DEFT-High Output Got Lux?

[saabluster]

I bet they start showing up soon!

That's hilarious. I had to save that to my computer.

My DEFT arrived today!

I had to work late so no pictures yet.

Beamshots are coming though...

You know how when you go on a trip you always worry about whether you left the stove on or things like that? I just had this sneaking suspicion that I may have forgotten the very last tweak I normally do with these lights. After I tune them with the meter I tighten the head down just a few degrees more to change the focus from what would be 15' to something approaching ∞. I just can't remember if I made that final tiny adjustment on this last shipment.:thinking: So for guys just getting your lights you can see if you can get a slightly better beam at distance(hundreds of feet) by adjusting it in slightly. Just mark the position of the head relative to the body just in case you need to get it back exactly. Let me know what you guys find out.

 

[h22]

If you want some real fun, try this:

http://www.packagetrackr.com/

Not only tells you where it is, but maps it out.

:huh: Thanks, I think i came across a bit to negative on that post, I really wasn't expecting it till mid or late this week! Just that i surprised myself yesterday afternoon at how disappointed i was when it wasn't there (even though i knew it would't be) .
Where I live it seems to always take a day or three longer for stuff to arrive, even "next day air" stuff.

I would try the tracking but I seem to have deleated the e-mail you sent with the shipping info . No worries, I am sure it will arrive soon.

 

[Hellbore]

Well we went out to the desert and took some beamshots! Here they are:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3502338#post3502338

 

[jblackwood]

Excellent photography work, Hellbore. I especially liked the comparison shots, it's pretty hard to get stuff like that done right.

 

[saabluster]

Well we went out to the desert and took some beamshots! Here they are:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3502338#post3502338

Thanks for the link. Great work!

 

[h22]

Mine got shipped to the wrong adress :shakehead

PayPal would not let me update it for some reason when I made the order.
So i wrote a note on the paypal order, as well as sending an e-mail, that explained the problem, and gave the correct adress.

Will try to go claim it today .

 

[saabluster]

Mine got shipped to the wrong adress :shakehead

PayPal would not let me update it for some reason when I made the order.
So i wrote a note on the paypal order, as well as sending an e-mail, that explained the problem, and gave the correct adress.

Will try to go claim it today .

You are quite right. I sent it to the confirmed address at the top. Sorry about that. I assume they contacted you or something? Let me know how it goes.

 

[Hellbore]

You are quite right. I sent it to the confirmed address at the top. Sorry about that. I assume they contacted you or something? Let me know how it goes.

Even if it caused the customer a little bit of inconvenience, it is probably a good thing you sent to the confirmed address.

I know from past experience that if a customer pays you for an item and you ship it to a non-confirmed address, even if it's an address that they entered in Paypal when they sent you the money, and even if you have proof that the item was delivered, the receiver can claim they never received the item and Paypal will usually give them a refund and come after you for the money.

You have to ship to the confirmed address and have proof of delivery (delivery confirmation or tracking number) in order to truly protect yourself as a seller. When I used to sell on Ebay I would not ship to non-confirmed addresses for this reason. I had someone rip me off in the past this way.

 

[ma_sha1]

Wrong post..

 

[h22]

You are quite right. I sent it to the confirmed address at the top. Sorry about that. I assume they contacted you or something? Let me know how it goes.

No worries! The guy at the post office actually recognized my name from 2 years ago! so he held onto it for me.
Picked it up today at lunch. even in bright daylight it shows up fairly good.
On mine, the head assembly turned on me (I was just checking it over and noticed it turned easier than i was expecting). Shining it against the shop wall, probly 40-50 yards away, the spot seems to cominate the brightes when it is screwed in fairly snug (tighter than it was dekivered i think). I remember you posted something about your not remembering if you did all the finall checks before sending them out (not that i have ever woken up in the middle of the night wondering if i had missed something) , is this possibly what happened? or was it set right and now i need to do some tweeking at distance? In any case, awesome light! the spot is kinda cool looking against a white wall, its very blue around the outside of the spot, and gets whiter as it nears the center. just for laughs i put it up against a freinds Stinger LED (looks like same LED chip, driven at ~1amp) at 30ft it is a smaller, much brighter hot spot (duh!). can't wait for darkness to come!

