Scotch Magic tape

greg_in_canada

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 7, 2004
Messages
1,146
Location
Saskatoon SK Canada
I've been shopping around for an LED flashlight for
my car. First I bought the yellow Dorcy (4AA, single
LED on sale at Canadian Tire for $12 CDN). A bit
dim but decent. My 2 year old loves it and I think
it is his flashlight now.

I bought the 3D 12 LED aluminum flashlight at Princess
Auto ($18 CDN). It was very purpley blue compared to
my EverLed. Decently bright but seemed too big to carry
around in my car so I returned it.

Today I bought the 1 watt Luxeon light that Radio
Shack has on sale ($30 CDN). What a nicely made light.
I'm a but dubious about the run time with 3 AAAs but
I guess I'll stick a spare set in the car. It's a little
bluer than my EverLed but a nice shade. Has a couple
of coloured rings around the bright spot even though
most of the reflector is stippled.

So I was trying various things to smooth it out and
ended up sticking Scotch Magic tape on. Wow, what a
nice beam. I made an integrating sphere (Fuji film can
with end cut off, wrapped in aluminum foil) and used
my photographic meter to try to measure the total light
output change. It has a resolution of 1/10 of a stop
which is about a 10% change. With the tape on it was
between .1 and .2 stops dimmer (between 10 and 20% dimmer).
So, not too bad for such a nice beam improvement.

I also stuck some on my mag/Everled light and it helps too.
Probably a bit too much. I'll have to try harder to
get some of that matte picture framing acrylic. (The
3 shops I tried only frame pictures with glass). Or
get some Krylon and spray my reflector.

Anyone hacked the Radio Shack Luxeon to use lithiums?

Cheers - Greg
 

sotto

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 30, 2002
Messages
1,062
Location
Old Bay City, CA
I don't know the Magic tape, but the Scotch brand Satin Tape has a very slight frostiness to it that I find allows more light to pass while still improving many flashlight beams.
 

Saaby

Flashaholic
Joined
Jun 17, 2002
Messages
7,447
Location
Utah
I was looking through a sample pack (catalog? bundle?) of stage gels and noticed there are about 20 different varieties of white, frosted gels. Everything from 90% transmittance down to like 10%. Wondered if these would be popular in the flashlight world.

Stage gels are kind of expensive, but wouldn't be too bad in a group buy. $10 worth of Gel should cover dozens and dozens of lenses and could be shipped in a normal envelope.
 

PlayboyJoeShmoe

Flashaholic
Joined
Sep 4, 2002
Messages
11,041
Location
Shepherd, TX (where dat?)
Never forget Writeright! The current stuff to look for is used on the Palm Zier (sp?).

Although I have used tape on some stuff. It seems to eat up too much output...

A lot of lights respond well to putting a spot of tape or Writeright in the center of the lense....
 

NewBie

*Retired*
Joined
Feb 18, 2004
Messages
4,944
Location
Oregon- United States of America
Look into Tap Plastics, and look at the P-95 and P-99 materials. The Crystal Ice is probably too much diffusion, but maybe not. These are made by Cyro.

http://www.cyro.com/
and
http://www.tapplastics.com/info/acrylic.php?#GP-P95

Some other really nice material is made by Astra Products (manufactured by Claire). CLAREX® DR-III C LIGHT DIFFUSION FILTER



http://www.astraproducts.com/

Also check out their CLAREX® AR (Anti Reflection) COAT FILTER. It happens to be hard coated too (anti-scratch). Would be good for bezel use.

For you near-IR folks, check out the CLAREX® NIR (Infra-red) FILTERs.

I know of several dozen other "specialty" acrylic suppliers if a person has a need for it.
 

greg_in_canada

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 7, 2004
Messages
1,146
Location
Saskatoon SK Canada
I picked up some Scotch Satin Tape today at Michael's
(craft store). It seems just about perfect for my
Radio Shack Luxeon and Mag with EverLED.

Smooths out the rings the RS light had without affecting
the hot spot too much. Better on the mag as well. Doesn't
destroy the hotspot as much as the Magic Tape did.

The downside on the Satin tape is that it was much harder
to abutt the strips of tape to cover the lenses than the
magic tape was. Some sort of optical illusion kept making
me overlap it slightly, then it wouldn't burnish down
smooth. Eventually I got it.

My 2 year old stayed up til 10:30 tonight for some reason
so I don't have time to try out my Krylon sputtering skills
tonight.

Greg
 

sotto

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 30, 2002
Messages
1,062
Location
Old Bay City, CA
I've been playing with sheets of colored lighting gel sheets (from Samy's Camera in LA) making filters for some of my lights. If you take some clear Scotch double-sided tape and place it over the end of the bezel (like on a Streamlight Batonlite or Inova X5T) you can then directly stick on a small section of lighting gel and trim it very closely to fit with some small manicure scissors. Makes a real nice and cheap impromptu filter, and you have a virtually unlimited choice of filter colors. I particularly like Flame Red and Dark Golden Amber for preserving night vision. When you get tired of having the filter on the light, it just peels right off.
 
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