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

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:
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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

Put me down for one.

Design changes AND personnel mixups, totally blows it for me.

Wanted a Fritz light , don’t want this mutated variation.

Count me out, unsubscribing…

I’m down for 2 can you change it back to 1 please.

The minor design change of adding that long tapered section was done to improve unclipping the light from a piece of clothing. So that is a good design change. I’m not sure what other design changes you are referring to.

What do you mean by personnel mixups? Do you mean Miller leaving? Stuff like that does happen from time to time.

I might need to put a d4 in a vacuum and see.

I agree it’s changed a lot since first conception but I’m still in.

Jason the tail end looks to have changed since the last revision. Both body and tail.

When I clip a torch into e.g. my pocket, I want it to stay clipped in. The last thing I want is a slippery shape that makes it all too easy to slide out again. Ideally it shouldn’t budge unless I lift the clip as I withdraw it. A good clip will even have a nub at the top that snugs over a typical denim jean seam, for added security.

I doubt that the decision for the tapered ends of the battery tube has anything to do with the working of the clip, just someone at Lumintop liked it better and probably thought it would sell better.

I can very well imagine people getting fed-up with the sudden random changes that chinese manufacturers add to BLF (TLF) designs, with the Q8 it drove me mad at times. Especially convincing them to change things back to our own ideas (even when they were clearly better) took a big effort. But in the end the lights are produced and sold at their risk, not ours, so they have the right to interfere with the design.

It is the way this process goes, and there is no other way to have a unique design made and sold for so little money.

Well the D4 has that funky coating (what is it ?) which probably has good emissivity so should do OK in a vacuum. Whereas a raw or worse-still polished aluminium body might as well be inside a thermos-flask as regards dissipating heat by radiation.

So we are left with conduction into the hand (important, however blood temperature of 37C is the starting point before any significant cooling takes place) and convection into the air (insignificant, particularly when the torch is clutched in the hand).

Thermal mass is good for soaking up bursts, but this torch has very little, and the energy still has to be dissipated afterwards, by conduction, convection or radiation.

What specifically are you referring to when you say “personnel mixups”??

I agree that the faster the heat gets to your hand the better the heat conductivity. Emitting heat from the host is different again and if my learning from blf is correct anodizing is a barrier to emitting heat. So I’m not sure how Firelight2 came to this conclusion.

However, this light IMO is designed to be more of an edc which means max lumens are not relevant.

Agreed, this torch is about much more than headline lumens figures in short blasts. As an EDC it is very desirable, tiny dimensions for an 18650 capacity. I really like the output from multiple emitters behind TIR optics. The closest thing I have to it is my Astrolux S41 which is a big clumsy heavy dinosaur by comparison.

As TK said, sustained output is on a par with e.g. a Convoy S2 with x8 7135s, but this is so much smaller, and far more potent when needed.

Then there is the UI, and sophistication behind it, thermal management, etc. etc.

And the mechanical packaging, tail e-switch.

I am looking forward to it, however it turns out.

That’s impressive if it can sustain output the same as a S2 given it’s small size. I just hope the emitter board can be easily taken out so you can customize the emitters. So much potential here.

Fritz should of stuck to his guns, it was HIS concept/ design, and then he allowed it to get all BLF’d up! :smiley:

Sure is pocket fondling friendly and pretty now… a real Lady light it is….very elegant… :+1:

Please don’t mis-understand, this torch is thermally limited, thems the laws of physics. TK showed at FW3A, a TLF/BLF EDC flashlight - SST-20 available, coupon codes public - #3271 by ToyKeeper that it has to ramp down after a few minutes, otherwise it would be toast. Subtle firmware.

The point is that it does do so. Unlike most other things.

Otherwise you would have to carry around something like a C8, which is a very different beast.

You make it sound like I’m guessing or making info up. No, the point of the tapered tube was a large discussion here a while back and it was changed to prevent snagging on clothing when removed. I thought it was ToyKeeper that confirmed this, but I can’t find her qoute. It might have been someone else on the Team that explained this. Does anyone remember who?