Wasted light, Flood or Throw?

"This would have be my perfect light, but it's so floody judging by fonariks pix that it feels like it's wasting lumens to me especially if it's outdoors. I am still considering it though. Has anyone ever modded one of these?"

I came across the above quote on the SC600 thread. Especially when giving consideration to lights in this power range, it is actually the thrower that is the waster of lumens.


My position is that throwers can be enjoyable/fun lights to use, and at times can perform better in select scenarios, but that for the vast majority of usage, they provide more novelty than utility.


Any contrary opinions? I'll be back to check your work.

You can easily convert a thrower into a floodlight with a diffuser, or jury-rigging them with simple materials like Scotch tape or wax paper.

Now try converting a floodlight into a thrower with relative ease like mentioned above.

Oh, wait, you can't.

Stop, Stop, you're both right. While, IMHO, a floody light is more useful in most situations, as enomosiki says you can convert a thrower into a flooder, although any conversion means a loss of some efficiency.

enomosiki said:

You can easily convert a thrower into a floodlight with a diffuser, or jury-rigging them with simple materials like Scotch tape or wax paper.

Now try converting a floodlight into a thrower with relative ease like mentioned above.

Oh, wait, you can't.

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What can be done and what is a common practice are not at all the same thing. By a show of hands, all those thrower owners who currently have wax paper on their lights please raise your hands. Nobody? Thats what I thought.

Maybe if I put some shrinkwrap on the bulbous head of a thrower I might be able to squeeze it inside my pocket.

I don't know about the wax paper but using scotch tape or plastic lids as improvised diffusers is fairly common.

enomosiki said:

You can easily convert a thrower into a floodlight with a diffuser, or jury-rigging them with simple materials like Scotch tape or wax paper.

Now try converting a floodlight into a thrower with relative ease like mentioned above.

Oh, wait, you can't.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Id get a sc600 but the massive flood just turns to dimness outdoors. Too much flood is a waste to me.

maxrep12 said:

What can be done and what is a common practice are not at all the same thing. By a show of hands, all those thrower owners who currently have wax paper on their lights please raise your hands. Nobody? Thats what I thought.

Maybe if I put some shrinkwrap on the bulbous head of a thrower I might be able to squeeze it inside my pocket.

Click to expand...

A little nitpicky there, eh?

I only mentioned wax paper to mention how easy it is to convert a thrower into a floodlight, whereas converting a floodlight will be impossible unless the entire head/reflector assembly is swapped out. Please, tell me where I can find an entire head assembly other than on the Internet with ease, whereas improvised materials like Scotch tapes can be found at a local grocery.

That's not to mention that diffusers like Surefire FM34 allow a thrower to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Also, throw is not defined by the diameter of the reflector; it's the deepness that counts. Wider reflector give the beam larger spill, while deepness defines the focus and intensity of the spot.

By the way, I always carry a TN11 (40mm head) in my front pants pocket, along with my wallet and six CR123A and one AAA Delrin carrier on a cable keyring, without any issue. I don't wear tight jeans, but I don't wear cargo pants, either.

Animalmother said:

Agreed. Id get a sc600 but the massive flood just turns to dimness outdoors. Too much flood is a waste to me.

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As an owner of an sc600, I can't agree with you less.

I don't think you fully appreciate your peripheral vision. Did you know that at night, almost all of our motion detection comes from peripheral vision? If you were required to run a timed task accomplishment course in the dark, the light with flood would be clearly dominant. I'll post more on that later.

maxrep12 said:

As an owner of an sc600, I can't agree with you less.

I don't think you fully appreciate your peripheral vision. Did you know that at night, almost all of our motion detection comes from peripheral vision? If you were required to run a timed task accomplishment course in the dark, the light with flood would be clearly dominant. I'll post more on that later.

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I do, just not to that extent.

Just to prove my point, here are some photos.



This beautiful floody beam is brought to you by Surefire L1 Lumamax.

Out of the factory, this baby is already a pocket-thrower with its tiny emitter and TIR optics, already achieving more than 3,000 lux while only putting out ~100 lumens.

This particular L1, however, is modified by CPF member Milkyspit to further increase its potential as a thrower. It has somewhere between 7,000-9,000 lux, according to my Mark I Eyeball, being pretty much neck-to-neck with my T20C2 MkII.

And what was used to make it an all-out floodlight?



A plastic bottlecap, salvaged from a discarded Poland Spring water bottle.

It's a step-up from the wax paper that I mentioned before but, hey, I found it inside the recycling collection bin inside my house.

And here is something that I made with about 15 minutes of my time, using nothing but the bottlecap, a piece of plastic tubing and duct tape;



As you can clearly see, I am now able to enjoy the best of both worlds--a beautiful and even flood for up-close work, and massive throw for distance.

Now, please, would you kindly show me how you can convert a floody light into a thrower using a cheap and simple method like I have shown?

