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

FWIW, a few notes about the LT proto2 photos:

  • The person holding the light has small hands, so the light appears bigger than it really is.
  • M4D M4X doesn’t have a prototype… or tiny hands. :stuck_out_tongue: Neal got excited and sent pics to several people.
  • The photos seem to be taken from up close where there is a lot of perspective distortion, which makes it look weird.
  • The finish looks pretty odd in the photos, so we’re waiting to see it in person. Maybe the final product won’t be anodized, or maybe it’ll have more traditional anodizing, but … hopefully it won’t look like today’s unflattering photos.

With any luck, proto2 should show up soon for testing, hopefully with the internal changes completed as requested.

Alright, I’m gunna bite. Put me down for 2 please!

I’m not bothered by the taper; I just don’t like this sort of finish. In an ideal world, it’d be the same sort of finish as the blf 348; of course this is a different thing.

What type finish is it?? Is it bead blasted or what…. I can’t tell.

The BLF-348 is bare steel. The FW3A is not steel, but it could potentially be bare aluminum depending on how things go.

I prefer natural anodize to bare aluminum.

I find bare aluminum transmits heat to my hand much faster than anodized aluminum. The result is hot-rodded high-lumen lights are much less practical. I have to ramp down earlier to avoid burning my hand.

If I had to say something about this, I would probably prefer an anodized version instead of bare aluminium! But let’s see how things evolve :wink:

It’s good to have these updates :+1:

OK, thank you TK. :+1:

Like I said earlier, I am good with whatever it turns out to be.

A preference is clear anodized…. but certainly not a deal breaker in any way if it is not. It would not even bother me if it had a lightly blasted finish. :wink:

I’m easy to please on this one……… :smiley:

Well in that case, why not reduce the threshold temperature and let it do that for you? Generally conductivity is thought to be a good thing; isn’t it?

* I’m #510, please change to qty of 2.

I saw some bare aluminum recently that looked pretty nice.
They call it raw, tumbled aluminum.
Dont want to link to picture so I’ll just put a link if anyone wants to see it.

https://countycomm.com/collections/whats-new/products/raw-tumbled-peanut-lighter-xl-by-maratac

Interest list updated.


- TK

I could go for that.

They all look great to me. Just ordered a D4, can’t wait any longer to burn a flashlight profile into my hands, but I am keen to have both now to compare, and it looks like a holster made for one will fit the other so edc rotation works

I would like to buy two uf these please

I like it!
Can I please be added for a 2nd light!
I’m currently #783 on the list.

FB

Hmmm… The struggle is real when it comes to communication I guess. And not just about lights…… :smiley:

And… it would not be any better if the shoe was on the other foot & the ’English speakers’ were required to speak Chinese…… :wink:
.

For this kind of light, no.

Once heat gets to the outside of the light emissivity is a good thing. Conductivity, not so much. The interior of the light and the battery can all take much more heat than my hand can. All removing the anodizing on a light like this does is make it so I can’t run it in turbo as long. There’s really no upside.

This light doesn’t have a lot of thermal mass or a lot of surface area. If you want something which runs at 3000+ lumens for more than a few seconds without getting hot, this isn’t the light you’re looking for. It’s simply not big enough… so its turbo level is really a “burst only” mode, much like the D4-219c.

The default settings place the ceiling at the 8x7135 level though, which it can sustain quite a bit longer than full turbo. Last time I tested that, it looked like this:

Anodising is essential IMO, to improve emissivity. Bare or polished aluminium is not a good radiator.

See Thermal & mechanical properties of anodized aluminum

“Surface Treatment of Aluminum, Wernick and Pinner, 4th Edition, P.608, Ch. 9. Hard Anodizing:

The thermal conductivity of the anodic coating is between one tenth and one thirtieth of that of aluminum:

The emissivity of aluminium increases rapidly as the thickness of the layer is built up, increasing to 80% for a 10 um coating. A thick hard anodic coating is therefore well on the way to being a ‘black-body’ for heat dissipation, and there is very little advantage in dyeing it black as is sometimes done.”

Aluminum Highly Polished 0.039 - 0.057
Aluminum Rough 0.07
Aluminum Anodized 0.77