Captain Morgan and I have been telling tales all afternoon, so let me pontificate.
The average guy doesn’t have a clue about flashlights… especially if they grew up thinking Dads trusty 2D Maglite was “really bright”. I love whipping out my EagleTac D25C to one of my unsuspecting “gear guy” buddies and throwing down 700lm from a torch the size of a Chapstick. Bewilderment followed by disgust followed by envy followed by, “Where can I get one?”
I’ve got some other lights that have some “wow” factor, but I don’t think I’m really ready for sparking up 6000lm. My brain just isn’t able to get there. It’ll be like learning that I’m strong with the Force… that some Heavenly power to bring illumination to the depths of the Universe resides under my thumb… even Jesus took some time to find his groove.
And I have a feeling that when I’m not gonna be able to own just one… and that when I reveal the pricepoint to my before-mentioned “gear guy” friends, we will test the limits of the Chinese postal system.
Profound thanks to all who are making this happen, take as long as is needed to get it right… but remember that I’m freaking dying out here right now without one.
Sam, you an the Cap’n just carry on with the pontification while these lights are being perfected, once you see it you won’t believe it anyway. I mean, when level 3 or 4 lights up the room with ceiling bounce you’re gonna be trippin. When level 5 and 6 blow forceful illumination you’ll be drooling yourself, but when you finally reach Turbo you’ll hear the Nirvana Choir kick in with the Angelic rythm’s that will certify you a complete and total flashaholic to the core.
Yes, I know, default is ramping, but you’ll be tempted to ease into it and creep your way up to Turbo, when all along it’s a quick double tap away from off… once you experience it and learn the rythm of it, you’ll delight in showing your buds the low mode then blasting them with an eye searing Turbo and hearing their quick intake of breath as they too delve into the depths of flashaholism.
Just remember, bear it and share it my friend, bear it and share it. Welcome aboard!
Slight tangent here but since the eagletac d25c was mentioned, I now need to buy it. Which one are y’all referring to? I see a couple, one titanium version and one clicky? Can anyone point me the right direction? Thanks, and thanks for making me a poorer man.
The regular black anodized one is fine for most, Ti fanatics like me really love the Ti version. It runs on a little 16340 cell, does an amazing job really for such a small light. I don’t have one but have modified two of my friends, one of each variation. I think he lost his black one, or someone lost it for him no doubt. lol
Try Banggood…. or GearBest is having a lot of flash sales for the next few days, if you can find one there you might get it at a substantial savings.
I know how much you like ramping… but it’s mostly only available on e-switch lights. So I’ve been making a ramping UI for clicky lights. It’s not quite done yet, but all the basics work already and on a FET+1 with tiny25 it’s almost as smooth as Narsil’s default UI. It’ll never be quite as nice without an e-switch, but I think it gets reasonably close considering the simpler hardware.
(also works on tiny13, but it’s not as smooth or as fancy due to space limitations)
WOW indeed…. almost 1100 lights… I fear the production process of the group buy lights alone could take weeks or even months, since ThorFire is not such a big player in the market yet and the production capacities will probably not be so high… and if they rush QC could suffer… so maybe TF should think about producing several batches around 200 to 300 each batch with extensive QC… so if there is a design flaw or production error the next batch could be corrected and not all 1100 lights will be “lost…”
Dropping 6000 lumens from a soup can light definitely gets a reaction from the crowd. However, the wow factor isn’t just lumens… it’s the lumens-to-size ratio. I may perceive a big difference between a 6000-lm soup can and a 600-lumen thumb-sized light, but the crowd reaction isn’t all that different between the two.
Part of this is the lumens-to-size ratio, part of it is the lux it produces when pointing turbo at my hand to demonstrate the thing. Measured at only a foot away, the small light and big light end up with a similar lux value. Also, the perceptual brightness scale only goes up to “ouch”. Anything beyond that looks pretty much the same. So, if you can get “ouch” levels from a tiny light, a bigger and ouchier light won’t get a bigger reaction.
I have a Meteor at ~7000 lm, but I find that the light which gets the best reactions is my Sinner Cypreus at ~3000 lm. It just doesn’t look big enough to be that bright. The Meteor still impresses, but I think the bigger size raises people’s expectations.