Dereelight DBS V2 R2 - Donut Hole

Hey guys. I have a DBS V2 with the 1SM-2 R2 module. When I use it at distances greater then 20 feet, there is a noticeable hole in the center of the hotspot. The further the beam, the larger the hole. Not only on white walls, but its noticeable on foliage and outdoors use. Is this normal?

Not normal. Have you tried adjusting the pill to make sure it is screwed in all the way, and if it, unscrewing it some to improve the focus?

If by donuts hole you mean an area that is slightly less bright, then I think it is normal. For some reason the hot spots from cree lights seem to have a bright outer ring which makes the center look comparatively darker.

Note: I've tried unscrewing the pill in my DBS to get rid of this "doughnut" but doing so makes the spot less intense faster then it gets rid of the dark(er) spot it seems.

The pill is screwed in all the way into the reflector. Like Axion said, the hotspot becomes less intense and unfocused when you unscrew it a little.

I have been noticing the same thing recently with my DBS V2 3SD R2 WH. It's not the "cree-rings" that are brighter, but the actual hotspot has a "shadowish" center to it. It's similar to the "donut-hole" syndrome of some of the older Surefire lights with luxV's in them. When I tested the lux of my DBS I never could get the results I was looking for, lately I have been wondering if this shadow in the center of the hotspot has anything to do with it..

FYI, my pill is screwed in all the way and if I unscrew it a little the focus just gets worse. What I have been wondering is if the culprit is the pill itself, the reflector, or a combo of both? I finally spoke out about this now that I see someone else the EXACT same problem mine does :thinking:

Unfortunately, this seems to be normal. I was quite disappointed when I first got my R2 DBS and found out about this "donut" effect. The US dealer, Flashcrazy was fantastic about it and tried going through and finding a better pill/reflector combo. You can minimize and sometimes eliminate it by adjusting the pill but in my case I found I lost a little hot-spot intensity in doing so. So I tuned it back to maximum throw (with donut in my case) and have mostly gotten over it.

My experience was that I had a Q5 single stage pill first. There was no donut hole there. I traded it out for an R2, which, contrary to most people's experiences, I actually noticed not only a difference in brightness, but definitely in throw. But, the catch was the donut hole. Like I said, since I notice the difference in both brightness and throw, I kept it.

If the donut hole bothers you, try a WC Q5 pill.

Oh, and for the record this was on a version 2 DBS with the same reflector. I just switched out the pills.

Strauss said:

What I have been wondering is if the culprit is the pill itself, the reflector, or a combo of both? I finally spoke out about this now that I see someone else the EXACT same problem mine does :thinking:

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I tried a number of pills and reflectors trying to rid myself of the donut. I am quite certain it is the pill that actually causes it. I say this because any given pill looked the same when used in three different reflectors. At the same time, I could see large differences amongst the pills. Thing is... none of the pills would likely show a donut if not for the design of the reflector. Almost like it focuses the hot spot too well. Hope this makes sense.

I have tuned and tuned shimming the pill in and out and when it throws the best it has a *slight* donut hole. I can get rid of it but I lose some hotspot intensity.

I'll keep the slight donut hole.:devil:

Greg G said:

I have tuned and tuned shimming the pill in and out and when it throws the best it has a *slight* donut hole. I can get rid of it but I lose some hotspot intensity.

I'll keep the slight donut hole.:devil:

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Slight is right,
when you deal with that much might,
from such a small light,
with focus oh so tight,
your enjoyment don't let it blight.

Am I right?

Funny. :devil:

Speaking of DBS reflectors, I trashed one in my lathe today. I just bought a Raidfire Spear with an OP reflector, but wanted a smooth one. Couldn't find an original, so I bought two smooth DBS reflectors from Flashcrazy. I had one half shoe-horned into the Spear, and was tuning on it, getting the focus right. I was cutting .010" off the back at a time. I had to turn a little bit off the tapered outside part of the reflector because it started hitting the body of the light. It's difficult for me to cut on a reflector because I really don't have a good way to hold them. If I clamp down on the 3 jaw chuck too hard I'm afraid of warping it.

