I’ve tried XPL2 with domes on in triples and it’s very floody. Too floody for anything except very close range use.
XPL HI is much more useful. You can illuminate stuff up close using half the power, or go to full power and have a light that’s good out to medium range.
If we do XP-E2 with photo red, green, and royal blue, I can totally make it do a bunch of pretty color patterns. I already have the firmware about two thirds finished. Just add an extra-long diffuser to the front, and it makes a pretty decent lightsaber. Or maybe a shoto. Laser wakizashi!
$x extra for more expensive LEDS does not directly translate into $x extra on retail price. Far from it. Perhaps twice. That’s even assuming the materials are available, and consistent and have been evaluated and found especially good by The Team in prototype 3. At least three reels of them, that’s a significant investment, LED cost is a substantial proportion of the materials cost (not selling price). Plus the NRE for the mechanical design, and CNC programming/tooling, operator/assembler training with good QC, and the tooling and procurement and production-engineering of the driver and MCPCB.
Get real, if Lumintop are going to make say 1000, for BLF/TLF combined, at say $30 each , packaged well (this costs real money, whereas a poly bag and some bubblewrap doesn’t, and is just as good once the torch is in your hand), delivered around the world, including any duties, that’s a maximum of $30,000 turnover. If they recoup even $3 per copy they can maybe make $10,000 from this.
Hardly enough to pay just one good Western engineer for for a month or maybe two.
Push up the materials budget by just $1 and the economics start to fall apart. This was also the case with the Q8, where I think we got an absolute bargain with substantially more delivered than was originally specified, the price held, and it turned out even better than I expected.
Armchair pundits are welcome to their (sometimes repetitive) views, but in the real world things have to be affordable for the purchaser, and at least break-even for the manufacturer, at the BLF discount price.
I am price sensitive too, and don’t wish to see it increase beyond the original offer, despite the intervening years, inflation, tariff changes and other uncertainties.
It’s a great idea, but by no means an essential thing for me to own.
Lumintop are doing us a good favour by participating in this, and the GT, I thank them for it, hope we all learn how to participate equally, and imagine The Miller looking on with a wry smile.
… and make sure the FW3A’s head is NOT glued. That way we can swap in our own choice of emitter later.
And while you’re at it, don’t glue the tailcap either. Some of us like to perform a “clipectomy” on our new lights. That might be difficult to do if the clip cannot be removed due to the tailcap being glued.
I tried to carefully describe the tint of the LH351D 4000K 90CRI, which as you can read in the link above I described as very nice, but in the description the word ‘green’ is present, as part of a complete comparative tint description that is very favourable for the led. But the word ‘green’ is bad so that is of course all that is remembered. Just like ‘rosy’ is the good word and will give good vibes however unnatural the tint is
jon_slider, don’t you think that’s being a bit manipulative? I mean, of course the 5000k doesn’t get 50% or more of the votes, but it DOES have the highest percentage for a single CCT choice in that poll. And the second choice, as you can see, is 4500k, which isn’t really that much different. So, MOST people would, in fact, be happy with a ~5000k light.
Jon sows chaos wherever possible!
But seriously, it’s obvious that the BLFers who voted 4500 were wanting to vote 5000k but tried to appease the warm tint crowd. They would take a small loss for the greater good. That’s how we 5000k folks roll.
The HI option is sounding good for a versatile pocket light.
Love listening to you smart folks talk about all the differences in beams and optics. Who would’ve thought all the crazy differences in optics paired with different emitters? Sounds like you’ve almost got it worked out for a perfect combination.
I’ve made this awful vow to not buy another light until Black Friday, unless it’s this one (technically 2). I need this special elegant triple!