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

Both are wrong. Becaus they are rated for 8A continous. With this flashlight, you will get around 15-20A power draw.
So please use Samsung 25R/30Q, Sony VTC5/5A/6, LG HE4/HG2 or similar.

GA is 10A rated.
And the draw will be high only for short periods before the light steps down.

For constant power draw the GA is rated with 2,5C or 8A and for max current for short period its rated with 3C or 10A.
But 10A is not enough for this flashlight.
I would not use this batteries for this flashlight and I would not recommend to use it.

I thought the purpose of the FW3A was that it was not meant be a hot rod? Hence me asking about relatively low drain cells.

Wieselflinkpro, are you not familiar with batteries? I’m really surprised.

This is a FET driver so it will only draw what the battery can give. Using a high capacity battery will reduce the current draw and give longer run time. A battery’s continuous current rating is irrelevant for this light since the light itself can only do maybe 2A continuous. All 18650 cells should be able to handle that. For people not wanting max turbo output, a 35E or a GA are fine choices.

It’s meant to be an attractive, interesting, feature packed and unique well rounded practical EDC light, that just happens to not hold back on maximum output, should you choose to use it in a mode that allows that.

Exactly :+1:

Of cause I am familiar with batteries.
I am shure it will pull more than 10/12A from the GA/35E. And I would not recommend using this batteries.
They will do less amps than a VTC5A e.g. in this flashlight, of cause.

We have different emitters and I am not shure if all two emitters are fixed. I read some discussions about another emitter besides the XP-L HI. With other emitters, we have other Vf and maybe more amps.

Can you garantee, that the amps will not be above 10/12A?

As always, I’ll just use a Samsung 30Q since they are my most versatile cells.

Otherwise, I would just the 35E since it’s pink :slight_smile:

How many amps does it pull on 8x7135?

That is also an option :slight_smile:

I'm pretty sure 35E's and GA's will pull higher than 10 amps, but it doesn't stop me using them in single cell triple or quad FET driven lights. We also drive 3 amp rated LED's at 6+ amps, so.... What does the rating mean? What's the impact on the cell, long term? Or how much it lowers the rated capacity? Could be that a 35E would actually drop wayy down in capacity, lower than a 30 Q at 3000 mAh when driven at over 10A, but again, that's if you used it on max for all usage, even though in short bursts.

If most of your use is at lower levels, than the higher capacity 35E's and GA's, I think, are still worth using in these high drain lights. Guess it all depends if short burst use at >10 amps draw is causing true permanent damage, I'm thinking not so much, but dunno.

Usually the current regulators are about .350A each. So 8 x .35 = 2.8A

I think TK said the continous output for the light was closer to 2A, but if it can run at 2.8A (like in cold weather) then that is still well within spec and nowhere near the continous limit of almost all 18650 cells.

When is production?

This is not relevant and I’m not sure why you ask. It is common that the battery rated at 10A continous is also rated for higher amps for short periods. Like 15A for 20 minutes or 30A for 1 minute, something like that. Samsung and Panasonic/Sanyo did not list these higher discharge rates for the 35E and GA, but we can guess based on other, similar batteries.

Since the FW3A can only handle 10A or maybe 15A for about 30 seconds before thermal regulation kicks in, any battery should easily be able to handle that.

A big part of measuring continous discharges is temperature. Some batteries have a spec that they can’t exceed 70°C, while others might have an 80°C limit. Turbo on the FW3A is never going to last anywhere near long enough for any battery to get anywhere near these thermal limits. This is why I think continous battery discharge specs are irrelevant for the FW3A. It might be relevant on a much bigger light that can do 5000 lumen continous, but the FW3A is way way too small.

Ah gotcha, thanks. If I thought about it I would have realised I knew the answer to this from researching the Convoy S2+.

This might be a noob question but similar to stacking 7135 chips to the S2+ to increase output, would stacking more chips on the FW3A be a sensible option to increase regulated output? Provided there is space that is. If so I guess the firmware or ramping steps would need tweaking?

^ Probably Not. It already has more chips then it needs.

Lets say u will put the light underwater just for test, then the light will draw more since it will have lower temps underwater and draw more amps right… i will use lg hg2 have a spare extra for this light, might buy later 35e for more runtime or whatever.

I don’t think it would be sensible. If you stack them on the outer chips then the battery might not touch. If you get past that, the ramp rate would probably have a blip where it transitions to the FET. I also don’t see a need for it. I don’t think the light will run continuously using the existing 7135 chips at full power. Maybe if you are using the light in snow or underwater to keep the heat down then maybe you can run the chips at a higher level than stock. Maybe there is room for 1 more chip stacked on the one on the inside of the driver making it a 1+8+FET driver. IDK, it doesn’t seem sensible to me.

Keeping the exterior of the light at a constant temp should have no big effect on the max amps drawn. The thermal regulation is there to reduce amps so you don’t burn yourself. Secondly is maybe to keep the led and driver from burning up. So it depends on what you mean. In a 30 to 40 second blast on turbo the amps it draws is mostly from electrical things*, not from temperature. If you keep it cool then you can draw the same amps over a longer period of time which I guess you can call “more amps”.

I’m not real sure what your asking here. Sorry. :partying_face:

  • by “electrical things” I mean the battery, leds, driver, led wire, springs, etc… Of course the led gets hot and that reduces it’s output and the battery gets warm which might make it put out a tiny bit more amperage. The springs might get really hot and add resistance which reduces amperage, etc… so regardless of the lights exterior temp, there are a lot of temperature related things going on inside the light which can effect the amount of amps that get drawn.