Well anyway I evidently didn't have it clamped good enough and it grabbed, broke the tip off my carbide insert. and bent the heck out of my nice new DBS reflector that was almost in the Raidfire. That is one of the worst feelings ever, let me tell you.

The beam was starting to look good too. And it did start to form a slightly darker center just like my DBS.

I have two R2 WH pills with OP reflector. Neither has the ring and the Hot spot is even and very bright with excellent colour rendering. Had a whole herd of Deer to track the other night and my friend was very impressed with the performance of this light.

Yes, the light picture from the OP reflectors are nice, but you loose about 30 % in illuminance in the hot spot compared to the SMO reflectors. So you pay a price for the smoother light picture. For spotting deers at a distance, I would guess the SMO reflector would be more effective.

Works at all the distances i come up against, most flat lands between wooded areas are 2-300m across so it works very well. 30% i did not realise it was that much, might go for another reflector

jblackwood said:

Slight is right,
when you deal with that much might,
from such a small light,
with focus oh so tight,
your enjoyment don't let it blight.

Am I right?

Click to expand...

You sir are a poet
In case you didn't know it
So you're quite right to show it,
Otherwise you could blow it.

electric sheep said:

Works at all the distances i come up against, most flat lands between wooded areas are 2-300m across so it works very well. 30% i did not realise it was that much, might go for another reflector

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That is about the number I found out when experimenting with my DBS and a Q5 WC led. I must admit that I took the measurements at 1m distance, and that is too short to get a representative illuminance for the DBS. I have now just got a R2 WH pill. When I get home, I will make some measurements and give you more accurate numbers.

I also have a DBS V2 R2 WH and my problem with the donut hole started at within 3 feet.



I have the 3SM and it's a tighter fit so I used pliers to really get it into the SMO reflector. No more donut holes within 3 ft. but I do get a slight shadowish center at about 20 ft....outdoors I really don't notice it at all.

The beam on following pic is about 20ft away on white wall. It's at 0 exposure and if you look to the side of the beam your eye will pick up the slight shadowy center.


The next pic is at -2 exposure and you can see the shadowy center a bit better.


I had my cheap Husky 4W 2D sitting nearby and it's a thrower too, but didn't see any shadowy center at all when compared to the R2 WH. Ah well, c'est la vie. I wonder if there's something wrong with this batch of R2 WH pills. Anybody experience this in the R2 WC?

Edit: forgot to add that backing off on the pill just made the hotspot less intense like what other people have experienced. I can live with the slight shadowy center...for now, mwahahaha.

Hey Pabs - all of my donut hole experience was with R2 WC emitters. Through it all I always suspected that the Q5's might be better in this regard - interesting to see someone confirm this (at least in one case).

Donut hole or not this is a great flashlight.

jenskh said:

That is about the number I found out when experimenting with my DBS and a Q5 WC led. I must admit that I took the measurements at 1m distance, and that is too short to get a representative illuminance for the DBS. I have now just got a R2 WH pill. When I get home, I will make some measurements and give you more accurate numbers.

Click to expand...

I have now done some measurements at a distance of 4.58 m. With my 3SD R2 WH pill and SMO reflector, I get 1530 lux at this distance. The same pill in the OP reflector gives 932 lux. These values can be calculated back to representative lux@1m and becomes 32094 and 19550 lux@1m respectively.
As you can se the difference is even bigger than indicated in my previous post. The OP reflector gives 39 % less illuminance in the hot spot than the SMO.

With the SMO reflector, I am able to observe the so called donut hole at this distance, but it is quite subtle. In fact, the donut hole is clearer with my Q5 WC pill. I tried to measure the donut hole, but it was not easy. It was at most about 30 lux at 4,58 m, which means less than 2%. This means that it has no significance in practical use.