Fireflies E07 preview

Throw is a function of collimation, diameter of the reflector/optic is key, as is depth (regardless of the arguments presented) I built a light using a proto reflector that is 124mm dia and 114mm deep for well over a mile in throw, at well over a million candela. To make an optic do this would be weight prohibitive, large solid “plastic” optics are very heavy. There are formula’s for achieving optimum results and depth still plays a crucial role in allowing the dia to also come into play. The volume of serious throw reflectors is quite large, just look at the GT as an example… and all the other lights that have come on board with similar output or better.

I have put a 35mm TIR in an Eagle Eye X6 to good effect, not really better throw than the stock reflector but a different beam profile anyway. And yes, it’s noticeably heavier than the aluminum reflector. But to the point here, marginally larger diameter TIR’s in a 35mm overall optic won’t allow all that much better throw, the individual TIR’s are just too small.

The E07 is less throwy than the D4S. I don’t know what the total lumens or total candelas will be, but it’s guaranteed that it’ll have a lower cd/lm ratio than the D4S, and that ratio determines how throwy a light is.

If I recall correctly, the D4S with XP-L HI gets about 9 cd/lm. This is toward the throwy end of a general-purpose light, not throwy enough to be considered a thrower. The E07 looks like it’ll probably get more like 2 to 4 cd/lm, which makes it quite floody. This is roughly the same type of beam as an Emisar D4, Astrolux S41, or a tube light Carclo triple… but with more lumens at the high end.

This is the problem of stock lights you are pretty much bound mostly to one type of aux board color combination
But you can simply solder 12 red on it if you like

Yes. Agro said yesterday in this thread that the diameter of the TIR is 9mm. This is the same as the D4, so the E07 should have a similar collimation. Assuming the same beam profile and an output of 6.5klm it should have about 350m of throw.

TBH I don’t see any “invention” in that TIR. I may be missing something, but if it exists I’m pretty sure it’s something of trivial importance.
It’s just that they decided to do an U optics in that size.

There is innovation going on in lenses, Fenix E16 shows some. Fresnel TIRs appeared several years ago. Zooming TIRs are now built with moving lenslet arrays. But none of these improves throw and I would be surprised to see an invention that does.

Reflectors leave about 1/3 as spill. In some lights it’s wasted, in some its essential part of the beam. When I walk I often direct a modest thrower forward and use the spill to see the ground at my feet.

FF,

There’s no option to order the clear ano in the page, it’s only listed as an alternative further down.

Maybe it’s on purpose, I’m just reporting it in case it’s not.

Why is it desert yellow instead of champagne?

I have the other two Fireflies torches in Champagne.

sorry if this has been addressed before:

could someone please explain the aux LEDs? Do these stay on continuously? Go on when the light is off? How many of these LEDs are there? Thank you!

The aux LED’s light up similar to a lighted side switch, there are L-H-Off modes. I know that in Anduril you can have the aux LED’s on or off when in lockout, on or off when in standby, and with low or high output levels.

I haven’t left any of my IOS Ramping lights stock much beyond the day they arrived here, Anduril for me…

I can’t actually give any good answers about the aux LEDs until I test one in person. The reasons are because earlier lights have used aux LED boards which aren’t compatible with the low mode, and because earlier lights had the aux LEDs soldered in an always-on position.

So… I hope these are both fixed now, but I think it’s likely that only the always-on thing is fixed. In that case, it would have high and off, but no low mode.

Simple answer as I developed that board

currently the aux board has only on and off as it is now

the LEDs depending on color get switched with 2 N and one p-channel FETs, applying PWM to them sounds doable, also right now they have stabilized brightness at 2.8V LDO output we would need to drop
it uses an LDO for the comparator chip and all other components, so PWMing the whole board wont do anything

on top of that the current Aux board is switched on with a small N-FET with the aux-output from the MCU,
so that the board runs on full battery voltage not over the MCU diode,
this has the simple reason that at about 3V the LDO falls out of regulation and the reference voltage for the comparator drops faster than the battery sense input, so the comparator wont work at this point anymore

to get low/high implemented we would need to drop stabilized LED brightness and add a PWM pad separate voltage rail for the LEDs,
but this means we would need an extra MCU output to generate the low signal as we need still a high to turn the board on
and there is simply no real tracing another Vcc rail on 2 layer board, this would mean 4 layer

It would be possible to make it work but we are already limited

- max MCU outputs

  • complexity of wiring/PCB design (2 layer wont be enough anymore)

There’s a much simpler answer: MCU pin > resistor> aux LEDs. That’s all.

