Dereelight Tips and Tricks

Thought I'd comment on some things I've noticed with my Dereelights. Maybe others who have any tips or tricks for their Dereelights can also share.

For those who aren't familiar, Dereelight sells individual pills (pill is the brass heat sink, circuit, and emitter) and reflectors for their lights. This allows you to buy a new pill when a better emitter comes out, or by different pills with different functions. You can also easily swap between OP and smooth reflectors.

The Dereelight CL1H and Dereelight DBS have their own unique pills. What I have found is the DBS pills have the LED more recessed than the CL1H pills. The DBS pills also include an insulating washer around the Cree LED to prevent the contacts on the emitter board from shorting out against the reflector. This has happened to me (when experiementing) and so far it hasn't seemed to damage anything, but the pill will fail to light.

Now, the CL1H pill's LED sticks out more. I have found you can gain a bit of throw in the DBS by putting a CL1H pill in it. However, the CL1H pills do no have an insulated washer and can short agains the DBS reflector. The CL1H reflectors have an insulating washer on the rear of the reflector, so one isn't needed on the pill. So you can either make a insulated washer, or if you have a spare CL1H reflector you can pop off the insulating washer and stick it on the back of the DBS reflector. Then you can screw in the CL1H pill into the DBS reflector and you may find you can get the LED deeper into the reflector which should result in a tighter hot spot. It's handy to have a LUX meter to take readings.

The other thing you can do is focus the LED's. I find with my DBS the tighter the better. However, with my CL1H I found if I backed the LED out a little bit, about a turn, I gained over 1,000LUX in the hot spot (with a smooth reflector) on my LUX meter! So I with the pill fully tight I was getting around 8,300LUX, and with the pill backed off a bit I was getting 9,700LUX!

So if you have some extra Dereelight pills and reflectors it's worth trying different combinations to see which gives you the best result.

I could possible fine tune my CL1H pill even more, but I'm pretty happy with the way the beam and hot spot look, and the intensity of the hot spot.

hey, how about operation tips/strategies. Is the DI pill capable of signaling/manual strobe?

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Some more info:

on the how you can increase focus, or diffuse hotspot on your Dereelight.

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/179530

Fird said:

hey, how about operation tips/strategies. Is the DI pill capable of signaling/manual strobe?

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Once we have one we can comment. I have some on order, waiting to get them.

I think you maybe able to signal. I'm wondering if it won't change modes unless you hold the button down for a certain amount of time. Like if you just keep flashing it (quickly, less than a second a flash), maybe it won't start changing intensity? We'll see.

Neat! I had my pill too far into the reflector and there was a ring around the hotspot of the beam; unscrewing the pill a bit from the reflector eliminated this and the beam is super smooth and blurry now. I think that's a good thing.

I adjusted my DBS pill out alittle and on a white wall at about 20 feet it has a nice hotspot. When I screwed it all the way in, it has a "shadow" in the middle of the hotspot. The photo below is from the thread from the above link and it is what mine looks like. Can you see that is has a "Shadow" in the middle. The picture belongs to Orbital.

If only there was a tip or trick to eliminate the side effects of the slow PWM .

Stereodude said:

If only there was a tip or trick to eliminate the side effects of the slow PWM .

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aww crap, that's a deal breaker for me. any guesses as to the frequency? I can see a 75hz computer screen flicker. I can also see whatever a fluorescent light flickers at (is that 60 or a harmonic like 120?)

Stereodude said:

If only there was a tip or trick to eliminate the side effects of the slow PWM .

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Which Dereelight module do you have that has PWM?

Didn't think the new Digital pills used PWM. My 3-stage Q5 digital pill has no visible PWM. I can see the PWM in my Fenix LOD-CE Q4 easy, but there is nothing showing to make me think the Dereelight digital pills are PWM. The 2SM might be, not sure.

WadeF said:

Which Dereelight module do you have that has PWM?

Didn't think the new Digital pills used PWM. My 3-stage Q5 digital pill has no visible PWM. I can see the PWM in my Fenix LOD-CE Q4 easy, but there is nothing showing to make me think the Dereelight digital pills are PWM. The 2SM might be, not sure.

