TLF/BLF/Lumintop FW3A review (18650, 3x XP-L HI cool white)

Yep, I’m waiting for my code… I would have opened the battery discussion two years ago, but I wasn’t here. Just surprised no one else thought of it.

Maukka, can you provide the inner diameter of the clip? Want to see if the Ti surefire clip on prometheus lights’s website can fit.

Zebralight doesn’t really support button top cells. Even if you can cram it in there, the current pogo pin configuration often won’t make contact with the terminal.

ToyKeeper measured the OD of the body section it’s around at 22.9 mm.

Clip id is 23,1 mm

Funkychateau, the triple FW3A was designed to be a poor mans custom hot rod, it was known from the get-go that a protected cell would not power it to design specs so it was not taken into consideration to make it accept these lesser performing cells.

The Dodge Demon Hellcat doesn’t come with back seats. By design. for those that want it for it’s maximum power delivery this is perfect, for those that want back seats there are other models. :smiley:

My ZL SC-600 II works equally well with flat and button tops. It even works with several varieties of protected button-tops. Perhaps there are other models that don’t.

My point was that’s it’s simple to accommodate both flat and button-top (unprotected) batteries in a single design. I don’t think anyone would dispute that the D4/D1 series does this nicely.

Those are the old style. Newer ones such as the SC64c (even with its tailcap spring) can’t fit a button top battery. Just tested with a 66.3mm long 30Q.

Dale, I don’t follow this “protected” line of reasoning. Most protected cells would be electrically inadequate, so why would anyone bother trying to accommodate them? I know I’ve never argued for such, and I doubt anyone else has either.

It has been a non-coffee day due to some intricate modding I needed to do this morning… apparently I misunderstood your argument. Sorry.

I hope it hasn’t come across as being too argumentative. All I’ve really been doing is asking why the tube and springs shouldn’t have been made a small increment longer to guarantee that both common styles of unprotected high-drain cells would work. Like the Emisar flashlights, for example.

I know the design is finalized. I have my order code. At this point, I’m just bantering with folks who keep explaining to me why they considered accommodating both battery styles to be such a bad idea two years ago, LOL!

Yeah but still

Supporting button tops is a poor choice because they shouldn’t exist in the first place IMHO. Only AA/14500 and AAA/10440 lights should support both due to the disposable and NiMH cells being exclusively button top.

All e-cigs I know of really only support flat tops and any commonality between that HUGE market and flashlights is a win for li-ion flashlights.

I’m not sure I understand you, but the FW3A does support flat top and button top. Are you thinking it doesn’t?

They did think of it. They incorporated it into the design, and it works. The FW3A can use flat-top or button-top cells, as long as they don’t have a protection circuit added.

Button-top cells work in:

  • Proto1
  • Proto2
  • Production lights (proto5)

Button-top cells don’t work in:

  • Proto4

… and the status of proto3 is unknown, because everyone who received one disappeared before reporting results.

The proto4 lights didn’t work with button-top cells because of a manufacturing error which put the driver in the wrong place. It was the reason why proto4 wasn’t approved for production… but it has been fixed.

Hopefully there won’t be any more uncertainty about it.

It’s been repeated several times that 66 mm would be the absolute maximum length, even after the driver-fit issue was resolved. I believe this was again reported after the last prototype evaluation.

But I sincerely hope you are correct, and longer button-top cells such as my 30Qs (66.8 mm) and VTC4s (66.6 mm) are accommodated without risk of denting.

I’m buying anyway, of course.

But they do exist, in great quantity. And they are the recommended fodder for some lights, such as Emisar.

Many of us have quite an assortment of batteries on hand, and it’s a win-win to have flashlights that accept both.

I’m not sure if you saw my first answer, but it was about a page ago:

Lights that accept button-tops - really those that prefer them - are the cause, not the effect. The sooner that incentive to manufacture them disappears and li-ion cells are as standardized as other batteries (as they should be since the entire naming scheme for them is based on their size) the better.

I get that it sucks for people that have mostly have button-tops but the standards change for tech way faster than they have for flashlights in just about every other industry. Thankfully we don’t have to measure USB, HDMI, etc. cables before using them for anything.

And it’s good that the USB 3.0 ports on my computer also read and write USB 2.0 devices. I have quite a few of those around. Compatibility is a good thing.