It’s simpler, cheaper, allows both high and low modes to work, and can still be turned off at low voltage. The downside is that it no longer has regulated brightness, and it might need extra MCU pins to handle any color changes. But the difference between regulated and non-regulated aux LEDs isn’t really perceptible anyway, and there are multiple ways to implement color changes are desired.

if you want programm a firmware for the 1634 with watchdog for sleep state LVP, LED color change ect. I am open to it
right now the most limiting factor is the MCU

this is stone age, then you can easily get balancing problem with LEDs, like the first Q8 had
the voltage comparator is the simplest version of color change based on input voltage if not done via MCU
and the additional parts costs with production about 1.2€ more than a Emisar D4S board

The user can change each color ring with a build in 3x3mm trimmer to the brightness he likes

The problem is less the complexity of the circuit
it is getting it done on this swiss cheese Aux board, which forces you to route a lot extra to get around the holes
those are the bottle necks

I have looked into it and on current boards design it is possible to add a LED PWM rail replacing the stabilized,
but still this leaves us open with the MCU pin problem

Not sure if a shottky diode and capacitor on the power on FETs gate would be enough to leave the board on in the PWM low state

+1 for Copper and Titanium Edition

I’m trying to avoid using PWM on the aux LEDs, because it tends to dramatically increase the amount of power used… which kind of defeats the point.

The common “breathing LED” effect, for example, uses about 150 to 200 times as much power as the “low” aux LED mode on a D4S.

In any case, I recently reduced the code size a bit, so I think there’s enough space to do some fancy things with aux LEDs on a tiny84 or tiny841 now. No need to move up to tiny1634 yet.

Low power breathing AUX :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes:

Lexel and ToyKeeper, figuring it out. In other words… EPIC! :smiley:

Fireflies sent me an E07. Two, actually.

I asked what the purpose was, what they needed me to do with it.

The answer: “No purpose. Anduril designer deserves to own the first one of E07 :laughing:

So that was a nice gesture. :slight_smile:

Anyway, it arrived today. One grey model with XP-L HI 3A, one desert tan with XP-L HI 1A. This isn’t a review, but here are some disorganized initial observations:

  • It’s girlfriend-approved. V likes it, and thinks it’s the best light I have.
  • It’s smaller than it looks in the pictures.
  • Both items had good thermal calibration right out of the box.
  • The aux LEDs are pretty bright, but can be adjusted with a screwdriver. I got it down to 0.24 mA standby power at the lowest it would go.
  • There are two colors of aux LED, normally. One color is sharp and sparkly, the other is soft and diffused. The ones I got are purple-ish and emerald-green-ish, with the arrangement swapped from one light to the other.
  • The aux LEDs can turn on and off, and they turn red at about 3.1V or 3.2V.
  • Two of the button LEDs are always on. The other two run in sync with the aux LEDs. So two button LEDs turn off when the main emitters are on.
  • The knurling texture is a bit more aggressive than I’d like.
  • The clip is extremely tight.
  • The clip groove is unusually deep, but this helps keep the clip “fingers” from poking out.
  • The heat fins are deep, but a bit sharp.
  • Paracord lanyards are included, and extra O-rings, an 18650 adapter, and an extra optic. Not sure if the extra optic comes standard, but it appears to be identical to the one in the light.
  • With the 18650 adapter, the battery doesn’t rattle. Flat-top cells are okay too.
  • The stainless steel bezel is a really nice touch.
  • The ramp slope is a bit uneven at a couple spots, but it’s not distracting. The most noticeable spot is somewhere around 5 to 10 lm, where the MCU switches to full clock speed. Unusual, but not really an issue.
  • The beam with XP-L HI is a flat wide hotspot with a somewhat narrow spill area around it. The overall shape is like a plateau, not like a rounded hill.
  • The emitters are rotated relative to each other for a smoother beam.
  • Firmware is Anduril, and all functions appear to work. I think it’s the PL47 build from 2018-10-27 or 2018-10-28.

The MCPCB and aux LED board appear to be a pain to solder, so before anyone asks… No, I do not want to unsolder the E07 to get answers about what’s inside. I plan to leave these unmodded, except maybe to try updating the firmware some day after I get one of Lexel’s flashing keys.

… is it ToyKeeper approved?

Thanks for the info TK! I can tell Jack don’t frequent the forums often otherwise he would have known you like the 219B 4500k 9080 version.

But since you have both the XP-L HI 1A and 3A, can you take some lumen measurements to compare them. Because FF is listing the 3A as a V2 flux bin and the 1A as V3 flux bin. The 3A is also specified at a lower output than the 1A. For the ROT66, both 1A and 3A emitters are V3 and FF publish the same 10k lumen output for both.

I’m wondering if and why FF decided to change from V3 to V2 for the 3A XP-L HI.