Ya I just use bottle caps on my e1l, e1b, and rotary. Work wonders but I dont have that setup you have there. Also my SR-51 is a beast thrower but it comes with a diffuser. When you put it on it is a better flood light than my Malkoff M91. Albeit a larger light but when I go out I take that, I can spot things from hundreds of yards away and then light up a parking lot sized area if need be.

That is absolutely beautiful enomosiki. I actually laughed when I saw it. Pretty neat.

I hope the OP didn't get offended over my quote. Not saying I am a total throw guy, I need spill. It's just some lights go so far with the flood they "waste lumens" to me, As in my quote,, I said "to me" meaning we all have our preferences and to me it has way too much flood. So, to me even throw lights have good enough spill that appears just as bright as an all flood light such as the SC600. So I wondered why not focus it a bit more? They want it compact. As in the SC600 thread, some have wanted to change the reflector. I too considered this and if it can be done.

Oh well, what it comes down to is to each his own.

So my quote:
"This would have be my perfect light, but it's so floody judging by fonariks pix that it feels like it's wasting lumens to me especially if it's outdoors. I am still considering it though. Has anyone ever modded one of these?"

You're quote:
"My position is that throwers can be enjoyable/fun lights to use, and at times can perform better in select scenarios, but that for the vast majority of usage, they provide more novelty than utility."

It depends on how much throw the "thrower" has. I used SC600 as an example for flood. I am not talking about a total thrower like those with an aspheric lens or a TK41(even that has as plenty of flood). And the throwers I like are not total throwers but are geared more towards throw. Such as the G25/BC25/P100A2/ and yet guess what's my favorite light? The PA40(SMO) great balance of flood and throw.

I don't like my light spreading it's huge output so wide it can dim at a short distances outdoors.

Thanks for keeping this friendly guys

You need different lights for different situations. One is no more waste than the other. Unless you are misusing them. I would rather have a throwier light with a diffuser, than a strictly flooder. my first led light a few years ago was a river rock flooder. Once i turned that thing on i ran straight back to target to return it.

Most flashlight people would agree (including myself) that flooders are more useful than throwers but this is for 'percentage usefulness' since most of the things we do are close to our body.

There are however a lot of cases when we need to see/find something/someone at a distance. A flood light will only mess up your vision if no light reaches the target in this case.
HID flashlights are mainly designed/sold for such uses.

I enjoy both types of lights, but have noticed in MY use that floody lights are useful when I do things while throwers are useful when I observe things.

enomosiki said:

A little nitpicky there, eh?

I only mentioned wax paper to mention how easy it is to convert a thrower into a floodlight, whereas converting a floodlight will be impossible unless the entire head/reflector assembly is swapped out. Please, tell me where I can find an entire head assembly other than on the Internet with ease, whereas improvised materials like Scotch tapes can be found at a local grocery.

That's not to mention that diffusers like Surefire FM34 allow a thrower to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Also, throw is not defined by the diameter of the reflector; it's the deepness that counts. Wider reflector give the beam larger spill, while deepness defines the focus and intensity of the spot.

By the way, I always carry a TN11 (40mm head) in my front pants pocket, along with my wallet and six CR123A and one AAA Delrin carrier on a cable keyring, without any issue. I don't wear tight jeans, but I don't wear cargo pants, either.

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The diameter of the reflector plays a great deal on how much light is focus to the hot spot...The depth gather light for the corona which is the light immediately after the hot spot. So yeah a large diameter head does indeed determines throw for LED flashlights.

I too love throwers and not so much of a flooder fan...headlights though have to be pure flood.

enomosiki said:

Now, please, would you kindly show me how you can convert a floody light into a thrower using a cheap and simple method like I have shown?

Click to expand...

Since you have used tape. Tape a asperic in front of your floddy light. Nothin is impossible if we accept the looks of tape.

Slumber Pass said:

I enjoy both types of lights, but have noticed in MY use that floody lights are useful when I do things while throwers are useful when I observe things.

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I agree with this point! I was looking at something very detailed yesterday on a M4 Mag well, I assure you the 500 lumen "thrower" light didn't help!!

I did a comparison last year with a buddy of mine. He has a NovaTac 120 and I have a Surefire E1B (older 80 lumen). Prime example of what you are discussing here. The NovaTac was very broad and my Surefire was spot on. Yesterday I could have really used his NovaTac instead I had a Surefire P2X Fury.

2 types of light, 2 types of usage. Just choose the adequate tool for the job

LOL - maybe offtopic, but when I think of throwers, I always think of Hollywood movies, where they shine dim flashlights around and you see a basketball-sized spotlight as they shine on someone's face about a hundred feet away, and there is absolutely zero spill. Especially effective in the horror movies. Then the flashlights go dead, as the users are shaking them, trying to get more light out of them. Always wondered what kind of flashlights they were using...:shakehead