Shouldn't Lumens Factory Have a Turbo Head?

[Timothybil]

The first question you have to answer is 'Is this meeting a demand? Are we meeting our sales expectations with what we have already released?' If that is the case, then think very carefully before changing anything. I know a lot of people were blue-skying at the beginning of this thread about things that would be nice to have. But nice to have and commercially viable are two very separate animals. I have had some training in Product Design and Product Development, and know a lot of what kinds of decisions have to be made. I believe you said you tried a lot of different designs to reach where you are right now. Maybe if you have some of those prototypes still around you could offer them on EBay or wherever to see how much interest there would be in each iteration. If there is enough interest you might want to do some follow-up with the purchasers and bidders to see how valid and wide-spread their interest is. Since you are already making an M-thread head, take a couple of them and mill the threads for a C body instead. It may not look as elegant, but it would not take a big investment on your part and you could see what the demand might be. Gray anodize a few of each and offer them for sale as a limited availability item. If someone wants one that bad, maybe they would be willing to pay a little extra for it. I can see several branches from what you already have that would not be that expensive for you to do and that would probably sell as 'limited availability' items. I personally would like to see an 80 mm head so I could play mini Carbon-arc with my Seraph. It would not be practical, and would be extremely unbalanced, but I think it would be fun! (Don't do it for me, I can't afford it right now!) Be creative! Have fun with it! Think of it as something you can use to fill in with for those times when demand slows down a little. I know everyone has periods like that. If there is enough demand for something, then you have found another product for your main line sales.

What ever you decide to do, thanks for thinking enough of your customers to even try to meet some of our dreams. We know how rare that is and we thank you for it.

May fortune smile on you and your house.

Tim

 

[darkangel55555]

I have to concur with the other members who have expressed dissatisfaction with the design of the term ahead. The M turbohead design is still readily available, whereas the C turbohead and the 9AN heads are all but impossible to find.

The shock mounting and ability to fit a thicker led tower in the head is of limited benefit to the incandescent fans still out there. I personally would pay a premium for the smaller, more compact, design, with a large reflector. In terms of anodize color, I have no real preference - as all of my lights are mismatched anyway. I would imagine that the C2 or Leef bodies might be paired with such a head.

I'll probably still get one of the current batch, but it is a little redundant beside my half dozen or so M6 Guardians.




Sent from my GT-I9295 using Candlepowerforums mobile app

 

[Steve in SoCal]

I don't think you should bother with defending this unless your lifelong goal is being a peacemaker, or you have some stake in this. Otherwise you should tell the rest of us why you think telling the truth is weakening my posts.

I guess one of my points is that some people will whine and complain about anything and everything. You have had an argumentative position within this thread for years. If I am LF why would I listen.

If there is such a high demand for the ideal turbo head product why don't people just ask FM to make a custom run? Or crowd fund it, then folks can put their money where their mouth is.

 

[cenz]

I had a idea which told to Mark, which is un-LF lable product line for limited produce and alternative spec products, such is 3+ inches turbo head and some 5A+ imr bulb....



But anyway... Hoping more good products from LF in future.

 

[Justin Case]

Regarding anodizing color, I prefer black. I have both natural and black anodized SF hosts. The natural color from SF is all over the map, so I'm not sure what folks are thinking when they talk about color matching. There is no single color to match. Thus, you won't get a match, except by luck. And as Mark has stated, there are a lot of SF C hosts that are black. Thus, a natural LF TH will give you color mismatches with most of the natural hosts and all of the black hosts. A black LF TH will at least match all of the black hosts and won't look like you were a hammerhead in trying to match the natural color and failed miserably.

The main theoretical downside, IMO, is the shock system, at least if you are going to run an LED tower. Unless LF redesigned the shock system so as not to compromise the thermal path, shock heads have inferior cooling vs non-shock heads, and that can be bad for LEDs. However, I think that current gen LEDs should run reliably enough, especially since the mode of usage will probably not be general purpose, i.e., running the light for an hour straight.

For incan bulbs, I would want to retain the shock system, especially for a weaponlight.

 

[Timothybil]

The tower LED is a Cree XP-G2 which is 350 lumens max. It shouldn't get that hot even at steady on high. My Seraph 6 has the XP-G and I have never noticed any appreciable warming even on high. They appear to be using their standard driver board which provides 5%-30%-100% for the modes.

 

[Mark@LF]

Thanks for all the comments so far.

As far as demand goes, I am going to be more cautious on this new one and probably make a small number to start out.
Not going to make a new reflector or anything 3 inch, I am going to use the reflectors on the turbohead that we have just released and which we have spent a lot of effort in.

As Justin said, I do think that going black might be the way to go as the number of black C/P/Z host definately outnumbers the Natural or OD.
Also the colour matching issue with all the different Natural and OD host.

The Natural or OD should have gone to the M head that was released, but this C/P/Z thread host should be leaning more toward black.

I will keep listening to the comments and start working on the design, the colour is something that can be decided upon last on the production cycle.

Thanks again for all the input guys, I really appreciate it.

 

[Conte]

I just noticed a conflict.

Your head is black but your C to M adapter is grey.

I was thinking this head would look nice on Fivemega's new 2x26650 C Body in black. But the Grey adapter would not match.

 

[scout24]

I, for one, will buy a C-thread non-shock isolated head smaller than the current offering.

 

[tab665]

any update from lumens factory on this project? i got a bored out 9P thats dying to have a dedicated turbo head on it.

 

[DayofReckoning]

I know this is an old thread, but there is a surprisingly small amount of information on this Turbohead on the forums here. Has anyone actually compared the throw of this turbohead with the mirror reflector against the factory Millennium Turbohead on the M3T/M4/M6?

I'm considering getting one of these but would really like to know if there is a substantial increase in throw.