Not at all. It’s not practical for production, but it might give ideas on how problems with difficult materials can be fixed.
You’re probably thinking about the BLF X6 / Astrolux SS. The fins are very shallow though. That thing is a beauty and a true heavy weight. I actually have both the BLF X6 and Astrolux SS. Without batteries, the X6 weighs 371.4g. Just the copper pill without the top bezzel already weighs 196.6g. The massive copper pill allows it to handle turbo like a champ. I just took some measurements out of curiousity:
1s: 1,271 lm
30s: 1,254 lm
60s: 1,250 lm
90s: 1,241 lm
120s: 1,232 lm
At 2 min., the copper is warm but the stainless steel remains cool, which is unfortunate. SS has very poor heat conductivity so the heat is almost entirely absorbed by the copper pill and due to the limited surface area of the pill to radiate heat, it takes a long time for it to cool. If the SS parts were aluminum, they can be used for heat shedding and performance should be much better.
If FF decides to make a copper head version of E07 with aluminum body, I will definitely buy it. Should be a solid performer for long steady turbos or any output levels for that matter.
Yup. Thats the one. Almost pulled the trigger on that one but didnt.
Frankly, i dont care about weight unless it is on my keychain. Size matters for this—for me, weight is hardly a concern. Lets put it this way if weight is the tradeoff for extended runtimes then it seems like a nobrainer to me, all things considered highpowered led flashlights are still in their infancy if we cant run a torch on high power for more than a minute. We—flashlight consumers/addicts have grown to accept this anomolous reality, because its all we have known. I submit that runtime trumps weight for this particular unit. i dont really want to go with the zebralight 700/21700 offering so i hope this conversation gets heard by ff. They could make something truly special.
And i will still end up getting the zebralight 700 thingy if Just to keep my new 21700s warm.
Fair enough.
I suspect it is like a carpenters pencil trick to cure a squeaky hinge. Rub a pencil over a hinge and it will stop squeeking—on the fly graphite lubricant, it may not be the best thing for the job but will work in a pinch. There are alot of really smart guys who work machines and make things who when short on engineer approved process and materials can macguyver their way thru a problem. (Anderson, not the new guy). I would venture a guess this sharpie trick is just this sort of thing.
I’ll have to look it up again, but iirc, it helps the formation of a chip by holding the top of the material together enough so that it’s not permitted to gum up and much form a chip instead. Scotch tape had the same effect.
I want the 7 emitter 26650 light please with copper head option lanyard hole and magnetic tail with ramping UI. shorty tube also 26350.
That was a really nice item. It’s also the reason why Bistro’s thermal code doesn’t work on smaller lights — it was designed and calibrated for something with a big solid heat sink, so it responds too slowly on lights with a higher power-to-mass ratio. To put it another way, the massive heat sink made it so the thermal algorithm could be pretty bad and still work. But smaller lights require a smarter algorithm.
I must admit I don’t really use my X5 or X6 any more, because both were kind of obsoleted by the Emisar D1 / D1S. But they’re still very nice, and I keep mine out on display with their nice wooden case along with the other items I helped make. It’s kind of nice having a physical remnant of projects past, something to look at as a reminder.
Weight definitely matters though. Carrying the steel/copper X6 was like carrying a brick. It’s very pretty, and performs well, but if I wanted to actually carry one around I used the aluminum version instead. Even if I had it in my purse, with the steel version, it would make my shoulder sore after a while. Granted, I have all sorts of other toys in there too; there’s a reason they call me ToyKeeper. But still, the weight was a big drawback for practical purposes.
Understood. However, this seems to support what skv89 has been proposing about mass. Plus, more fins, plus copper. He suggested 40g of extra mass. There was some discussion about whether this would have any effect. Based on what you have observed it seems that it does have quantifiable effect on runtime. In addition, pairing a beefier aluminum head or as i have proposed—copper. I think the original impetus for me to engage was that the e07 fins seem a bit ill suited. Many of the original comments were “thats a lot of light in a small package”. The astrolux came up because i had a vague memory of a copper head with many thin fins. I think a stainless battery compartment isnt appropriate. Throw a weightier multi finned head on an aluminum body i think is where my vote would go. Kind of a bridge between ideas, not a full on copy of the astrolux or trj20.
But honestly we’re all just fussing on about things that are probably just dreamy kids stuff. Fireflies asked what this community thought and i want awesome to happen—it seems to me theyre on pace for awesome. It seems to me like there is some growing enthusiasm for this fledgling little outfit.
And just imagine a big heatsink with an efficient driver/firmware thingy—which is to say thermal algorithm. Wow.
FWIW, while the Trustfire TR-J20 has the LOOK, it doesn’t have the heart. Those precious fins aren’t connected to the emitter shelf in such a way that actually transfers the heat. It’s fixable, and I machined a heat sink for two of them that works quite well, but of course it adds weight, quite a lot. But then, neither of the two I machined the sinks for were concerned with a mere 10,000 lumens…
Point being, the machined fins look good but they have to be interconnected to the thermal path to actually work. This is why the Eagle Eye X6 is one of my favorite lights and I’ve built dozens of them, in a staggering array of options.
The copper head on an X6 would be ideal with Ti battery tube and bezel. Just saying… (another FWIW, my Reylight Ti X6 is making over 10,000 lumens in triple XHP-50.2 configuration) This is not just a plug for Titanium, I love the stuff for valid reasons… light weight and strength being the obvious but the Ti actually has such low thermal conductivity that it almost acts like an insulator, protecting the cell from heating up when using, oh, say 7 Nichia 219C’s. 
