More progress on grey anodizing… I think this was the second attempt to get a nice dark grey color:
About the parts not being together, Neal tells me: “not the production item, they will cut some screws before assemble”.
So the theory seems to be correct. It looks weird because the threads aren’t there. If I understand correctly, the ano factory took these pictures. And since the threads are cut after anodizing (so they can carry current), it wouldn’t be possible to put things completely together at this stage.
I think it may be caused by a small resistor in the circuit which is specifically designed to take the edge off each FET pulse. This was done to prevent excess voltage spikes and electrical noise within the driver, but it also seems to have the effect of increasing FET efficiency slightly.
Hopefully there is a cold blue steel tone to the original, similar to what is seen on my old Nokia 830 dumb phone.
If so, would some call it ‘gun metal’ ?
IMO other than the electronic switch I honestly don’t see watt all the hoopla is about this flash vs watts already out there.
Outwardly IMO it’s an average design with essentially a TI patina. Ok. Woo hoo.
Now if it had a rotary mechanical sideswitch dimmer that was hidden behind a sliding cover that could give me some “hardness”. Or if heads with different led configurations were swappable by just unscrewing then yeah definely woo hoo. Basically a glorified P60. Or magnetic charging, woo hoo.
For this amount of effort and angst I almost expect Bluetooth, a wireless remote, and a camera. Oh, and of course a talking free battery.
Nottawhackjob, the size and the firmware are elite for an edc. That is what does it for me. I suppose you are correct in that it is not a giant leap ahead, because of the Emisar, which is similar in some ways. I like them both, but have been holding off, waiting for this one.
The more I look at this the nicer this looks. I like the quad better than triple. Perhaps Lumintop should make a FW4A since there isn’t a rear clicky quad in existence and it will be more efficient. Perhaps use 21700 batteries instead of 18650.