There wasn’t much fanfare in the flashaholic world when the Luminous SBT-70 was announced*, but on the surface it seemed to answer many of the community prayers. High output, smallish (think it compares in size to the XLM) and ROUND…opening an as yet unexplored world - I thought.
Almost 10 months later, I can’t recall seeing a single light, even from a Nitecore, Olight, etc …
Not losing any sleep over it, but wondering why there is no buzz?
Lumens, drive/draw, reliability, size, heat sinking, not suited to portable usage?
*what I was told by a lighting architect, a strong upgrade to the SST-90
You do know the Olight SR95SUT uses it correct? I actually intend to get my SR90 modded soon with the SBT-70. I dedomed my SST-90 and got some gains - 144k up to 195k, but I want more. I’m pretty sure the SBT-70 should put me in the 250k range.
They are expensive though. In the $40-50 range. Might be why other manufacturers and modders haven’t played with them much yet.
Even the post is flying pretty much under the radar, for what I would have thought was a pretty hot topic, unless it was covered somewhere else already?
My friend the commercial lighting architect was just overjoyed at the possibilities of the round beam as opposed to everything else - square! He called it a game changer.
And I was looking at Olights, but they were SR models on clearance at IS…was in more of a budget mode.
Competing manufacturers, and the MTG2 is a very different beast, minimum voltage is 6.5 volts, there aren’t any drivers built for the mtg2 currently that fit in a standard flashlight.
The SBt70 only really shows its worth in a large reflector or maybe an aspheric lens. In a small light it’s useless compared to an XML2-U2
I’m just going by what I’ve been told by VinhNyugen, and he told me there optimized at 6.5 volts, he’s been direct driving them on two cells to get them to work.
I am getting the learned/educated opinions and such that I was curious about.
I know there are applications, maybe the flashlight thing, (especially w the high wattage need and not the highest lumen output) is not the best or most appropriate usage, but the Architect had mentioned that he was ‘told’ that a single new Luminous 70 would replace a 250w HID…so I thought, heck, someone has to be working on this…. could be something big. Or not.
And certainly Cree has the ability to counter with a comparable or better round emitter if that is truly a benefit in their marketplace as Luminous seems to think it will be. So not looking like a game changer except in certain circumstances - stage lighting?
And the round beam and intense center hot spot would optimize a thrower, I would think.
I normally think “American Lumens” are more reasonable than Chinese lumens, so I had hopes… but in this case you are certainly right, I think his decimal points are probably off a digit or two?
Since he makes a good living at this, certain that the Architect (as he calls himself) will certainly get it straight before he bids/designs a job!
The round emitting SBT-70 is optimized for narrow beam circular optical architectures. It is intended for high brightness systems that require a compact, surface mount LED.
Applications:
Entertainment lighting
Portable lighting
Medical / Microscopy
It’s HIGHLY inefficient when compared to the latest offerings from CREE though.
More than I knew before, and clear to see that a professional in his field of commercial lighting is seeing this from different sources - and of course, he (and they all need to) needs to use his smarts to clear the smoke away from the reality.
And there is so much more to what I don’t know about why/what/how…there are such differences in application, efficiency, output, etc within the same engineering family like Cree or Luminous, even taking into account same generation of products.
Again, application trumps all.
All I could think of with this in a flashlight application was some sort of ballast system like HID uses to boost the current…but not my expertise to do anything other than idle pondering…
