L35 build and performance discussions

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I know there is a diffuser lens in the works, but how about an OP reflector? I'd be into that...

Is the diffuser lens a total flooder, like the Xenide diffuser is?
 
cue003 said:
Have you resolved it or are you still only getting about 57 min of runtime before shutdown? Wonder if a new battery fixes your issue... Have you tried a different battery yet?

Curtis
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I have four batteries and have had run times of 104 to 107 minutes.
 
Mtbkndad has some great pics in the other thread, so no use duplicating efforts. One thing that Mtbkndad and I had discussed was the initial N30 design with NiMh batteries versus the L35 with LiPo pack. The N30 is 14+ volts while the L35 is 12+, so question was asked does pack voltage make a difference?

Looking at this comparison, doesn't seem to make a difference
pic2.jpg



However, change the background (colors absorbed and reflected) and you can see a big difference
pic1.jpg
 
Nothing's changed with my battery issue. IIRC, I seem to be the only one. I've PM'd Matt about a replacement and will wait for his return from vacation. I'm in no rush.
 
I'm unenlightened, can you help me understand what's going on? It would appear the N30 is better, or the N30 Battery is better, or is that too one-dimensional?

Mr Ted Bear said:
Mtbkndad has some great pics in the other thread, so no use duplicating efforts. One thing that Mtbkndad and I had discussed was the initial N30 design with NiMh batteries versus the L35 with LiPo pack. The N30 is 14+ volts while the L35 is 12+, so question was asked does pack voltage make a difference?

Looking at this comparison, doesn't seem to make a difference

However, change the background (colors absorbed and reflected) and you can see a big difference
pic1.jpg
Click to expand...
 
I think there might be an issue with the charge indicators but that might resolve itself after a few cycles. I charged mine for 15 hours last night/this morning and I only got the red and one amber to light when pushing the test button. My light has been on for 70 minutes so far. I will let you know how long it lasts when it shuts down. This light has a very tight hot spot. I am driving to Tucson tonight so there should be some good dark spots on the freeway to check it out.

Guess it wasn't fully charged... shut off at 74 minutes.

Any idea how long it should take to fully charge the battery from full depletion after a few cycles?
 
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I can see where all of this discussion might be confusing to someone new to HID. Both lights have their strong and weak points but both lights are excellent, everyday, throw-around work lights. The N30 uses a higher nominal voltage pack made with NIMH cells which self discharge as much as 1.5% per day. The L35 uses a lower voltage, Lithium-Poly pack which has almost no self-discharge and is very much lighter. The L35 weighs almost 10 oz. less then the N30. The L35 costs more due to the numerous, significant improvements made to it over the N30. The most obvious difference between the two is the color temp of the light. The N30 casts a greenish hue and the L35, a blue'ish hue - relative to each other. This is neither good nor bad. Some of us tend to scrutinize things to death sometimes. I have contributed to this because I have an interest in how things work. But in the end, I'm going to use the heck out of my N30's and L35. If you can afford the L35, go for it. If not, go for an N30. Both are great choices.
 
I got my light yesterday, it took like 10+ hours to fully charge it.

When I turn the light on, half of the light on the wall has an yellow/orange look to it, while the other half has a blue/white look. After about a 20 minute test with the light, I noticed that if I would spin the light, the yellow/orange tint would always be on the lower half of the bulb.

I turned the light off and I can clearly see a yellow residue that is stuck on just under half of the bulb. What is this stuff? Will it break down in time so that the entire throw is one even color? Thanks 🙂

-Mike
 
P1mpMastaMike said:
I got my light yesterday, it took like 10+ hours to fully charge it.

When I turn the light on, half of the light on the wall has an yellow/orange look to it, while the other half has a blue/white look. After about a 20 minute test with the light, I noticed that if I would spin the light, the yellow/orange tint would always be on the lower half of the bulb.

I turned the light off and I can clearly see a yellow residue that is stuck on just under half of the bulb. What is this stuff? Will it break down in time so that the entire throw is one even color? Thanks 🙂

-Mike
Click to expand...

Those salts belong there and what you are seeing is is a normal part of the break in period for the bulb. It is more pronounced in some bulbs then others.
Just keep using and enjoying the light and the color will get more uniform as it is used.

Take Care,
mtbkndad :wave:
 
Hi Everybody,

I want to clarify something about both the N30 and the L35.

The LED indicators are NOT 'battery charging level' indicators or even 'using light projected remaining runtime' indicators.

The LED's ARE for checking the relative capacity of battery packs that have been sitting around for a while. That is their only intended purpose and they work fairly well for that.

Just remember that if you have either a N30 or L35 and your light has been sitting around long enough to 'drop' one LED. You will not get full run time. If it has been sitting around long enough to be down two LED's you have a few, maybe 10 to fifteen minutes available (just a rough estimate from experience). If it is lower then that you need to charge before using the light.

As a general rule I charge all of my stored lights when the charge level drops one LED. That way I always have a good amount of run time available.

Take Care,
mtbkndad :wave:
 
Mr Ted Bear said:
Mtbkndad has some great pics in the other thread, so no use duplicating efforts. One thing that Mtbkndad and I had discussed was the initial N30 design with NiMh batteries versus the L35 with LiPo pack. The N30 is 14+ volts while the L35 is 12+, so question was asked does pack voltage make a difference?

However, change the background (colors absorbed and reflected) and you can see a big difference
pic1.jpg
Click to expand...