So this LED is driven at 1.7amp correct? I'm kinda suprized that those little springs can carry that kind of current. I am powering it with the recomended "lithium" energizer AAs'.

Thanks !

Again, no worries on the adress thing, I was more frustrated that PP would not accept the adress change when i placed the order, usually it lets me update it ,but on that order, it just kept defaulting back to the old adress.

 

[Hellbore]

So this LED is driven at 1.7amp correct? I'm kinda suprized that those little springs can carry that kind of current. I am powering it with the recomended "lithium" energizer AAs'.

If the LED is driven at 1.7 amps that doesn't necessarily mean 1.7 Amps are being drawn from the batteries

It could be more than that or less than that...

But I don't remember what the battery configuration is, so I can't comment further...

 

[h22]

If the LED is driven at 1.7 amps that doesn't necessarily mean 1.7 Amps are being drawn from the batteries

It could be more than that or less than that...

But I don't remember what the battery configuration is, so I can't comment further...

Quite right! I didn't even bother to measure the voltage of the battery pack. so yea, good chance the driver circuit draws less than that from the pack..

It's night finally, full moon and lots of street lights and such so not exactly very dark. I took it outside just to play, pretty impressive. I don't have enough room on my block to really see how far this thing can throw (that's a good thing.)

but two blocks away the hot spot just about covers a truck head on and is still very bright. From the pics I have seen i was not expecting it to expand quite that much, but it is still freakishly fun. As i said, i need to go to a more open space without all the other light and test this thing out.

I am hoping that it pitch dark it can illuminate, if even faintly, larger sized objects (elk) at 800-900 yards.

Thanks for doing another run! So glad I got one.

 

[saabluster]

On mine, the head assembly turned on me (I was just checking it over and noticed it turned easier than i was expecting). Shining it against the shop wall, probly 40-50 yards away, the spot seems to cominate the brightes when it is screwed in fairly snug (tighter than it was dekivered i think). I remember you posted something about your not remembering if you did all the finall checks before sending them out (not that i have ever woken up in the middle of the night wondering if i had missed something) , is this possibly what happened? or was it set right and now i need to do some tweeking at distance?

Just do your tuning outside at a large distance. Turn it in and out until you find it provides the best intensity.

Quite right! I didn't even bother to measure the voltage of the battery pack. so yea, good chance the driver circuit draws less than that from the pack..

It's night finally, full moon and lots of street lights and such so not exactly very dark. I took it outside just to play, pretty impressive. I don't have enough room on my block to really see how far this thing can throw (that's a good thing.)

but two blocks away the hot spot just about covers a truck head on and is still very bright. From the pics I have seen i was not expecting it to expand quite that much, but it is still freakishly fun. As i said, i need to go to a more open space without all the other light and test this thing out.

I am hoping that it pitch dark it can illuminate, if even faintly, larger sized objects (elk) at 800-900 yards.

Thanks for doing another run! So glad I got one.

Since the batteries are in series it is not pulling all 1.7A. Still it is pushing things. You might be able to see an elk at that distance but it surely will require an optically aided eye. Glad it made it to you in one piece.

 

[Hellbore]

About seeing things at 800 to 900 yards:

Yeah, I noticed that too... when shining the DEFT on a very far-off object, I could tell that there was light being cast on the object, and see the bright spot (you can kind of see this in the first 2 of my beamshots), BUT even though there was a spot of light, I couldn't see the object anyway because it was just too far away for me to see clearly with the naked eye.

So... Not much point in throwing farther than your eyes can see

I should try looking at the hotspot in the distance with binoculars... I wonder if that would work.

 

[trout]

These things are pretty amazing

here is a beam shot of mine shining through a 3000 + lumen bike light
at the old house at a range of approx 400 feet .

