Yes, there are several decent ways firmware could support both 16340 and CR123 without over-discharging a 16340. Unfortunately, Olight doesn’t even try.
OTOH, the attiny85 I’ve been using lately has unfortunately high power overhead during use (~5 mA), so it makes moon mode rather inefficient. Perhaps a more moon-friendly MCU also makes it harder to add fancy features. I’ve been meaning to experiment with the tiny85’s settings to see if I can find a way to reduce its operating power level, but I suspect the only options might require reducing PWM frequency to visible speeds… which is arguably worse than an inefficient moon mode.
It would be great to see a AAA/10440 or AA/14500 truly pocketable BLF light with a good U/I and high cri LED. Preferably (tail) e-switch with lighted switch or very low drain moon mode to be used as night beacon.
Being able to blast in DD on Li-ion and be versatile to use on alkalines when not in a situation to get a recharge (but lower output) would be the bees knees. With Narsil or something alike would make it a priceless light to me, and I think for a lot of people.
I modded a Thrunite Ti head with MTN-12DD driver with guppydrv and XPL HI allmost 2 years ago and legoed it to the tailsection of a bare aluminium Lumintop Tool. For a 10440 it’s relatively long and it could do without the hard “click” from the button, but love it a 1000 times over a twisty.
It gets by far the most use of all my lights. Capacity is rarely an issue for daily (fairly short) use. It gets charged at least every week, but small size with big power always comes at a prize. I rarely depleted it though, 14500 would be more than enough for its use.
It is unnoticeable in a (skinny) jeans or a suit trousers pocket, length here is less of an issue than width. I wear it every day and therefore use it multiple times a day.
It’s great, but via BLF we could come up with something even better. How nice to have a light like this available to everybody!
A DQG sized AA light would be comparable in size with more capacity. Any thicker and I won’t EDC it in my pants and therefore hardly use it. I have a very nice modded 18650 DQG, but it gets way less use, since its too thick to carry in my pocket on most occasions.
The BLF-348 is nice, but I stopped using “dumb” flashlights without batt. check, programmable modes etc. IMHO the simple three or one mode flashlights are obsolete.
I do agree with TK that there is a void to fill in the small section. I by far use my 10440 lights the most. And in direct drive it is still very bright, especially for its size.
With the BLF A6, Q8 and GT there is a lot of throw and lumens in nice builds with good U/I out there.
I would love to see this in a truly pocketable BLF version!
I really love this idea! The QT is exactly what I have wanted to see for a long time. All of the other options are cool also. I would be on this interest list in a second.
Really like the concept. If I knew I could expect ST in 6 months I would skip MF-02 and wait for ST instead.
Wouldn’t extension tubes be a better idea than long ones? It would enable for example 3s lights.
Future idea, for a light that will be thread-incompatible anyway:
Make a battery tube that is male threaded on one side and female on the other, so one can just use another regular tube as an extension.
It is very hard to align things nicely so lots of the double tube lights have different designs for the two tubes and I haven’t seen such light that looked good.
It also would increase the OD or create a wider rim.
The QT with long tube and 18350 in series could run a XHP35HI with rge GT driver (using 8 that will be a pain to charge but still
The Miller, I like your lego set very much but it seems to imply a driver which accepts either 1S or 2S. I’m not sure what the practical options are there but it rules out using the Q8 in its current form with the long tube.
Also, could the long tube not be an extension instead? Then you could buy 3 and build a 4S4P monster light Probably too crazy an idea for mass production though.
Short thrower. Being a quad P cell setup and that long tube (modding galore with the single LED and larger reflector) I think it fits a Q-series
Makes it clear things Lego.
Is something to build on.
Yes the long tube would make 2S mods for the Q8 easier.
Cool Thijsco19, it is as much from the Q8 as possible
So the head area at the tube identical, cut outs on the fins the same, but more fins
Same bezel and such, you received the Q8 CADs this morning.
This is totally unrelated to flashlights, but QT is a bit of a pet peeve because the Qt GUI toolkit has been a pain in my rear for about two decades now. On the surface it looks nice, a full-featured GUI toolkit which offers cross-platform portability including embedded devices. However, it uses its own programming language which is just different enough from C to need its own compiler, and Qt and its parent company have held back portable Linux devices for decades by wrecking multiple embedded projects. If you’ve ever wondered why smartphones still kinda suck in the year 2017, the answer is largely because of Qt.
First there was the “Familiar” linux distro, a project created by and for the community, and it did all sorts of cool things. It achieved “convergence” back in 2000 or 2001, allowing handheld devices to act like small desktop computers — running the same programs, acting as an extra display, using a regular keyboard and mouse when desired, etc. I had mine set up so I could literally just move the cursor off my desktop screen and onto the handheld like a detachable second monitor. But then Trolltech (owner of Qt) came in and basically broke the community’s relationships with hardware companies, replacing the nice community platform with an incompatible proprietary one. This effectively killed the community projects, and then the market failed since the new platform sucked.
Eventually Google jumped in and made Android, which revived that market. However, Android was mostly incompatible with what the community was using, and that has continued to give it problems to this day. It probably would have died like all the other proprietary platforms, except Google is big enough to force it not to fail.
With the market revived, and only incompatible platforms available, there was a renewed cry for convergence and compatibility. So several projects started, including the Ubuntu phone. It promised all the things we used to have back in Familiar days. But it was based on Qt again, and was incompatible again, and instead of giving the community what it wanted, the Ubuntu phone tried to create a brand new proprietary platform and get people to migrate to it. Unsurprisingly, it failed, that entire branch of my company got laid off, and Qt was a big part of that. And now the market is mostly dead again.
To me, Qt is a symbol of what goes wrong when companies try to override the community and tell the people what they want instead of listening and working with the community to build something mutually beneficial.
I really Like the QT with 4x18350 and with the Q8 tube also. But for me the 8 cell tube is a little overkill. I know there is the GT with 8 cell and I’m on the list but the GT is overkill and instant get in every aspect of it :+1:
But what if the QT has a driver that has a contact ring and a same thick brass button in center and it can have a 26650 tube with big wide threads on the top to match with head? For one led it is enough one 26650 if somebody prefers that.
I remember a test that Djozz did, where he silver plated the dome of an LED except for the frontal bit, thus making a Wavien Collar from the dome.
I.i.r.c. he gained some 20% of light in the right direction.
I thought it was a great idea, but never heard about it again.
So I had to look up what a Wavien Collar is. Wouldn’t you want as much light as possible to use the reflector so you get better focus? I was thinking of the opposite of a Wavien Collar. Something that covers the forward light and reflects it to the sides. Is there such a thing?
Probably too crazy an idea for mass production though.