Zman sent me samples of some new unfimiliar collimators designed for use with Luxeons for me to evaluate (thanks Zman!). As of now, these are not available in the US yet. I was suprised when he choose me to ask if I could help. As promised here is my review along with some other contenders for comparison.
These optics are made by Carclo-Optics, the Technical Plastics division of Carclo plc, located in England. More info can be found here. They are made of a harder plastic, polycarbonate, as opposed to acrylic (I noticed the difference immediately when grinding/cutting away some of the tabs), so they should be stronger, withstand higher temperatures, and a bit more scratch resistant. EDIT 4/23: A quote from Ian of Carclo Technical Plastics, "The material these lenses are made from is polycarbonate but the material isn't in fact harder, it does take higher heat but does scratch more easily. The reason we went for this material is the refractive index, which enables us to get a tighter beam output angle.
There are 6 in total along with 3 different types of holders. 3 models of the optics are nothing I have seen before and are very interesting (marked with *). They are classified into two categories:
Classic Range (Datasheet PDF):
Narrow/6 deg. - p/n. 10003
Medium/15 deg. - p/n. 10003/15
Wide/25 deg. - p/n. 10003/25
Eliptical (Line)/25x6 (*) - p/n. 10003/L25
Specialist Range (Datasheet PDF):
Super Narrow/2 deg. (*) - p/n. 10025
Fibre Coupling Optic (*) - p/n. 10034
The pics below will help show why the 25x6, 2deg, & Fibre caught my attention. The Fibre lens was designed for reflecting light into fiber optic cables/bundles and "backlighting" applications such as screen displays, etc. They also have an optic in development for use with HD/Lambertians that emits a 5 degree wide beam in a full 360 degree area coverage.
There is one circular and two hex type holders which are available in different colors, black, clear, & white. These are also made of polycarbonate material. The circular type holder is identical to the ones found on Star/Os. The two hex holders are designed for use with stars, LuxI & LuxIII/V. They also have a tri-optic holder available. Please view the datasheet for more info and specs. (Holders Datasheet PDF)
Ok, enough jibber jabber, on with the pics!
From left to right: 6deg, Fibre, 15deg, 25deg, 25x6deg
The 2deg! (ooooh, ahhhh, /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif)
It fits into a MagC/D head perfectly. An additional lens o-ring like the one that comes stock will be needed to fill in the gap (prevent it from moving foward and back). Too bad the head doesn't screw down no where close to bringing the collimator into focus. Nothing a little machining away of the threads or additional threading can't fix. Or a heatsink designed long enough to bring the emitter well into the head would work too.
The optic holders (clear hex for LuxI, black hex for LuxIII/V)
The contenders, from left to right,
Top row: MagAA reflector, MagAA sputtered reflector, S017XA Reflector, Polished McFlood
Bottom row: NX-01, NX-05, Fraen LP, Fraen 30 degree
Beamshots taken at 3ft. from the wall. The ruler used for scale is 2ft. long. The camera's focus, exposure auto balance, & shutter speed were all locked (I don't know all the features of my camera yet and I didn't know what else I should have locked). I choose only to test with HD/Lambertion since that is what most of us are using these days and limited the review to only optics/reflectors in the same size category. The test luxeon used in all but one beamshot is a Q3J-HD BB500. The LuxV is a V2T BB700.
The 6deg optic is identical in dimensions and performance as the optic used in the Longbow Micra. I'm not sure if the Mini uses the same optic but I'm assuming it does. I won't say that LongBow does in fact use Carclo optics in their lights because I don't know that for sure but they are identical.
The 2deg is something I would like to get a hold of and modify a Mag to use. I must return the one I have now back to Zman but at least I got to play with it and get to keep the others. The 25x6 optic caught me by surprise, something I never expected to come out of an optic. The 15deg performed very similar to the Fraen 30deg when de-focused as seen in the pics. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be that way since most of the Carclo optics perform best when spaced out a bit from the emitter. The holders of course provide the correct spacing for most of the optics if not supposed to be all.
After evaluating all these optics, the NX-01 is still my favorite optic in it's size class for use with HD/Lambertians, second would be Carclo's 6deg.
Some McFlood comparisons:
Beamshots taken on the ceiling with me laying on the floor, about 7ft. distance. The widest part of the flood beam is 8ft. (not seen in the pics). The outermost ring just ouside of the "hotspot" with the LD (barely seen in the pics) is just short of 6ft. The "intense" part of the "hotspot" of the HD is just over 4ft.
