A different idea to reduce the Cree XR-E 'ring'

matrixshaman · Dec 17, 2006

How about this for a thought to reduce the 'ring'. Make a frosted circle on the bezel lens itself. Maybe fixing the Cree 'rings' is as simple as a custom lens for flashlights using the Cree. I picture one looking something like this (rough drawing) :

I think this frosted ring might actually need to be a bit smaller (more to the center) for most reflector/emitter combo's than my drawing shows. This is just an idea that in reality may not work at all but I'm curious if anyone has thought of this. It wouldn't be too difficult to cut out a small ring from some translucent material and lay it on top of your lens. Then just point it at a ceiling to see the results. I'm off on a translucent material hunt

TMorita · Dec 17, 2006

The Fellowes WriteNow film has been mentioned a lot on this forum.

Have you tried it?

Toshi

matrixshaman · Dec 17, 2006

Not yet but my first thought just to give this a try is a piece of page protector that is anti-glare - this usually looks frosted. I think there are a lot of things that might work to see how this effects the 'ring'. Thanks for the suggestion.

matrixshaman · Dec 17, 2006

I just tried a piece of laminator film (one side) that appears frosted (before running it through the heat of a laminator). I haven't cut it into a ring yet but I can tell just by moving it across the front of the light slowly that it eliminates the ring without reducing the light by much if any. Holding a piece completely in front of the lens though turns it into a complete flood. So the trick is going to be to get it cut to fit the area of the ring.

tebore · Dec 17, 2006

Wouldn't the ring be in a different position as you move away from the surface you're shining the light against. Far away enough the band in the lens would be unable to take out the ring.

Wouldn't it?

65535 · Dec 17, 2006

I think it may get hot and possibly degrade performance but it could work. maybe if they used a surefire IRL for it?

Anglepoise · Dec 17, 2006

So far all the reflectors we have seen have been modified from LuxIII designs.
Most moders just open up the hole and machine a few thou off the backside.
Once things settle down and the designers can do their thing, we will have beautiful
beams with perfect transition from spot to spill.

CM · Dec 17, 2006

What "ring" are you guys talking about? I've used unmodified McR19 as well as modified a few KL6's and I don't see any rings. I don't see any rings worthy of a discussion topic dedicated to the subject.

JanCPF · Dec 18, 2006

Yeah I don't understand either what you guys are talking about. I've just received an Aleph 19 mod from CM, and I cannot see any dark rings anywhere even when shining the light on a white wall. I've even tried to block out the central hotspot by mounting a black round piece of paper on the wall. This makes it very easy to see the distribution of the spill light, and even under these conditions, the amount of spill is absolutely uniform all the way to the perimeter.

What *is* interesting though is, that the A19 has a secondary (although very dim) spill region at the very outer most perimeter. This emits from the bottom of the reflector probably due to some small calculation error on the McR19 reflector - sorry Don :nana:

. (Oh I forgot that the McR19 reflector AFAIK wasn't originaly intended for the Cree XR-E, but rather an older Cree LED so Don is excused after all. :bow: )

Jan

shiftd · Dec 18, 2006

from my experience, I only see the ring when I am using McR27 PR reflector. When I used modified McR18, i dont see any ring at all. The ring is either not there or the spot light is soo floody that it actually fill the dark ring, i dont know. The ring might very well be an optical illusion, since there is no scientific proof that can prove it (beamshot does not count)

ViReN · Dec 18, 2006

There is NO such thing as Cree Xr-E Ring. The Rings are visible only on a poor designed reflector or modded Luxeon reflectors. I tried to experiment with a couple of reflectors including IMS and Optics. So far, the best I have come across (without any mod) is MiniMag 2AA LED's reflector. Second best that i have is modded Fenix E1 Reflector.

matrixshaman · Dec 19, 2006

Yep and their is NO spoon.... I'm talking about Newbie's 'Hot Spot halo' per his message thread and hundreds of other posts on this subject - a lot of which have been because of the Fenix P1D CE 'ring' being discussed. I modded a Longbow Micra when the Cree XR-E's first came out and tried many different reflectors and all had a ring. It wasn't until I used an NX-01 optic that I eliminated the ring. But for all the people with the new Fenix light I was hoping their might be an easy solution as well as other very 'short' lights where it might not be possible to eliminate the 'ring' with a deep reflector. This thread was started as a possible idea to make it so you could use existing reflectors with the XR-E (which most of them DO certainly have a 'ring' except Don's made for the XR-E ) by simply adding a cheap lens with a frosted circle. However from my own limited tests so far this may not be a workable idea. I just put it out there as a possible solution for a problem that DOES exist with many current reflectors used on the XR-E. I've got a junk box full of reflectors and I'm sure a lot of others do also. Wouln't it be nice if we could use those with XR-E mods by just adding a $1 or $2 lens?

ViReN said:
There is NO such thing as Cree Xr-E Ring. The Rings are visible only on a poor designed reflector or modded Luxeon reflectors. I tried to experiment with a couple of reflectors including IMS and Optics. So far, the best I have come across (without any mod) is MiniMag 2AA LED's reflector. Second best that i have is modded Fenix E1 Reflector.

Long John · Dec 19, 2006

I've read in another thread (too many threads about it, couldn't find it

) it only needs to unscrew the LE a little bit to get more distance between the Cree and the reflector and the ring should disappear. With a little lost of throw. There was a picture about that. It effects a smooth nice beam.

Best regards

____
Tom

ViReN · Dec 19, 2006

let me quote what I wrote there

Hope these images provide visuals...

ViReN said:
Sure, I could but the step 4 is most time consuming, especially because of filing down the Reflector with hands...... it took me around 2 hours to file down around 3 mm of reflector. it takes a lot of time because of one has to file solid aluminum. following image would be a rough estimate to guide you for modifying your Fenix E1 Reflector.

Tince you are just filing down the cylindrical shape & not the parabolic shape, you wont be loosing any of the reflector properties, most of the light will be directed forward. If you file down the a little (perhaps .5 mm) of the parabolic shape, you would get an excellent throw, but loosing roughly around 5-10% of reflected light directed forward. The focal point of the reflector is right on the base. helps greatly Cree's Deeply laid emitter die.

Problem with L0P Reflector: Although the L0P Drives LED at much higher currents (you could probably get around 70-80 Lumens (out of LED) at that drive level from Cree XR-E P4 Bin) but making all that light to point forward in a reasonable manner is difficult. following image could explain this problem.

as you can see, there is very little light that would get reflected forward. not only the reflector is shallow (focal point being much ahead), but filing down will still reduce the available reflector surface.

A different idea to reduce the Cree XR-E 'ring'

matrixshaman

Flashlight Enthusiast

TMorita

Enlightened

matrixshaman

Flashlight Enthusiast

matrixshaman

Flashlight Enthusiast

tebore

Flashlight Enthusiast

65535

Flashlight Enthusiast

Anglepoise

Flashlight Enthusiast

CM

Flashlight Enthusiast

JanCPF

Enlightened

shiftd

Flashlight Enthusiast

ViReN

Flashlight Enthusiast

matrixshaman

Flashlight Enthusiast

Long John

Flashlight Enthusiast

ViReN

Flashlight Enthusiast

Similar threads

Latest posts