*BLF LT1 Lantern Project) (updated Nov,17,2020)

Interested

This was already answered, but just to reiterate…

  • Parasitic drain on this should be lower than the cells’ self-discharge rate, if it performs like the light it’s based on. So it shouldn’t be functionally different than leaving cells sitting unused in a drawer.
  • Keeping li-ion cells “topped up”, charging all the time, is one of the fastest ways to reduce their life span. The ideal resting state for these is about half full, for long-term storage. The overall capacity will decrease over time no matter what, as the cells age… but storing them totally full or totally empty reduces the capacity a lot faster.

To maximize cell lifespan, it’s generally effective to charge them to about 80% or 90, then use the light until the battery is at about 20 or 10, then repeat. This keeps it away from the edges where it ages the fastest. However, the batteries aren’t particularly expensive, and they should still last a long time even when fully charged and fully discharged, so many people prefer more convenient usage patterns even if it means replacing the cells more often. Because “more often” on a low-power light like this is still probably 5 years or so. And even in bad conditions, like when kept plugged in and powered on all the time, oscillating rapidly between ~95 and ~100% full, cells will still generally last over a year.

This is only a guess but i'd say if it's not ready for summertime people are going to be wondering if it's worth waiting again another year.

IMHO it has to be done by then .

For some info for those of you who seem to like to complain & whine about the time its taking to get this project to a reality, here is my side of what i know. First We lost many of the original people who helped get it started, (TheMiller, Kronological, etc.) and with the loss of TheMiller the ability of getting projects forward went with him. He had the ability & experience with past BLF projects that i do not have. Second, some of us have other priorities in our lives that take more importance, and in my case the past year or two have been rough financially, stressful, and a lot of family illnesses, added with dealing with a marital separation, and now dealing with necessary plans to have to sell my house and sown size, and move to a different province within the year or the next is taking more of my time and abilities, its limited in what i can do regardless. Third we can only go as fast as the manufacturer can go, and over the project our representative for the manufacturer had switch over to a different factory of work, (from Thorefire to Sofirn) I an grateful of the help i have received from the current team members who are helping me to push this project on, and i am still taking time when i can & work with the rest of the team & the manufacturer as best as i can, to the best knowledge as i can, without the experience and ability that TheMiller had on a huge volunteer project like this. If you, or anyone feel you can get it done sooner, then i will happily turn the project over to you. Remember one thing, all this is volunteer time, and nobody is getting paid for these BLF projects, we do it for everyone in the community.

It will be done, when it is done. It is as simple as that.

Real life gets in the way of many fun things, as exasperating as that can be at times. I have to keep telling me that at times. I would love to be able to do something to help move this along, but I know myself. I don’t possess the skills needed to herd projects.

I thank DBSAR for all he has done on this right from the first prototype he made and showed us. Thanks to everyone else as well, I don’t want to forget everyone but I couldn’t begin to list those who have made notable contributions as I have not read every page of the topic.

And the CNY did not help in regards to this.

Well said, Den. I’m sorry it had to be said, but I’m glad you were willing to. Thanks for starting this project and continuing to help it along even though you’ve got so much else to deal with besides flashlights right now.

It takes dedication, will and interest to do these projects, especially without the skills & knowledge that some others had when they were here to head them up. I will still plan to push to make it a reality, but will continue to need as much help as i can along with those we have on the current team helping to make it a reality, and the first BLF lantern project. Its a dream to see it a production reality for this part of the market that is so very lacking in that category to have a good area lantern to add to our other great flashlight projects that became a success.

I for one really appreciate everyone’s work on this and all the other BLF projects. I’m retired and have time to lend a hand on things but suspect that my skill sets aren’t very useful in these types of projects. However I am, or was, an Oracle database programmer so if you need things stored in a database I can easily create one. At one time I was playing around on creating a database to capture all BLF projects, interest list, etc but I dropped it for various reasons. Not a difficult thing to do and would allow for creating various types of reports and list.

I hope my question about an estimate wasn’t lumped into this! I’d much rather have it done right than done soon. Don’t let people bring you down, you’ve done so much already and I’d bet most of the detractors have done, well, nothing at all but post on forums :slight_smile:

DBSAR thanks for starting this project and I hope it continues. Don’t listen to all the whiners out there who complain. If they really want it, they can wait…… Hope everything goes your way.

Don’t worry it wasn’t :slight_smile:

interested thanks

Updates to the interest list:

1246 tundraotto
1247 tundraotto
1248 KgaBombadier
1249 fatboy

Interest list by entry number

Interest list by user names

(Updated :slight_smile:

Interested.

Extremely interested.

Interested

Interested. :+1:

Hi Den,

Besides the awesome lantern itself, this project has also drawn in new blood. Look at how many expressions of interest come from users with <10 posts that are recent members (myself included). Lurkers are joining BLF in droves just like they used to wait in line at iPhone launches. That’s an achievement to be proud of and a real service to the forum itself.

Respect! :+1: