The brightness of the Mini will be slightly less intense due to its use of AAA as opposed to AA batteries. All will feature the infamous "alien pee" glow spot at the edge of the collimator for easier location when the light is turned off after dark:

1.04.03

First of all I still DON'T have all the flashlight donors yet (see LGI and Mini LGI sale here ), hopefully they'll be here on Monday or Tuesday, but I certainly DO have the Luxeons already and they are indeed nice and bright and white.

So while waiting for all the parts to come in, I built a Mini LGI (the only one in existence right now besides the prototype) with the other NoviGear donor I had laying around. And true to tradition I immediately had to put it up against some other Luxeon mods I have here. In the picture below in order they are:

1 - MR Bulk's Personal (ooh!) LGI

2 - 1W SE in Brinkmann 3AA w/modified reflector

3 - Mini LGI just built

4 - Arc-SLS w/Kroll TSP

5 - 1W seriously overdriven on 6V (two 123 lithiums) in Brinkmann LX (NOT recommended!):

And this is how their beams stacked up against each other, shown in the same order:

Note how truly white (in fact blue-white in the case of the MR Bulk keeper) the beams of the LGI (left) and Mini (center) are. If I do say so myself, this is the product of meticulous (and blinding, while measuring each one in the dark with a constant 4.5V power supply against an LM631 light meter) sorting of each individual Luxeon I receive.

In fact while doing the sorting, a line from the Simon and Garfunkel song, "Sounds of Silence", keeps playing over and over in my head, "When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light, split the night"...

Hopefully the build will be in full swing by next week -- if I can still see by then.

1.05.03

For those who have been asking exactly what level of "quality" Luxeons are going into this upcoming batch of LGI Minis and Classics, here's a coupla snapshots of the labels on the reels I just received:

Please pay particular attention to the three-letter code next to the word BIN: on the right side of both labels. Unless you are somebody like SureFire who buys 100K worth of Luxeons at a crack, you won't come across Q2's like these very often.

And despite this I am still testing every Luxeon from both reels and using only the cream of the crop. Because after all

"We will sell no LGI before its time."

Go here for more info:

LGI Sale Link

And Thank You for your support...

1.06.03

They could have been dancing kites in a high-tech oriental stage show, or metallic sperm in a sci-fi flick on infertility, but I am sad to report that they are simply anode contacts for Mini LGIs:

I did promise to update here as the build progressed, and this is just one installation in the continuing saga.

This picture could be of spare tires from a service station in some HO-scale train landscaping, but they are in fact part of the heatsinking system going into the Minis:

And I finally got around to individual testing of the Q2H and J Luxeons last night. After this BulkBinning episode, they were marked and categorized and then coddled as delicately as eggs:

or fine chocolates:

Gotta run, looks like someone in a brown uniform is at the door...

1.07.03

The brown uniformed fellow at the door was indeed the UPS deliveryman, and this is what he delivered:

Not wanting to disappoint any LGI fans out there waiting with baited (and paid in full) breath I immediately set to work (for some reason this shot reminds me of artillery lining up for battle -- and there is indeed a battle looming between my fingers and many hard metal parts):

Due to my high-tech production line, note the clever use of common household items such as clothespins (yes, the wife is thrilled).

Being that I am still waiting (!) for the Brinkmann Legend 3AA donors, and since I already have the jigs and procedures in place to crank out the Minis, this will be so until I finish making them after which I will switch to LGI Classic production. This means there will be a slight delay for those who ordered both, but I am hoping for your kind understanding about the obstacles and frailties of a one-man workshop setup.

And as always, Thank You for your support.

1.08.03

1.11.03

I will ship out a couple dozen completed Mini LGIs today! I also have several other Minis completed but they are either heading for international destinations (I need to stand in line at the Post Office Monday) or are part of a combination order (with Classic LGIs) which I have just started building (pictures soon to follow when I get some break time).

But there will be a slight delay for the last few Mini buyers, which unfortunately is beyond my ability to control:

1) Initially, Mini LGI orders come flooding in

2) I order the appropriate number of NoviGear light donors from the vendor (Green Mountain Traders) plus a few extra -- I receive them all and start building

3) More Mini LGI orders come flying in

4) I do have the extra Luxeons (this is normally the component most difficult to obtain) so I order more Novis -- BUT...

5) The vendor tells me he is OUT(!) and has to bring in additional product, hopefully by next week

6) So I apologize for the delay.

BUT another BUTT:

I notice the vendor still has a small number of Novis (about 10 or so) on e-bay. Once they commit a product to auction I believe they are usually bound by e-bay's rules to follow it through.

So I am thinking...if you are one of the people waiting (you'll know if you do not receive an e-mail from me by Sunday confirming your Mini will be among the ones shipped) and don't care to wait for Green Mountain to receive more Novis (which must then be shipped yet again to me), you could always bid on one at e-bay.

If you win, instruct Green Mountain to send it directly to me and I will build the light and refund you my cost on it (about $25 including initial freight to me) when I ship your Mini LGI. In addition to possibly getting your light sooner, you might even come out ahead cost-wise if you get the Novi cheap enough (hey, some had NO bids on them).

But Please notify me if you decide to take this course. Otherwise, we wait...

1.14.03

While waiting for the rest of the Novigears to get here (they ship to me tomorrow), I started in on the LGI Classics:

Here is a shot of the new, more compact MR Bulk workshop (I took the chair out from below the benchtop for the photo, then the doors simply shut and I can lock the whole thing up tight as a drum!):

Here are some completed ones (hey, we work fast):

Here is part of the reason I was able to get so many Classics done -- Darryl (CPF's "Sonic") rode his bike over and helped me chop off those pesky tabs from the NX-05 collimators:

So some Classics get sent out tomorrow as well. We're a-rollin'!

1.15.03

Sent out about two dozen LGI Classics today...