A brief history of the HDS universe

[Hondo]

Good pic! Never knew Novatac tried to market that. Much like the original LR with the HD near the top of this thread, but with the crenelated bezel and a bit fancier knurling on the body. Now I wonder if both that and V3 of the Action Light ever landed in customers hands.

 

[Lithium466]

A bit bigger too, maybe to fit C or D size batteries?
I think it was called "Novatac turbo", probably just a prototype like the Action Light 3!

 

[:)>]

Some of the finest lights available. Henry is top notch and a real pioneer. I really enjoyed meeting him at Shot Show 2008... had a great time at the Surefire party.

 

[Hogokansatsukan]

Now a hard one. Can someone tell me about this prototype?

First time for me to see this one. Had to have been produced after NT went to CA. There were long throw HDS prototype heads made, but I haven't seen one for some time.
While it has been discussed about making long range HDS lights, it really has never been a big priority. There are other priorities at HDS that keep more in line with the original designs of the light and philosophy of HDS.
I know people often get into the "more lumens" and "more throw" mindset, and I have been guilty of that myself, but I have other lights that fit that role.
Being heavily involved in firearms and training for a good deal of my life, I tend to relate lights to firearms. HDS is a rock solid reliable pistol that can change from a .22 with snake shot up to a .45 ACP. Easy to carry and have on you when you need it. If I need a real thrower, or some massive amount of lumens, it is generally something I know in advance, i.e. shooting at night in the desert, hiking, camping, etc. and I'll bring along another light that fits that role, in the same way I'll take a long gun with me if I have an inkling it may be needed (or desired). The larger heads of the original HDS "thrower" and even the picture of the one above, do not, in my humble opinion, lend themselves well for EDC.

 

[Lithium466]

I think it was at shot show 2009, don't know where Novatac HQ was at that time.

 

[Hogokansatsukan]

I think it was at shot show 2009, don't know where Novatac HQ was at that time.

California. Mid 2008 is when they left Tucson.

 

[Lithium466]

This is the newest addition to my HDS "herd":



A very beaten up EDC Basic 60LE. It arrived with a beaten up inox bezel, a very scratched acrylic lens, and an almost new gen 1 battery compartment.
I replaced the o-ring in the head, the lens with a "genuine" HDS glass lens (from another U60), and it was good to go to the second stage "tuning", programming :devil:

When I bought it, I didn't pay attention to the "LE" part, meaning it always start on max, then double click is a lower level, another double click is an even lower level, and triple click is minimum (0,3lm)..

Being a basic, programming is 250+ clicks from off. So first I did a factory reset, to be sure to start from fresh, then 250 click to get to the programming menu, to disable the "force setting" option (on these old HDS, you can only set a brightness level by disabling the force setting option, switching the light on to the level you want to modify, than doing the 250 click routine to get to the brightness setting menu, and so on for each brightness level you want to modify).

So I did the 250 click once routine to disable the force setting option, once to modify the turn on level to an equivalent of the primary level on the "non LE" lights, then another time to set the low setting to the lowest level the light can do, then another time to activate pseudo momentary, and finally once again to enable the force settings, since you exit automatically the programming menu when enabling/disabling an option. I let you imagine how my thumbs were feeling after that!
Programming on newer light is much more user-friendly, and programming on Ultimate series was only 10 clicks instead of 250, so much more doable.

Anyway, after having it programmed to my tastes, it was put to edc duty, and soon I understood why it came with an acrylic lens!



It didn't even fall or whatever, I just switched it to maximum for a few minutes, and I heard a "crack", lens was shattered. On its defense, lens was perhaps weakened by some previous use, don't know, since it's 1,5mm thick it's not that easy to crack. Or maybe I tightened the bezel too much?

So a Novatac classic was chosen as organ donor, and the HDS got a new acrylic lens (gosh these scratch sooo easily! Or these late Novatac lens are crap), and a new glass lens with LDF went to the Novatac. And now the HDS is my new EDC, pretty funny since it's 10+ year old, but I like the "small" form factor compared to newer series.
Hope you enjoyed the story of this Basic 60LE!

 

[Grijon]

Hope you enjoyed the story of this Basic 60LE!

:twothumbs

 

[Hondo]

Nice one, Lithium!

That lens crack is strange. Most of them bought it in a drop, because they just came with an aluminum lock ring, sub-flush, to hold the lens in. A hit would fold the whole body in on the lens, and you could not even get the busted one out. Good thing it's wearing an aftermarket bezel ring, looks like Ti maybe. Also looks like you have a Seoul P4 mod, very nice, should be doing about 120 now. I like your set-up, although I leave the force setting off so I can leave it on D level during the night for rest room trips.