Now, all that said, I really don’t see why this E07 is being configured with 7 emitters. Seems far too much for the size of the light and the size of the accompanying cell. I DO like the style, quite a lot actually, but 7 emitters? Looking forward to seeing some actual photo’s of proto’s and samples.
Watching…
Edit: Oh, and one more FWIW… the Stainless/Cu X6 and it’s little brother the Cu X5 had much deeper fins in the prototypes than in the production units. The proto’s were great, the production lights were disappointing.
More mass, slower temperature change. So it takes longer to overheat, but it also takes longer to cool down. It doesn’t really increase the maximum sustainable brightness.
The algorithm in Bistro is really slow and makes small adjustments, which is how things should work with a relatively large heat sink. The algorithm in RampingIOS V2 is faster and makes much larger adjustments, because it has a much smaller heat sink. And the algorithm in Anduril / RampingIOS V3 does both, adjusting the speed and magnitude of its response to match the hardware.
If I understand correctly, the E07 is designed to use Anduril. So it should work with a large or small heat sink. The sustainable level depends mostly on the light’s environment, like whether it has a hand or moving air to wick away heat.
As a side note, I’m tempted to put in a factory reset / auto-calibrate function. Like, hold the button, screw on the battery tube, continue to hold the button for 5 seconds, and then it’ll reset everything to defaults and calibrate itself based on the assumption that it is currently at room temperature. And, by “room temperature”, I mean … um, maybe 22 C? Not sure how warm everyone’s rooms are, but I think that’s generally considered average.
“Mere 10,000 lumens”??? How many lumens were you outputting?
Personally I’m not a big fan of titanium unless it’s for AA/14500 lights because as you said, it is basically a thermal insulator. But at least TI is better than SS, which has poor conductivity and heavy. Copper combined with aluminum seems to be the best in terms of price and performance.
Any idea why they couldn’t retain the deeper fins in the final X6 and X5?
Yep that’s exactly what I’ve observed from playing with all my lights. Still to me that is very desirable because we can’t expect to sustain output anywhere near turbo, we can at least extend those high output blasts to more usable durations without rapid dimming.
Good news is FF responded and said the Final E07 sample will have shelf thickened to a whopping 8mm which should help increase heat transfer rate to exterior wall surfaces, weigh about 180g instead of the measly 138g, and deepened fins for better heat management! So it will have both increased mass and surface area! :laughing:
Considering this is a bit smaller than the D4S, the E07 will be a beast of a small light. With 7 emitters and high current 21700, E07 should have more output, higher efficiency, and potentially longer, more steady brightness at high output levels. Both the D4S and E07 with batteries loaded will weigh about the same so shouldn’t be a weight concern to anyone. Good job FF! :+1:
Nicely done.
What was the shelf thickness before? Will this increase the exterior length?
Not sure what it was before but 8mm is 0.315”, which is pretty freaking thick for a light of this size. We will get more info when the final sample/prototype is done.
Some thoughts about the E07’s proposed 7x CREE XPL HI V3 NW 5000K emitters:
My Fireflies ROT 66 has 9x of those same emitters. The ROT 66 is hyper-bright, floody, has some throw, but not much. The E07 would likely be similar. The ROT 66 has three 18650 batteries (9-10,000Mah total), this will have one 21700 (4-5,000Mah). Anticipate shorter run time between battery charges. The E07’s small size and mass means it will probably heat up and step down quickly. The E07’s small size will be nice - even with a 21700 it will still be an EDC for most of us.
Among it’s competitors is going to be the Emisar D4S. The D4S has a 26650 battery (5-6,000Mah) and four emitters. My D4S has CREE XPL HI V2 NW 5000K. The EO7 should be brighter - though the D4S is extremely bright. The E07 will be not as stocky as the D4S; some find the D4S to be an EDC, others don’t. The E07 run times will be shorter than the D4S. The E07 will likely heat up quicker. The E07 probably won’t the throw distance of the D4S.
I like the proposed emitter choices of the E07 and the availability of the Champagne color.
I like where they’re going with this… 
SKV89, Richard (RMM) built an TR-J20 with XHP-50.2’s I believe, also added a slave driver. It made 39,000 lumens and got too hot to hold within seconds. I made a heat sink to tie in the excellent finnage and he said it would then run til the cells died, it got hot, yes, but was dispersing it faster than than the cells could hold up. I had also made him an extension that was finned to match, for a 4th cell in that big light. 4 32650’s in series.
My own is still running 3 32650’s and has 4 of the 9V MTG2 emitters. It’s making a lot less than Richards, but a lot more than 10,000 lumens. Same heat sink. (made the same of course) I also added a 1/4” thick spacer up top to accommodate the reflectors.
Edit: Rested and at 4V it makes 11,612 lumens. Edit II: 12,976 with the cells fresh charged and at start. Mind you, the cells and emitters are going on 3 years old.
Enough shelf under the emitters to conduct heat to well placed and well spaced fins, and it works. Kudo’s to Fireflies for paying attention!
Very good news but I hope this will not end up with a head much larger than the front SS bezel. It’s the only thing that I don’t like with the ROT66 : protruding fins, even if i prefer this to no fins at all.
Omg I’m in this thing is getting better all the time.
TallyHo I have four ROT66 myself. I think those fins are small all things considered. They barely stick out if you stare down at it from the muzzle, er bezel end.
Yeah I agree the Cooling Fins help tremendously with heat management so the bigger the better IMO. Some awesome fins in this thread. This one needs some character to set it apart from a ROT66, which I already admire.