FW3A, a TLF/BLF EDC flashlight - SST-20 available, coupon codes public

If both the inside of the outer tube and the outside of the inner tube are anodised it will be pretty hard to wear it out to the extend that it shorts, and if it does a bit of tape (i.e. Kapton tape is durable and pretty thin) around the inner tube should fix it.

Servus,
please put me down for one
Jesjes 1
Thanks

Yeah, if both the tubes are anodized, I don’t think it will ever wear through in normal use enough to short.

Unless some grit accidentally finds its way in.

Yeah. But I did say ‘normal use’. :wink:

I don’t expect the tubes to ever move much in relation to each other in normal use. So, even with a piece of grit finding its way in, I don’t see how it could be a problem within the normal life expectancy of a flashlight. Or am I remembering something wrong about the design?

Interested in one.

TK reported that she was getting odd behavior from her prototype sample until she inserted a piece of paper between the inner and outer tube.

Sounds to me like just anodizing between the two layers might not be enough. Maybe it would be better to redesign the tube to be 1mm thicker and then add a thin plastic tube between the 2 metal tubes. That’s how Liteflux did it in their LF2XT years ago, and it worked perfectly.

I’m not worried about the inner and outer tube connecting, in general, a bit of Kapton tape would fix that if the anodising was weak, and maybe keep the inner tube aligned so it didn’t drift off towards the head and perhaps hit the wrong contact area.

It’s the little bit at the tail end, where the inner tube has a ridge to keep it in place, which in the cross-section, suggests rather fine tolerances, possibly less amenable to a simple fix, if the anodising fails there.

Edit: http://i.imgur.com/AVSmLGN.jpg

Edit2: The inner tube needs to float, so my speculative comments about wrapping with Kapton etc. are unlikely to work for everyone. Strong anodising and designed spacers are the way to go, if this is to be reliable for everyone.

Thicker anodizing should be enough, but I wouldn’t be opposed to adding an actual spacer to keep the tubes apart. I think half the issues I’ve seen were caused by the inner tube getting knocked sideways during use. Or perhaps just caused by the weak spring. In any case, I want it to respond better to acceleration.

Hopefully there will be new prototypes soon… I’m getting impatient.

Wouldn’t that be deceleration :wink:

I was thinking impact g’s.

The only difference between acceleration and deceleration is the observer’s inertial reference frame.

I’d say I want it to respond better to shock, but … that seemed a bit too vague. Shock can include surprising news, or even surprising nudes.

One might even be shocked by surprising gnus… bewildered by a wildebeest.

Hey, it could happen. Especially if they were trained as ninjas.

Perfectly clear to me.

Good thing it can’t sense light while also illuminating. That should substantially reduce the chances of it being shocked if you use it to surprise a nude.

Send a prototype to me, I’ll fix it :smiley:

I am interested in one please.

Also interested in one light

Depending on the user to apply Kapton tape to fix a design defect might be effective, but isn’t good marketing.

If they sell 2,000 of these lights but get 200 complaints of faults that the user has to fix… ugh! The sale of the light will turn into a fiasco for Lumintop. Not everyone will have Kapton tape or want to apply it themselves to their light.

Better to just get it right the first time and design the light so getting a fault between the tubes is not possible, even if the anodizing is slightly thin or the light takes an impact.

100% agree.

TBH I do not trust the sort of anodising typically found on these sorts of things as an insulator.

Coming from a mil-aerospace background I do know a little about anodising, and this sort of application would need an expensive, slow, thick, true hard anodise to pass my design review.

Or some other insulating medium in-between, i.e. a collar or spacer.

For example, see TI’s design notes for mounting the good old TO-3 hermetic transistor package:

Page 3:

_The typical surface treatment for aluminum heat sinks is black
anodized(4) per MIL-A-8625, Type II. This surface treatment
prevents corrosion and maximizes thermal performance. Do
not trust this surface treatment to provide electrical insulation.
For electrical insulation, always specify hard anodized, 0.001
inch thick, per MIL-A-8625, Type III. This file hard surface
treatment resists scratches and punctures, and is typically
rated for 200VDC electrical insulation for a 0.001 inch thick
treatment._

http://metalfinishingsltd.co.uk/treatments/hard-anodising/

Of course this torch is unlikely to be built to mil-spec standards (would not be affordable if so), but I’m sure there are simple ways to make the inner tube a reliable robust signalling mechanism, with a little attention to detail.