Fireflies ROT66 Flashlight

You have to unscrew the bezel to get to the leds. So you need to order an unglued light.

The potentiometers are a good way to control the brightness of the aux LEDs, but it’d be nice if it could be turned down more, and if it could also do high and low modes like the simpler aux LED boards do. There’s also the issue of glue making the potentiometers inaccessible. And the issue of the aux LEDs interfering with firmware flashing, so either the user must lose the abilty to turn them off, or lose the ability to reflash without soldering.

So I’d make a few changes:

  • Adjust the pots and/or resistors to extend the range downward.
  • Connect the aux LEDs to a MCU pin so the user can turn it off via button presses.
  • Eliminate the circuitry used to run the aux LEDs at a constant brightness, or at least modify it so it doesn’t interfere with flashing and the “low” mode.
  • Adjust the aux board’s voltage response so it changes color at the correct voltages again (because powering it via MCU changes the voltage level it receives).

It could also be nice to rearrange things a bit so the pots would be on the spring side of the main driver, so the user could adjust it by removing the battery tube instead of the bezel and optics.

On a related note, I’d also change the way the button LEDs work. Instead of 2 which are always on and 2 which are controlled by the MCU, I’d make all 4 MCU-controlled. Because I want them to be off sometimes.

Agreed, I wish the AUX leds could go lower.


(picture is slightly overexposed, IRL they are a little dimmer)

Heres my ROT66, turnt all the way down, compared to two D4S’es at low AUX setting.
The D4S have the faint trit glow, the ROT66 still lights up a dark room.

I moved the button and aux LED wires to the same pin as the MCU-controlled button LEDs. This is for the same reason why I don’t use tritium vials any more — they’re pretty, but I want to be able to turn them off. Sometimes I don’t want a bright shining beacon announcing my location to the world; sometimes I’d rather go dark and not be seen.

Good idea. I’d like to do this to my non-glued ROT66.

Can you elaborate? Are there any pitfalls or side-effects?

Basically, move the permanent switch LED wire to the indicator LED pad. And move the aux LED board wire to the inner side of the switch LED resistor. The downside is, it makes reflashing not work without unsoldering the aux LED wire. And the aux LED board turns red about 0.25V higher than usual.

Thanks, TK! :+1:

I plan to do as you describe when I open the ROT66 again to change the aux emitters and flash my slightly tweaked version of Andúril.

I rarely read manual… while I was using my rot66, aux turn off and red led indicators appear… just discovered all three cells were around 3.29v.

Very nice feature. Thanks TK.

Lexel designed the battery warning function.

Yeah it’s a great touch. I haven’t seen a low battery indicator quite a nice as this one.

You’re welcome, but I didn’t do that. :stuck_out_tongue:

Lexel made the aux LED board do its voltage indicator thing.

I have waited for two months for ROT66 and it will not happen, because even the statuses do not change. Firefiles, a few days ago, promised to send again and … silence, no response. Bad start. I guess I will have to write to paypal. :frowning:

They’re probably taken by the E-07 launch.

My rot66 arrived this week but defective, unusable. Probably some bad contact inside the head but I bought it glued. I wrote to Jack, let’s see how after-sales works for me :frowning:

if you don’t get a response in a day or two try a PM on here instead. I think it works better than the contact option on his website; I don’t think that works. I wish I could help; he needs a daily presence on here to help coordinate. He does resolve every issue to each person’s satisfaction but sometimes it takes a minute.

My complaints have turned out well. I got new. Waiting for it was not pleasant. Faulty lamps are a great deal of how much they sold. In addition, it is always possible for a newly dispatched flashlight to be lost, it will have to pay VAT and customs fees (in the EU). Nevertheless, I believe FF for now and buy E07.

I feel your frustration because I’ve been there with my Enogear AA experience, which took months but ended up a satisfactory experience. I bought 4 ROT66 from him at different times. The first ROT66 I bought on day 1 it was announced, before the group buy started. That one took I think about 3 months. It was shipped out earliest and I had tracking number but I guess it might have been stuck at customs. The other ones came between 2weeks to a month. I know it’s hard to wait, but have a little bit more patience. You can PM Jack here. He takes weeks to respond to emails but he responds to PMs in a day or two.

Yesterday I placed an order on: http://www.ff-light.com

I did not get confirmation email which is very strange. Also no registration email.

Till now they did not send me FL. Do you know how quickly they normaly send FL?

Thank you

Kind regards

When I see FL I can only think of Florida, which isn’t in Romania, so it must mean flashlight unless you moved. Out of all the words to abbreviate :stuck_out_tongue:

I didn’t receive confirmation when I ordered mine until several days after placing the order. It is shipped from China by a low cost method, so expect to take several weeks to possible even a month.

My ROT66 continues to be weird. I was using it over the weekend and so I left batteries in it. Sure enough last night while sitting untouched on a shelf it turned itself on again. Now I can’t get it to work at all. When I first put batteries in it turns on and ramps up to max, stays there for a few seconds, then blinks and turns off. It is unresponsive to any button input, including trying a four-click to lock/unlock.

Anybody know what’s going on? Should I try to return or warranty the light? I like the tint of the Nichias but I have a hard time ever trusting this light to be useful when I need it.