Let us speak of moonlight modes

[fyrstormer]

Everyone here knows that the NXS R1 driver used in Oveready's "Triple" flashlights has a secondary color LED, either red or amber, which functions as a "moonlight". That means I didn't need to write the previous sentence, but I did anyway. :nana:

But here's one you haven't seen yet, because I just modded it:

That's a 570nm yellow-green LED. 570nm is pretty much smack in the middle of the color range that the human eye is most sensitive to, which means it's perfect for use in really dark environments like airplane cockpits, because you can see lots of detail with only the tiniest amount of light. I took this photo with a Google Pixel 2 phone, which has an amazing low-light camera, and it makes the yellow-green LED look significantly brighter than it actually is. (it also skewed the color a little greener than it is in-person.) This photo was taken in a dark room, lit with a McGizmo Nichia 119B Mule using the ceiling-bounce technique.

Here's another photo, taken completely in the dark:

And here's a photo comparing it to a HDS Rotary on the lowest setting, which is rated at 0.02 lumens:

As you can see, it's really dim. My eyes need to be mostly dark-adapted for me to see anything with this tiny bit of light...but that's the point of a "moonlight", isn't it? Personally I'd prefer this yellow-green moonlight to be a little brighter, but it's usable as-is, if the conditions are dark enough. I prefer the yellow-green moonlight vs. a white moonlight at this brightness, because the contrast is better and I can perceive more detail, and my vision remains dark-adapted.

This yellow-green LED does work with the optical programming system that the NXS R1 driver uses -- at least in my prototype light. I've communicated with Oveready and it might be feasible to add this yellow-green color as an option, if anyone else is interested. I think the yellow-green LED needs slightly more amperage supplied to it (3-5mA) vs. the red and amber LEDs (~2mA), but again, it might be feasible to make the necessary adjustments to the driver circuits if this color is added as a factory option. (in case I need to make it clearer, all of this is contingent on whether Oveready and Lux-RC are confident they can make the necessary adjustments.)

Does anyone else like this idea?

 

[K2-bk-bl-rd]

Nice!!! I always liked yellow/green. I had a couple of SureFire lights that had it. I’m pretty sure Lux-RC has already built a few minions with a yellow/green secondary. I would definitely like to see it as a option on the boss lights!

 

[archimedes]

....
Does anyone else like this idea?

:thinking: ...

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/v...-Small-Size)&p=5222371&viewfull=1#post5222371

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ady-TorchLAB&p=5055095&viewfull=1#post5055095

... oo:

 

[fyrstormer]

I see people requesting it, but for some reason most of the pictures posted on CPF won't display for me. Anyway, I have demonstrated that YG does in fact work with the NXS R1 driver, and I have also provided Oveready with information about which LED I used that I know will work.

Regarding your interest in cyan -- unfortunately that one won't work. I tried both cyan and emerald-green before trying yellow-green. They do light up, of course, but the chemistry of green/blue/white LEDs is different and they don't respond to incoming light the same way, which makes the optical programming feature malfunction. YG seems to be on the very edge of what is achievable using the same chemistry that red/orange/yellow LEDs use.

 

[archimedes]

Very interesting, thanks !

 

[staticx57]

Excellent job!

 

[ven]

Very cool , you do some seriously cool mods mr fyrstormer( especially RC trucks/cars). I dont have any experience other than amber right now, and love that(chose over red when given the choice by OR). But i do feel like i want brighter, admittedly i dont really do sub lumen. I would love 2 or 3lm of amber(is it possible to adjust?, i dont think so).

Now when i have tested sub lumen levels, no matter if hi cri(take the HDS 219b 4000k here as an example), the hi cri and ct seems to make little to no difference. By that, it might as well be a CW at 0.? lumens. Colours are just not there for me(i dont have bad eye sight either).

Back to the 2ndry, it would be cool if it could be adjusted, even if from sub to 2 or 3lm or so. That is of course if my presumption of not being able to adjust the 2ndry.

Keep up the awesome mods and ideas

 

[fyrstormer]

Thanks, but it's just a simple LED swap. The actual mod takes two minutes once the soldering iron is hot. It just looks impressive because we humans just get excited about pretty colors.