Enjoy!

 

[Lithium466]

Thank you Hondo!

In fact it's a XP-L 5000°K mod, about 250/300 lumens I think, perhaps more (I think it's probably my most powerful light that doesn't have a timed turbo before stepdown!!!). I tried a runtime test on high and got more than 35 minutes before thermal stepdown with a RCR (battery still has around 250mAh according to my charger), which is a bit surprising, I'll have to redo this. These basic series are usually said to have low efficiency emitter from factory and so quite high driving currents (20 minutes runtime in max!).
It is power regulated, and supposedly the XP-L has a very low Vf, so the driver should push the Amps quite a bit..but I also guess there's a max limit for the Amps too, within the "power envelope", so it doesn't go as high as a Novatac could go (I think).
The bezel is inox, and a little bent, maybe I tightened it too much? I'm looking for another inox bezel, in better shape^^

I kept it a bit with force setting disabled, but ended up re-enabling it (needed some Advil for my thumbs after that!)..I have a Novatac classic that is strictly for night trips duty, so the turn on on primary isn't a problem, and I found the primary level (I think level 9 or 10, don't remember) perfect for casual use during the day, with pretty long runtime.

 

[powernoodle]

when Henry invented the user programmable LED flashlight in 2001, it was not an HDS product, but an Arc. Henry had teamed with Peter Gransee of Arc Flashlight, LLC.

Arc AAA lights.

More Arcs. Dang it, I loved these things 15 years ago. There was nothing like them on the market.

Arc AA.

Peter Gransee told me that fewer than a dozen of these lugged AA Arcs were produced. I paid big bucks for them back then, which means today they are either worth a lot, or nothing!

HDS circa 2004 (?)

Last date of original Arc AAA production.

 

[Lithium466]

That's a VERY nice collection you have here powernoodle oo::twothumbs:wow:

 

[Hondo]

Welcome aboard, powernoodle! Any runtime tests going? I'll let you remind us of the longest running test in all of CPF history!

Sounds like you have hung on to your collection, I'm jealous!

 

[powernoodle]

I'll let you remind us of the longest running test in all of CPF history!

http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/sh...t-in-progress-now-concluded!!!-(see-post-204)

:wave::wave::wave:

 

[Hondo]

Oh yeah, baby! Post 204 for the impatient.

That was epic, and thanks to Cerealand for the current generation test (post 250). Just shows how awesome the oldies are at low output - long runtme!

 

[INFRNL]

wow, that's a big difference, 37 mos vs 10mos...and I keep reading that the new emitters keep getting more efficient...hahaha definitely not on the lower side

 

[Lithium466]

Unfortunately it's not the emitters, it's the electronic...driving the rotary part seem to have a cost, and also better efficiency at higher level comes with lower efficiency at low levels.
I wish HDS were as efficient as Zebralight, or have different plateformes for clicky and rotary so clicky could be a bit more efficient, but in real life one RCR give me plenty of runtime

 

[Hondo]

Exactly what Lithium said.

The only thing I am not sure about is of the two compromises, better high level efficiency and enabling the Rotary function, which one is hurting the uber-low runtime more - they came at the same time with this driver generation.

Good news was Hogo said reviving that low mode efficiency is on Henry's to-do list for next gen of the driver.

 

[Lithium466]

The only thing I am not sure about is of the two compromises, better high level efficiency and enabling the Rotary function, which one is hurting the uber-low runtime more - they came at the same time with this driver generation.

Good news was Hogo said reviving that low mode efficiency is on Henry's to-do list for next gen of the driver.

Great news!

Not sure too about what is causing the loss of efficiency. The legacy generation has lower low modes efficiency but higher high modes efficiency, then the current generation came with the rotary in sight, and low efficiency took another hit (can't talk much about high modes efficiency since led changed too).

 

[Cerealand]

The beacon run time test that I did was on a 140 lumens XP-G 3700k HCRI clicky. Nichia leds were used in the HDS HCRI models soon after.

"There are (27) twenty-seven 3700k xp-g 140 lumens HCRI HDS lights. (20) twenty of the HDS 140 lumens HCRI clickies were received and sold by UniqueTitanium in the last batch. The other seven went to Hugo (Thor's hammer custom leather) for either his use or sale."

As far as I know, all of the 3700k xp-g HCRI rotaries were 120 lumens.