want?
sometimes i think all the comments are kinda’ full of excuses to buy more and more flashlights…but no, it is absolutely necessary to have at least 10 different types of throwers (and backups for them…) right? J)
The Sky Ray STL-V2. It bests all of these lights except for the K40 and Maxtochs, and for the money, is the better buy. I don’t know why people keeping leaving this off their lists. Nothing REALLY beats it. The Maxtoch 2X would be second choice (first if you want higher lux numbers, second if price is the determining factor), then the Small Sun C10, then Jacobs A60.
smallsun zy-t13 + crelant collimator head + emitter swap & dedome. that combo with an xre ez900 at 1.8ish amps is over 200kcd. if you boost the driver and do an xpe2 or xml2 dedomed i am sure you can get more out of that setup
I think the only way to boost the current on this ZY-T13 is doing resister mod, and is there any seller who sell the crelant collimator head that can ship internationally?
I am sure there is a seller somewhere, not sure what it would cost though... yes, you would need to do a resistor mod to boost the current. I think most used a pot do dial in the wanted current
It is $5 more than I spent on mine from a US retailer, but if you look you can probably find it cheaper
It's not on my list because I don't have one. I'm not going to recommend something I've never laid eyes on. It's omission isn't necessarily a vote against it. Anyplace cheaper than Lightmalls to get it?
Thank you for the suggestion anyway, at least it ships internationally.
Yezl Y3 - 62 kcd stock I measured, and about 900 lumens. Details here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/24076#comment-547190. Better than a stock HD2010, even though the HD2010 is at higher amps with an unregulated driver.