Um, that's a very noteworthy difference in performance in my opinion. The whole room is brighter! Just the fact that the difference is visible to the eye/camera at all means that it's clearly producing substantially more lumens. This particular L35 appears to be under driven at 12.6V whereas BVH's L35 seemed to hang with his N30 and probably surpass it in output by some margin. Is this just an example of HID variation that we're seeing?
 
This is interesting because when I had the L35 hooked to my variable power supply and quickly rolled the voltage from 14.5 down to 10.5 or so in a fraction of a second, there was no perceptible reduction in light output nor change in color temp. And the current rose proportionately to the voltage reduction to produce the same Watts consumed. So even if the camera picked it up, it probably doesn't matter in the normal use of the light - that's my take on it.

The camera doesn't lie so I'm going to make an assumption that since the human eye can't measure cumulative light, that the differences shown about are due to cumulative light gathering abilities of the camera over the time exposure.
 
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BVH said:
This is interesting because when I had the L35 hooked to my variable power supply and quickly rolled the voltage from 14.5 down to 10.5 or so in a fraction of a second, there was no perceptible reduction in light output nor change in color temp. And the current rose proportionately to the voltage reduction to produce the same Watts consumed. So even if the camera picked it up, it probably doesn't matter in the normal use of the light - that's my take on it.

The camera doesn't lie so I'm going to make an assumption that since the human eye can't measure cumulative light, that the differences shown about are due to cumulative light gathering abilities of the camera over the time exposure.
Click to expand...

Another thing that is apparent from the pictures is the super tight hot spot of the L35. Since absolute white is absolute white, the camera probably isn't going to differentiate between a larger less bright hotspot or a smaller brighter hotspot from 15 feet away. The furniture surface is only going to reflect so much light.
 
SwatDude said:
Another thing that is apparent from the pictures is the super tight hot spot of the L35. Since absolute white is absolute white, the camera probably isn't going to differentiate between a larger less bright hotspot or a smaller brighter hotspot from 15 feet away. The furniture surface is only going to reflect so much light.
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Yes, I was surprised when Mr. Ted Bear originally emailed those photos to me.
When we got to real world out door shots the L35 behaved like an L35 regardless of battery pack and the N30 behaved like an N30 regardless of battery pack.
So the real lesson in all of this is if you want to know how HID's perform, use the outdoors and not living rooms 😀 :crackup: :crackup: .

Take Care,
mbkndad :wave:
 
mtbkndad said:
Yes, I was surprised when Mr. Ted Bear originally emailed those photos to me.
When we got to real world out door shots the L35 behaved like an L35 regardless of battery pack and the N30 behaved like an N30 regardless of battery pack.
So the real lesson in all of this is if you want to know how HID's perform, use the outdoors and not living rooms
Click to expand...

Man I don't know....if both exposures were the same in those living room shots then it's not going to suddenly jump in brightness because it's been carried outside. Something else must be happening. All I have to go by is that photo which shows the L35 with N30 battery to have a larger, brighter hot spot, corona and the room is brighter too.

Can anyone do a ceiling bounce test with a light meter and see what the figures are?

In the end it doesn't really matter which is brighter when it comes to practical use but yeah, if it can be determined that the L35 could benefit from more voltage then let it be determined, right? 🙂
 
hmm, Pat, seems to be chalk and cheese right now, if i am not mistaken the L35 isnt performing as expected in those pics, with its intended batts. time will tell i imagine, not unexpected a few bumps🙂
 
One thing I noticed is that the warm up with the 11.1V LiPo Packs is a little slower. The L35 performs just fine as can be seen in the out door shots I posted.

We did have to shoot each of the alternating battery shots twice because of warmup issues. I threw out the dimmer of each of the shots.
I could have easily have accidentally posted either pack as brighter if I had not tossed the dimmer shots.
Now there are always trade offs will all decisions. Numerous CPF members requested LiPo and Matt concured with that change.
That switch in turn limited the LiPo packs to 11.1V because of space and size constraints due to the shape of the batteries. The Original Li-Ion packs were 14.4V packs. My L35 prototype with a 14.4V pack was not brighter, but did warm up faster. The switch to LiPo also took about 3oz off of the weight of the light. Take a look at my outdoor shots thread and you will see that the L35 works fine. BVH did some nice beam shots too.

The L35's are performing just fine. Except for BVH,s who seems to have a bad cell in his pack. I was using my tonight for quite some time and am very please with it's light output.

Take Care,
mtbkndad :wave:
 
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I concur that the L35 is performing as expected, maybe a bit better. Look closely at my shots. The L35, without a doubt, puts more light down field on the tree. Look at the size of the corona on the two lights. The L35's is larger. Look at the small white trunk of the tree in the center of the hotspot. It is slightly brighter in the L35 shot. You need to look close but the differences are there.

I think a lot of my posts early in the thread about my battery issues have sort of slanted the good performance of this light. But it seems like it's just me having an issue. Don't let that sway your thoughts about the L35.
 
Okay experts, what is the green liquid inside the bulb. That is what is responsible for the greenish hue at the bottom of the beam. When I turned the light upside down, you could see the green wash down over the beam until it settle back at the bottom. Fabulous light by the way. Once fully charged I did get 111 minutes before shut down. I am a little disappointed in how slow this thing charges though. I don't know much about these things but I would think 4 times the run time would be an appropriate charging time. It took mine over 20 hours to get to a full charge. Will this improve over time??
 
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