 

[h22]

I was planning on using binoculars for long distance stuff, not sure it will provide enough light though.I have noticed that the internal colminating lense on mine is mounted slightly off. It is not parallel to the LED. So looking through the large lense at the LED chip, it appears to be pointing a bit off center. I am wondering if could be fixed? As its mounted in rubber and glued, im wondering if i could remove the glue and try to re-mount it so that it is more in-line with the LED, possibly this will make it more focused?

 

[saabluster]

I was planning on using binoculars for long distance stuff, not sure it will provide enough light though.I have noticed that the internal colminating lense on mine is mounted slightly off. It is not parallel to the LED. So looking through the large lense at the LED chip, it appears to be pointing a bit off center. I am wondering if could be fixed? As its mounted in rubber and glued, im wondering if i could remove the glue and try to re-mount it so that it is more in-line with the LED, possibly this will make it more focused?

Getting the LED perfectly aligned is very difficult. The only way to get it perfect would be to reflow it and move it. Remember that I have to solder the LED to a solid piece of copper. I have not found any significant difference by having an emitter slightly off center. It is more important in a reflector but not that big a deal with a lens. In fact the record smashing DEFT you see in my most recent thread has a slightly off center emitter. I recommend just leaving it be as you will not see any functional advantage by moving it.

 

[h22]

Thanks, But its not the LED that is off center. The LED looks fine, rater it is the internal lens, the "precolminator?" that is slightly askew, possibly 1/16th of an inch higher on one side than the other. this makes the LED "appear" to be pointing a bit sideways when looking through the front of the flashlight.

I looked at it a bit more today, and that smaller lens appears to actually be resting on the LED, so it kind of wobbles on the crown of the LEDs lens. with a bit of tweaking I can get it more or less straight in line (or laying parallel) with the LED. So i can fool with it a bit and see if it sharpens up the hot spot at a distance.

Thanks, Joe

 

[saabluster]

Thanks, But its not the LED that is off center. The LED looks fine, rater it is the internal lens, the "precolminator?" that is slightly askew, possibly 1/16th of an inch higher on one side than the other. this makes the LED "appear" to be pointing a bit sideways when looking through the front of the flashlight.

I looked at it a bit more today, and that smaller lens appears to actually be resting on the LED, so it kind of wobbles on the crown of the LEDs lens. with a bit of tweaking I can get it more or less straight in line (or laying parallel) with the LED. So i can fool with it a bit and see if it sharpens up the hot spot at a distance.

Thanks, Joe

Yes the small lens is really close and sometimes touching the LED. Are you sure it is the lens that is off or are you going by the outer rim of the optic holder? The part was hand made so it may be higher on one side than the other but there not be any issue with the position of the lens itself. If you can make it work by all means go ahead. If it is not working for you and you find the holder is not holding the lens firmly enough I can send you another one. Sorry about that.

 

[h22]

Yes the small lens is really close and sometimes touching the LED. Are you sure it is the lens that is off or are you going by the outer rim of the optic holder? The part was hand made so it may be higher on one side than the other but there not be any issue with the position of the lens itself. If you can make it work by all means go ahead. If it is not working for you and you find the holder is not holding the lens firmly enough I can send you another one. Sorry about that.

Thanks, I figured it was a hand made part. It does seem that it could hold the lens a bit more firmly, but not really a huge deal. I am fairly handy and can tinker with it. My main concern was the distance that this lens has to be from the LED, You stale that it is "finely tuned", and I didn't want to screw things up by trying to modify it. But, as it appears to be basically resting on the LED, that takes some o the guess work out of it.

I must admit, i am kind of splitting hairs here, the DEFT is an amazing light, but judging mine against some of the beam shots (probly not a good idea) the hot spot on mine does not look as crisp or well defined as some. Given the varying camera settings used to achieve beam shots, likely this is a non issue. I have yet to go to a place that is realy dark and stretch its legs so to speak.

I am wery glad i got in on the last buy! and :thumbsup: for doing another run of them.