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

Much of it is still manual — reading posts, adding requests to the log, comparing to pepinfaxera’s list, running the script, and posting updates. The script just takes a tab-separated list of requests and converts it to two views of the interest list as seen in comment #4.

Pepinfaxera’s efforts have been very helpful.

The input file is this thing: http://toykeeper.net/torches/fw3a/interest.list

I started on a bot for this purpose, but I haven’t gotten it to a point where I can just let it run yet.

Here’s what it does so far:

  • Parses pre-downloaded BLF pages to extract individual posts.
  • Identifies the post author, URL, number, and some other details.
  • Removes quoted text.
  • Runs the remaining text through a Bayesian classifier to guess whether it’s an interest list request or just general discussion.
  • Displays all this info in a terminal and asks the user to confirm or correct the guess.
  • Adds the post info to a request log, similar to what I’m using to generate the interest list.
  • Remembers which posts it has seen before, and ignores those when run again later.
  • Detects and parses other requests, which can be used to more directly interact with the bot. It responds to things like “tkbot, sign me up for one” and “minion, cancel 2”.

But there are some pretty important things it doesn’t do:

  • Interact with the site directly, like logging in and checking for new posts on its own.
  • Make good guesses. Last time I was messing with it, I was trying to improve its guess accuracy.
  • Understand quantity; each request is still assumed to be only 1.
  • Post a daily (or maybe weekly) response to confirm each request and welcome new people to the forum.
  • Keep an updated list on another site.
  • Have its own web interface on another site, for more direct interaction.
  • Support multiple projects, or multiple products within a single project.

I was thinking of making a third-party site which provides kickstarter-like features for BLF projects, with the bot being part of that. But I haven’t even started on the site, and it’s not very feasible yet anyway since it’d require BLF itself to become an identity provider. I probably also just don’t have the time to create and maintain it.

Thanks!

The poll is still open to choose which emitter you want. You can go here and rank what you want as 1st, then whatever would be your 2nd choice, etc…

You can also rank your favorite color temperature for this light here.

I put some LH351D 5000K 80CRI emitters in my FW3A today. Note, the 80CRI ones were not even really considered as an option for the FW3A; they were just easy to get so I gave them a try.

Here’s what I’ve found:

  • It’s greenish, like the 219c 5000K 80CRI, but a little warmer.
  • With no optic at all, the emitters just look milky and opaque with no interesting visual features. This is probably a large part of why they produce such a consistent-looking beam. Cree emitters are generally more interesting-looking… but then, so are the beams they produce.
  • With a 10507 optic the beam is basically just a circle, almost like a narrower version of how a zoomie looks in wide mode. At the edge of the circle it has an off-colored corona, and then outside of that is a barely perceptible spill area in the shape of a triangle. So for practical purposes it’s a hotspot-only beam with no significant spill, and the hotspot has a thin warm corona around the edge. It looks a lot like a blurry projection of the sun.
  • With a 10511 optic the beam is totally smooth and has no sudden changes in tint, temperature, or brightness. So I’m keeping the 10511 in mine.

Otherwise, it seems to perform nicely. I haven’t done a lot of testing with it yet, but everything works well and it’s a big upgade from the XP-G3 CW emitters the prototype shipped with.

I don’t know how the 90CRI versions would look, but they should look better than the 80CRI ones I have now.

I guess I will have to buy at least one please.
TY

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Hello! Please, add me for 1 flashlight. Thanks

Your name will be added to the list on the next update. Welcome to BLF.

Thank you

So FW3A Team, after these last updates, is there anything on the horizon about this light?

I sure hope so. I pinged people for updates, at least.

In

I hope we get an update soon, the 2nd prototype looks really good and I’m pretty keen

Thanks TK! I hope we can have some updates from LT as soon as possible!

Almost (or maybe more than) 2000 “lights” is a very good number (IMO), so maybe LT can boost this a little so that we can have them before the end of the year :+1:

1 please

Getting excited now! My D4 rocks, but this is going to be better for me personally.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone prefer the matte finish on the prototype to the more polished look?

Count me in. I don’t know why I can’t see my name in the list. I subscribed to this project months ago.

Jaded, if you search on “Search Within Thread” > Author, you will see that this is your first post listed there.

But pepinfaxera or TK will put you on the interest list on the next update :wink:

Is that so? I’ve been away for some time. I really can’t remember, but no matter…Better late than never, I guess.

You’re still on time to catch this “train”, don’t worry :wink: Welcome back!

Yeah nobody will be late for this one for sure…