Two T1 lanterns arrived today. Cute little fellows. :sunglasses: Charged both of them simultaneously with the supplied blue cell. After a bit over two hours one of them finished charging; the red indicator light turns blue. Only within two minutes or so the second one finished charging as well. This inspires confidence; the cell voltage was the same and the charging time as well.
Both cells measured 4.12V right when charging finished. Surprisingly, both lanterns shows exactly the same parasitic drain value. Initially the drain value is 2.7 mA, but after a couple of seconds it stabilises to 0.17 mA. With a 3000 mAh cell you have complete discharged cell in 2 years time. :+1:
Again it inspires confidence that both samples show the exact same value for parasitic drain, which is simply not always the case.
UI is indeed quirky, but the features are there. The capacitive button is easily activated unintentionally; I don’t think I’ve ever had so many accidental activation with a light. But… it’s not an EDC where UI should or must be intuitive and efficient; this is a lantern, so once you’ve set the desired temperature and output you leave it alone. So really, I have eventually no problem with the UI.
This light is a big win, and a fine example of how wonderful budget lights can be. :+1:
Great set-up, Ive been struggling to figure out how to rig something similar up as it obviously can’t stand on a desk upright and charge.
On the subject of charging, I tried charging mine using a 7W USB panel, had to place the light in the shade behind the panel carefully, the grass/ground turned on the touch switch.
The stand for the lantern I made from an old halogen desk lamp. Just pulled it apart and added a metal rod and that was it to hang the lantern. I use this stand with an alligator clip at the end of the rod to secure anything small that I want to solder too.
I was thinking of just cutting off a metal or plastic tube so that I could put the lantern upright too like you wanted and then dremel a slot in the side to give enough room for the micro usb end to connect to the lantern and then another slot so the usb cable to the pc routes out sideways.
I have not picked up on the lantern, it looks real nice and I can think of a lot of uses.
I do have the F1 flashlight and it is pretty good for $20 Can. in my initial assessment.
Protected cells do fit in mine though. The XTAR 3400 (Panasonic B) and generic protected Sanyo 2600 both fit. Spring tension is fairly high even with a flat top cell though. Protected Keeppower 3120 (Sony VTC6) is too thick and won’t fit.
Well, since you say so, I had to try and my protected ncr18650b really "does" fit. When I first tried, I just didn't go further as it looked too long, but yeah, it fits, thanks! On usb to power this lantern, I noticed the threaded cap gets way too hot, so I'm not sure I would trust a battery in it for too long.
Dumb question, but the screw end cap is the negative terminal isn't it? This lantern has springs on both sides and instructions don't say for sure which side is negative.
Thanks for that info!
I’ve never checked but most battery folks say there’s not much left at that point anyway.
Did it just go dark or nag with flashes?
The small red indicator on the side of the black plastic starts blinking when battery is low. This is also the charging indicator.
Lamp shuts off completely without other warning.
Yeah, there’s not much juice left between 3.2V or so and 2.8V. :+1:
Thanks hIKARInoob!
Nicolicous, I think the adjustable tint is a feature many have dreamed of in this type of light, this thing checks a lot of boxes for me and probably many others.
OTOH I still see things through the lens of what state of the art was when I started this hobby. Maybe others are less impressed than I imagine, but if you offered this light 10 years ago for this price I’d bet nearly every single forum member would buy one.
Cheers bansuri! It certainly is not a perfect product, but I have no problem with that. All the important technical and safety features are there, and the lantern is just so amicable. At this moment I don’t have any flashlights below 4000K, and the warm white the T1 produces is just so cozy for the late evenings at home. Yesterday I had one T1 on my left next to a bunch of flashlights in my computer room, and another one on my right on a shelf.
When going to bed you just take them with you and place them anywhere you want.
I don’t use colour temperature ramping, it’s just warmest white for me. The regular ramping is a bit clunky you might have read: going from lowest 3 lumen upwards you get a sudden jump. But ramping colour temperature is very smooth, you can’t go wrong with that. It is technically a very beautiful feature to see colour temperature change this smoothly as you rarely have this feature in a flashlight. It’s really nice!
Not only that LVP works reliably (blinking as well as shutting off)… also on the other end of the voltage range the T1 is very battery friendly:
Both of my T1 stop charging at a termination voltage of 4.13V with a termination current of 0.1A… If only all USB-chargeble lights would behave that way…
Haven't tried to run my lantern on battery power for any length of time but when a few hours on USB power, the end cap that holds the battery in gets so hot that you can't touch it. Anyone notice this? Just wondering how dangerous that would be if it was that hot when using the battery?
