My first group buy and post on BLF.
In for 1!
… one could get a lot less for more money, WHY is this so affordable? Shhhhh, quiet!
10,660 is obscene!
So, if I were to buy an FW3A, how many lumens would be too many lumens? 
LOL, maybe the other direction… high CRI lower output emitters, high capacity cell for run time. Quality over quantity.
What? It could happen!
For me, it’s about output first and foremost. If we could pack 30,000+ lumens into a package the size of an Emisar D4 with a 18350 tube that (somehow) doesn’t get hot SUPER quick, that’s what I’d like to see.
Question for you Dale: of all the emitters you’ve used over the years, is there much of a difference in heat created by different emitters running at the same wattage? Does a XML2, XPL2, XHP35 etc heat up the same at say… 10 watts? I wonder if there will ever be technology that would give us LED’s that don’t get hot as quickly and could give us 30,000 lumens in a pocketable flashlight.
Welcome to BLF! You got in on a good one, and at a good point.
This sounds less like a flashlight and more like a camera flash. Lol
WELL, 10 watts from an MT-G2 doesn’t make much heat. Especially from a 9V variant MT-G2. Barely running. 10 watts from an XHP-35 is pretty miserly as well, still making lumens, just running well within it’s limits. See a pattern here?
30,000 lumens, pocketable, and we win the lottery twice a year, right? All fly Lear Jets and drive Corvettes? See a pattern here? Even if the emitter technology headed us that direction, what Alien is going to bring the battery technology up to par? Can’t say it won’t happen, but it’s doubtful I’ll live to see it… never know though. My Dad is 90, remembers lighting their house with kerosene lamps…
Hahaha I guess one can dream right! I kind of figured watts = energy = heat in one way or another. I was just curious as to wheather the newer LED’s were getting exponentially more efficient in energy to output or not really.
I suppose the next step would be to put a laser behind a diffuser lens and see what you get. Maybe a triple; red, blue, green lasers with a heavily frosted optic.
Or just carry around a MT09R 
The thing is that we tend to push these emitters up against the ceiling, and of course they’re inefficient up there. We need to lower our demands to conserve that heat and bring them into the realm of efficiency, maybe use 70.2’s in 12V at lower current and use more of them, something like that. Like the SST-40 really shines over an XM-L2, but not so much at lower levels as the Cree is more efficient down there. So we need some lights like this one that are elegant, stylish, more of the gentleman’s EDC than a Search and Rescue master blaster. There needs to be diversity, not an all or nothing approach.
Y’all didn’t think I could see that, did ya? 
Of course I like making a light do all it can do, but when I use them I typically spend most of my time in level 4 or 5 of 7.
This is one of the things I love about Anduril, it’s two lights in one… the ramp ceiling keeps the light sane, a good all around working light. Double click to find the alter ego… 
I’d like to grab one please
Put me down for one, please.
I haven’t set up anything yet. I’ve been a bit busy testing the light today…
… which brings up a thing people should be aware of for these samples. They seem to have shipped with 10508 or 10509 optics, which are both significantly more floody than the 10511 optic it is intended to have. I heard back from Neal today about this, and Lumintop hasn’t received its order of 10511 optics yet so they used some others they had in stock.
1. No. Zebralights use buck/boost drivers, which are more efficient than linear drivers. The FW3A uses a linear driver.
2. The ramp is not the same as the D4. The full details are in the cfg-fw3a.h file, but here’s a summary:
- 1 to 65: 1x7135
- 66 to 130: 8x7135
- 131 to 149: 8x7135 + FET
- 150: FET only
I like floody. How much more floody is the 10508 than the10511? And can I purchase this 10508 optic somewhere and just drop it in myself without issue? The beam shown on Maukka’s review looked terrific to me!
I’m hoping at least one of the prototype testers can swap a 10511 from one of their other lights and put it on the FW3A so we can see what the pattern really looks like.
With the wrong optic and emitter, we can’t really evaluate that whole aspect of the light. Bummer.
The 10511 is called a narrow spot.
The 10508 is called a medium spot.
The 10509 is called a wide spot.
All of the above are frosted.
The 10507 is the non-frosted, clear version with a narrow spot.
I don’t know the beam angles, but the hot spot diameter is what changes. The wider the spot, the less throw distance.
They should be very easy to swap out.
For people in the USA, all these are available from MTN E.