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The newest 3SD have it on Low, you really don't see it unless you wave the light around wildly.

Actually, it balances out the massive battery drain when used on High (1.2A), so all is good.

Fird said:

aww crap, that's a deal breaker for me. any guesses as to the frequency? I can see a 75hz computer screen flicker. I can also see whatever a fluorescent light flickers at (is that 60 or a harmonic like 120?)

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If I had to guess I'd say it's about 120Hz. I'll have to take some quick measurements later to confirm. It's immediately obvious if you point the light on the ground in front of you and walk forward with it.

I was a little surprised to see it flickering considering I've never saw anyone else mention it in their reviews, and it's fairly obvious. I'm fairly impressed with my CL1H from a build quality, output on high, etc stand point, but I hate PWM flicker and IMHO what I'm seeing is completely unacceptable for a $82 flashlight. I'll probably end up selling it in the marketplace for a few dollars loss since it's not usable IMHO. :sigh:

WadeF said:

Which Dereelight module do you have that has PWM?

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3SD Q5. It's in my CL1H that arrived yesterday (direct from Dereelight).

I had a slight battery rattle that caused a change of levels when rattled.

fixed by wrapping the 18650 with about 2 swipes of electrical tape. Just enough to snug the cell.

Stereodude said:

If I had to guess I'd say it's about 120Hz. I'll have to take some quick measurements later to confirm. It's immediately obvious if you point the light on the ground in front of you and walk forward with it.

I was a little surprised to see it flickering considering I've never saw anyone else mention it in their reviews, and it's fairly obvious. I'm fairly impressed with my CL1H from a build quality, output on high, etc stand point, but I hate PWM flicker and IMHO what I'm seeing is completely unacceptable for a $82 flashlight. I'll probably end up selling it in the marketplace for a few dollars loss since it's not usable IMHO. :sigh:

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Measurements would be much appreciated. I agree that walking in a strobe light is rather difficult :sigh: I wonder if anyone else has issues like this?

Fird

Fird said:

Measurements would be much appreciated. I agree that walking in a strobe light is rather difficult :sigh: I wonder if anyone else has issues like this?

Fird

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Lets try this for a quick and dirty measurement and proof I'm not making this up... oo:



Click on that thumbnail for a larger image.

The top light is a Rexlight v2.0 (on low)
Middle is a Fenix L2D-CE Q5 (on low)
Bottom is a CL1H V3 with 3SD Q5 pill (on low)

That is a 1/6th of a second exposure. Each PWM equipped light shows up 12 times, so the PWM has to be at least 72Hz. It it is probably slightly higher since the lights were probably out of frame at the end of the exposure. Other people have measured the Rexlight at 94Hz. The Dereelight 3SD pill appears to have the same PWM frequency as the Rexlight V2.0. So I guess it's ~90Hz. :sick2: I won't have access to my oscilloscope at work for a few days to get a very accurate number though.

I guess I will contact Alan and see if this is normal. If it is I'll be getting rid of this one. :thumbsdow

how did you do that? :-D lol, 1/6th of a second is pretty fast to time the shutter and the swing. 94hz... no 3SD module for me. Anyone else notice flicker on other modules?

Fird said:

how did you do that? :-D lol, 1/6th of a second is pretty fast to time the shutter and the swing. 94hz... no 3SD module for me. Anyone else notice flicker on other modules?

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I do have two hands you know. :naughty:

I'm still holding out hope that my 3SD Q5 module is defective. :sick2: An awful lot of people have bought these and I only found one complaint other than my own (via google searches) about PWM flicker and if they were all like this I would think everyone would be :mecry:about it cause it's obvious.

No PWM flicker with my 3SD Q5 in any mode

I have the 2SM and no PWM flicker in either mode for me. :thumbsup:

adamlau said:

No PWM flicker with my 3SD Q5 in any mode

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Are you sure? Can you take a picture like mine to show me what your light looks like when moved in front of a camera with a slow shutter speed?