You're not the only one who can't tell the difference between Hi-CRI, low-CRI, or even single-color at very low light levels. That's just biology. Cone cells require a lot of light to do their job properly. When the light gets dim enough, most of the information your eyes send to your brain is actually coming from the monochrome rod cells -- even if the cone cells are still registering enough light that they can tell what color it is. So at light levels that low, the amount of detail you can see won't be significantly affected by the quality of the light.

My E2E Triple came with a red secondary LED, but when I've had the option, I've bought amber secondary LEDs. I can see vastly better with amber light than red light, to the point that it hurts my eyes to use the red light for more than a few seconds. (I'm also one of those people who gets headaches from warm-tinted light.) But for comparison's sake, I can see just as much detail with the much dimmer YG light as I can with the amber light -- the only reason I want the YG light to be a little brighter than this is because it doesn't shine very far. If I find a narrower-angle YG LED, I might try swapping that one in instead, but this thread isn't really about my mod, it's about seeing how much demand there is for a YG factory option.

I know the secondary LED is powered by a constant-current driver, because I've seen it adjust its output voltage when powering LEDs of different colors, and I've seen a pair of LEDs run dimmer than a single LED when they were connected in-parallel to the driver circuit. This is exactly the behavior I'd expect from a constant-current driver. What I can't say is how the current setting is specified. It could be done entirely in hardware with a resistor that would need to be replaced to change the brightness, or the current could be controlled by the same microprocessor that controls the main LEDs. When I talked to Oveready, they didn't know either; that is a design specification that only Serge knows. So it might be possible for Serge to update the firmware to allow multiple brightness settings for the secondary LED, or it might not be possible. If the secondary LED's driver is regulated entirely by hardware, then adding multiple brightness settings would require designing a new driver, and that's way beyond anything I could reasonably petition for.

 

[ven]

Great info, thanks for that fyrstormer. I had wondered the fascination with hi cri and using sub lumen levels . Of course it’s easier to have a hi cri led to use for sub and above! which I do enjoy into double figures and up.

 

[badtziscool]

Very nice mod there. I don’t even know how one has steady enough hands to place and solder an led that small. Although I personally wouldn’t use YG, if there’s a specific use case where YG is superior, I’m sure people will want it.

 

[fyrstormer]

I used tweezers to hold the LED, and I used the soldering iron to heat the exposed solder on the side of the tower.

 

[samuraishot]

Everyone here knows that the NXS R1 driver used in Oveready's "Triple" flashlights has a secondary color LED, either red or amber, which functions as a "moonlight". That means I didn't need to write the previous sentence, but I did anyway. :nana:

But here's one you haven't seen yet, because I just modded it:

That's a 570nm yellow-green LED. 570nm is pretty much smack in the middle of the color range that the human eye is most sensitive to, which means it's perfect for use in really dark environments like airplane cockpits, because you can see lots of detail with only the tiniest amount of light. I took this photo with a Google Pixel 2 phone, which has an amazing low-light camera, and it makes the yellow-green LED look significantly brighter than it actually is. (it also skewed the color a little greener than it is in-person.) This photo was taken in a dark room, lit with a McGizmo Nichia 119B Mule using the ceiling-bounce technique.

Here's another photo, taken completely in the dark:

And here's a photo comparing it to a HDS Rotary on the lowest setting, which is rated at 0.02 lumens:

As you can see, it's really dim. My eyes need to be mostly dark-adapted for me to see anything with this tiny bit of light...but that's the point of a "moonlight", isn't it? Personally I'd prefer this yellow-green moonlight to be a little brighter, but it's usable as-is, if the conditions are dark enough. I prefer the yellow-green moonlight vs. a white moonlight at this brightness, because the contrast is better and I can perceive more detail, and my vision remains dark-adapted.

This yellow-green LED does work with the optical programming system that the NXS R1 driver uses -- at least in my prototype light. I've communicated with Oveready and it might be feasible to add this yellow-green color as an option, if anyone else is interested. I think the yellow-green LED needs slightly more amperage supplied to it (3-5mA) vs. the red and amber LEDs (~2mA), but again, it might be feasible to make the necessary adjustments to the driver circuits if this color is added as a factory option. (in case I need to make it clearer, all of this is contingent on whether Oveready and Lux-RC are confident they can make the necessary adjustments.)

Does anyone else like this idea?

I love the yellow-green idea if my opinion helps in any way for it to be an option later. Here's hoping!