TIA for any comments/feedback and thanks for viewing!
-darkzero-
These optics are made by Carclo-Optics, the Technical Plastics division of Carclo plc, located in England. More info can be found here. They are made of a harder plastic, polycarbonate, as opposed to acrylic (I noticed the difference immediately when grinding/cutting away some of the tabs), so they should be stronger, withstand higher temperatures, and a bit more scratch resistant. EDIT 4/23: A quote from Ian of Carclo Technical Plastics, "The material these lenses are made from is polycarbonate but the material isn't in fact harder, it does take higher heat but does scratch more easily. The reason we went for this material is the refractive index, which enables us to get a tighter beam output angle.
There are 6 in total along with 3 different types of holders. 3 models of the optics are nothing I have seen before and are very interesting (marked with *). They are classified into two categories:
Classic Range (Datasheet PDF):
Narrow/6 deg. - p/n. 10003
Medium/15 deg. - p/n. 10003/15
Wide/25 deg. - p/n. 10003/25
Eliptical (Line)/25x6 (*) - p/n. 10003/L25
Specialist Range (Datasheet PDF):
Super Narrow/2 deg. (*) - p/n. 10025
Fibre Coupling Optic (*) - p/n. 10034
The pics below will help show why the 25x6, 2deg, & Fibre caught my attention. The Fibre lens was designed for reflecting light into fiber optic cables/bundles and "backlighting" applications such as screen displays, etc. They also have an optic in development for use with HD/Lambertians that emits a 5 degree wide beam in a full 360 degree area coverage.
There is one circular and two hex type holders which are available in different colors, black, clear, & white. These are also made of polycarbonate material. The circular type holder is identical to the ones found on Star/Os. The two hex holders are designed for use with stars, LuxI & LuxIII/V. They also have a tri-optic holder available. Please view the datasheet for more info and specs. (Holders Datasheet PDF)
Ok, enough jibber jabber, on with the pics!
From left to right: 6deg, Fibre, 15deg, 25deg, 25x6deg
The 2deg! (ooooh, ahhhh, /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif)
It fits into a MagC/D head perfectly. An additional lens o-ring like the one that comes stock will be needed to fill in the gap (prevent it from moving foward and back). Too bad the head doesn't screw down no where close to bringing the collimator into focus. Nothing a little machining away of the threads or additional threading can't fix. Or a heatsink designed long enough to bring the emitter well into the head would work too.
The optic holders (clear hex for LuxI, black hex for LuxIII/V)
The contenders, from left to right,
Top row: MagAA reflector, MagAA sputtered reflector, S017XA Reflector, Polished McFlood
Bottom row: NX-01, NX-05, Fraen LP, Fraen 30 degree
Beamshots taken at 3ft. from the wall. The ruler used for scale is 2ft. long. The camera's focus, exposure auto balance, & shutter speed were all locked (I don't know all the features of my camera yet and I didn't know what else I should have locked). I choose only to test with HD/Lambertion since that is what most of us are using these days and limited the review to only optics/reflectors in the same size category. The test luxeon used in all but one beamshot is a Q3J-HD BB500. The LuxV is a V2T BB700.
The 6deg optic is identical in dimensions and performance as the optic used in the Longbow Micra. I'm not sure if the Mini uses the same optic but I'm assuming it does. I won't say that LongBow does in fact use Carclo optics in their lights because I don't know that for sure but they are identical.
The 2deg is something I would like to get a hold of and modify a Mag to use. I must return the one I have now back to Zman but at least I got to play with it and get to keep the others. The 25x6 optic caught me by surprise, something I never expected to come out of an optic. The 15deg performed very similar to the Fraen 30deg when de-focused as seen in the pics. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be that way since most of the Carclo optics perform best when spaced out a bit from the emitter. The holders of course provide the correct spacing for most of the optics if not supposed to be all.
After evaluating all these optics, the NX-01 is still my favorite optic in it's size class for use with HD/Lambertians, second would be Carclo's 6deg.
Some McFlood comparisons:
Beamshots taken on the ceiling with me laying on the floor, about 7ft. distance. The widest part of the flood beam is 8ft. (not seen in the pics). The outermost ring just ouside of the "hotspot" with the LD (barely seen in the pics) is just short of 6ft. The "intense" part of the "hotspot" of the HD is just over 4ft.
TIA for any comments/feedback and thanks for viewing!
-darkzero-
Last edited: