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

That’s interesting. My D4 breaks connection with the head also. I have been looking for an e switch light that doesn’t need lock out. Something safe for your pocket. This would at least make it a twisty. I don’t like to twisty and then click. For those short few second jobs.

Have you had the fw3a come on in your pocket?

Thank you.

I do actually like the H17F. It may be a pain to work with, but I can at least get it set up in a way that I like and leave it there. I pretty much won’t buy a multimode light unless I can set each mode, as I like my modes more biased to the lower end than factory defaults usually go.

On the other hand, I agree that the end game in UI development is not needing to program individual modes. Anduril does a very good job of “just working” for almost everyone right out of the box. Control rings like HDS Rotary or V11R are also excellent options.

Something interesting about Anduril:

No… but I don’t have pockets.

However, the tail button helps a lot for avoiding accidental activation. And the momentary function of lockout mode is designed specifically for “those short few second jobs”.

On another note, I finally wrote a user manual for Anduril. This is only a first draft, but I hope it makes sense.

It’s a bit long, so I’m not sure if it will fit well onto paper. There’s a lot to cover though, so even this version is still pretty terse.

add me - one at LH351D

finally

Toykeeper, you have mail :slight_smile:

Edit: You think it is long? Then don’t open the PDF

Looks good! I finally got round to playing with Anduril last night and figured most of it out from looking at the diagram and reading anduril.txt. I got stuck in muggle mode for a while because I thought I was in momentary mode but that’s definitely user error :person_facepalming: . The only things I would’ve added are brief explanations and default/min/max values, which you’ve done! :+1:

This part might be a bit confusing.

At first I thought you could set the Floor between 1 and 150.

Then the Ceiling was only settable between 120 and 150.

But that’s not right at all. 1/150 means 1 OF 150, not 1 TO 150.

So the Ceiling can be any of 150 steps, but the default just happens to be at 120.

Trap for young players.

Thank you! Do you mind if I translate it into German? I'm not sure if joechina is already up to creating something comparable (printable pdf in a nice layout).

I would like a second light as well to give to a friend at work. Please add another light for me.
Neil

The last prototype looks amazing in grey.

Therein lies the problem though Jason, she DID state default was set at 1/150, so any REASONABLY intelligent individual would see that the term default showed 1 out of a possible 150 steps, so how do you idiot proof for all the different idiots? I know my own idiocy can, many times, be quite different from the normal… just saying. Once you start configuring the light it becomes pretty evident.

And with this adjustability it becomes easy to set the momentary in lockout to whatever level suits your fancy. It is also easy to set the stepped mode for however many levels one wants, one or three or whatever. So it can suit the needs of a lot of different appetites.

Stepped mode can’t be configured for one mode. See here but you could probably set the ramp min and max values to the same level and effectively have a 1 mode light.

As to optical sensing….
Oveready Boss / Lux-RC use this feature to accomplish more than programming.

When the light accidentally activates, it’s usually in a confined space (i.e. pocket) and that space reflects a lot of light back towards the head. They sense this light and act upon this knowledge ( I don’t remember how, but I remember they do it wrong :stuck_out_tongue: ).

Anyway, it’s the best solution to the problems with accidental activation that I’ve seen.

Now….would it be possible to port it to FW3A?
I don’t think so, you can’t drive a LED and make it sense at the same time. It works on Lux-RC because they have an auxiliary LED that they use as a sensor.
But we have more and more lights which feature aux LEDs as well…

Can we just stick with programming pins + USB for the foreseeable future? We aren’t going to make a Lux-RC clone with $0 budget at a random Chinese factory

And I’m wondering what the people that want it all would be willing to pay ToyKeeper to write it up… so far it’s a VERY meager salary!

Thank you again ToyKeeper for all that you do.

I bet that question puts things in perspective. :smiley: :smiley:

It’s kinda interesting to read about, but in the ’real world’ how many people would even use the features that have been mentioned??

I’m thinking, in the big scheme of things; not very many.

Most of this was addressed about a page ago: FW3A, a TLF/BLF EDC flashlight - SST-20 available, coupon codes public - #6228 by ToyKeeper

OTOH, I’ve heard it’s difficult to configure the sensitivity in a way which doesn’t get false positives or false negatives. I’ve heard the reflection sensor has a tendency to either fail to detect reflections from dark surfaces, which are the most likely to start fires… or a tendency to trigger itself when it shouldn’t. It’s neat, but due to the light-absorbing and heat-absorbing properties of black matte materials, the types of surfaces it really needs to respond to are exactly the ones it has difficulty with.

I think that is exactly what the Oveready Boss does.