This sounds like a really nice upgrade to the SP36. The SP36 is a good light and the LH351D makes a really nice-looking beam.
As Lux-Perpetua mentioned, it may be interesting to use the 5000K version with the most lumens, and also make a 4000K version optimized for high CRI. In both cases though, try to get a tint bin on the pink side of the BBL instead of the green side.
It would also be nice for people around here if the driver was held in by screws or a retaining ring instead of glue.
If Sofirn is interested, it may also be worthwhile to sell a diffuser cap which fits onto the SP36 to turn it into a candle or a lantern. That would allow it to serve more purposes, and it’s a nice thing to have when using Anduril’s candle mode.
Perhaps you would be more interested in the original version of the SP36? It already has a cool white emitter, fairly close to what you described. The main difference is that it uses XP-L2 instead of LH351D. However, the beam looks a lot nicer than I expected, and it’s already available today.
The main points of doing this new SP36 are:
Neutral white instead of cool white.
Improve beam consistency.
Anduril firmware.
The original version is still surprisngly nice though. It’s basically a Q8, only smaller and with built-in charging. I didn’t expect to like it because of the cool white emitters, but it actually works really well.
I’ve mostly found that the SP36 handles heat pretty well. From a cold start, I find it usually takes 2 to 3 minutes before it starts ramping down from turbo. Anduril does still regulate the brightness down eventually though, and here’s how that looks. The blue line in these graphs shows how it behaves.
There are no immediate step-downs. Brightness is gradually adjusted as smoothly as the hardware allows, which makes it difficult to actually notice during use. If the light later gets cold, it adjusts smoothly back up. This tends to happen when the battery voltage drops, because it gets more efficient and produces less heat as the battery voltage drops closer to the emitter voltage. The overall pattern is shown in the graphs below:
I’d recommend using a high-capacity cell like the 35E, if possible. It increases runtime at most levels, and also increases the length of time the light can spend on turbo before ramping down. The only downside is that turbo won’t be quite as bright. The difference isn’t very perceptible by eye, but it does make a noticeable difference in terms of how long it takes to get hot.
True, but normal. Most chargers have a variance of +/- 0.05V in their termination voltage. I’ve seen that on every charger I’ve ever measured. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not at all unusual.
On my SP36, it stopped right at 4.20V. But normally I use chargers which are biased a bit lower than that, stopping at 4.17V or 4.18V. And in the ones I’ve measured, I found anything from 4.11V to 4.25V even from major brands. Stopping right at 4.20V is somewhat uncommon.
In practice though, I find it doesn’t matter because I normally don’t charge cells all the way. The battery lives longer if it’s never completely full or completely empty, because li-ion cells have a longer life span at half charge. So I use a light until the battery gets to 3.3V or maybe 3.4V, and then I charge it to 4.0V or 4.1V. The SP36 actually makes this easier, because I can put it in battcheck mode, plug it in for a couple hours, then unplug it. All three cells get partially charged equally, which is difficult to do in an external charger. And because it’s convenient, I can keep it in an even smaller voltage range if I want, like from 3.5V to 3.9V. I can just plug it in a bit more often for a shorter time.
The battcheck mode isn’t very precise or very accurate, but it does at least work well enough to let me know when it has charged enough to unplug the light. As soon as it blinks 4.0, that’s typically enough to give me more runtime than I’ll ever need in a single night… usually enough to last several months.
Interested in LH351D 4000K 90CRI if it has not the driver glued, may be screws like the Q8 or retaining ring like the GT or the Astrolux MF series the to hold driver in place.
About the no-glue thing, it’s worth pointing out that the SP36 would need host modifications to make it work without glue. It would need screws or a retaining ring or something. Because without glue, the driver falls out every time the body tube is unscrewed. And then if it’s in the wrong place while putting the light back together, it can cause a short and turn its own wires into smoke. I know this because it happened while I was testing an unglued sample.
So it’s not a simple matter of just skipping the glue during assembly.
I hope some sort of solution can be found though. It’s a really nice light, but the glue seriously limits the potential.
