TK's Emisar D4 review

Words of Wisdom…
……within a relatively short period of tests with my experimental D4 (with Nichia 219b sw40 9050 - 93 CRI)
one of the leads to the stock MCPCB easily managed to relieve itself.

I assume you are going to buy from Mountain Electronics LLC ? I am sure he can make one for you, either reflow on the Noctigon MCPCB or on his own MTN Quad MCPCB, try and send him a PM he is RMM on this forum.

I don’t think that the 219b has anything to do with that. Even my XP-G2 5D did the exact same thing.

Yes, the 219B makes exact the same amount of heat as the 219C, so the ’ unsoldering capability’ should not be different.
The difference is that at 4A per led, the 219C is still quite happy (max is at 6.5A) while the 219B is right at its maximum output, and this is measured with the led extremely well heatsinked, which is not happening in the small D4.

Quite worrying btw that you guys managed to get the leads unsoldered. You did nothing to circumvent the thermal management when this happened?

Good question, I only managed to do that in a Convoy M1 quad before soldering the MCPCB to the spacer.

I don’t think there is anything to worry about, yet. I’m pretty sure that mine did that because I used too much heat when changing the mcpcb as the gold plating on the LED pad came loose in about 6 seconds after turn on.

Thanks for the heads up. I just emailed him.

I love the 219b, the 4000k may be my No1 fav of the nichias. In fact most of my nichias are 219b’s , still i have a good few 219c’s in 4000k and 5000k flavours. The 219c 5000k in the D4 i really like. Sometimes its an advantage to have a tint free beam. The slightly warmer colour temps can change lighter colours, be them whites,creams etc . The 219c 5000k keeps colours accurate to my eyes, without any exaggeration/pop!(all subjective though).

At night, tired eyes, a little warmer beam is welcomed. But when i am wanting accurate colours, maybe cables or for pictures, the 219c comes out above the 219b 4000k for me personally. Again subjective, no rights or wrongs………………just depends on the application for my preference.

:slight_smile:

What, me Worry?

If I was worried, I would have already taken RMM up on his offer to reflash the beta lot of presale V1 lights.
Since they were designed more like dragsters than street rods, I am thinking of keeping one of the two as stock.
The third D4 was purchased with the TK UI already installed.

No changes were made in thermal management, but both the stock 219c, and swapped 219b models are still V1 lights.
What we most likely have is a difference in hardness of solder, combined with quality of soldering iron/skills……LOL.

Ah, those are V1 ones, before the thermal management was finetuned.

A geographical question: there is no piece of Brazil east of Greenland, right?

By a quirk of mapmaking, Greenland claims territory all the way from 11 degrees West out to 74 degrees West.
You could say Greenland extends to midway between Iceland and England.

I am located 35 degrees West,
which is East of almost all the Greenland population, and most of the land mass.

This part of Brazil was forgotten cattle grazing scrubland and fishing villages until the US Army needed a jump off point to fight Rommel during WWII.

Thanks for the geography/history lesson :smiley:

Mine finally came. It definitely took a postal journey, but it was worth it. UI on this thing is wicked, thanks Tom and TK :smiley:

I got 219C in green of course. Beam shape is only noticeable on smooth surfaces. Definitely gonna get a cloudy optic though. Might try dc fix before that just for kicks, I know it doesn’t do much to TIRs compared to reflectors. This thing is small! My E2L seems big now. Tint is also great, makes my other lights look yellow in comparison.

I’ve got both a 219c and 6500k on order, I’m going to compare them to my E14 II which I believe has similar turn on power. It’s recording nearly twice as much lumens as my DQG Tiny 3th!

Excellent!!! :partying_face:

I tried to EDC the D4 in my pocket (with keys) for a few days, and am afraid it is not going to stay there. Without lock-out it fires in the pocket about twice a day (some were to moon, some a lot higher), with lockout (manual or via UI) it takes fiddling before I can use it. I use my light multiple times a day so it is sort of important to me to switch it on in a second.

So for EDC I’m back to my E2L shorty, which was tough competition for the D4 anyway :slight_smile: (219BV1SW40R9080,BLFA6driver,slowdiscotail) which works great, it is a bit smaller, and a tail clicky is not just switching on by accident.

The D4 is going camping with me next week, for that it is a great allround light :slight_smile:

But perhaps for a future firmware of the D4 a thought or two can be dedicated to how to implement a quicker lockout sequence.

I have the E14 with 219C (stock version) and it’s nowhere near as bright as the D4 (with 219C).

I experienced “hot pants” even with my short S2+Triple EDCs several times. Afterwards I changed my driver firmwares to only cycle through safe modes (in terms of heat) - unless the user double-clicks the switch. The D4 needs something like this.

And it also needs a lanyard hole and space for protected batteries.

Hi. I just ordered a couple of the D4’s. Received one of them already but it’s so small that I’m afraid that it’ll fall out of my pocket. Where can I buy pocket clips for them?

About that… and all other UI suggestions… I have a large part of the code foundation written and working already. I doubt it’ll be long before I have a “RampingIOS v3” firmware available which 1) implements all the changes which I think sound good, and 2) is dramatically easier to modify. It’s a complete from-scratch rewrite totally unlike anything else in the repository.