That happens to me sometimes. The “not” will dissappear and totally change what I’m saying. Lol
I’ve always looked at the development photos carefully and noticed that the clip should not grind against the head. I was shocked to hear about yours. Kinda like them changing the color, I thought they extended the length slightly.
It’s all good. False alarm. :partying_face:
I was somewhat late on the list and ordered promptly after getting the notification and await shipment confirmation yet others seemingly later than me have theirs in transit. Paypal not so consistent on the handoff or some delay between handoff to the carrier and shipment confirmation <span class=“not think I’d so “Unfulfilled””>? Perplexing, however I expect to receive it eventually.
It appears to depend on what you ordered and whether you paid for expedited shipping. The wait list arrangement is not an indicator of shipping order.
So I have a tracking number as of a few days ago but I don’t see any updates. Neal’s site says fulfilled so guess I’ll wait hoping it make it to my impatient hands.
Another observation:
Due to the lack of heatsinking I noticed the light gets hot very fast when using Turbo mode on VTC6 or VTC5A. Much faster an Emisar D4.
Samsung 30Q seems to be a better choice for this light since it didn’t heat up quite as fast.
I thought max current was set to 3 amps (it’s in the name). So why is there a difference? Is it because the 30Q has more voltage droop than the other 2 ?
The maximum current is direct drive. It has regulated output up to 2.8A, and can go above that in direct drive.
The default ceiling is 2.8A, but it can still access turbo with a double click while the light is already on. Double click from off goes to the ceiling though.
The 3 in the name refers to 3 emitters. This is a direct drive, FET powered light so it’s sensitive to resistance at max output. The 30Q is a nice comprise between capacity and current. Some cells can deliver more current and some cells deliver more capacity.
I do not agree, the 30Q is a very high current cell, fine for that short full blast but when aimed for a “nice compromise”, it is not needed for the FW3A. A nice compromise is a cell that can handle the regulated 3A ceiling for most of the drainage of the cell with the full FET blast still impressive, a GA cell for example will achieve that and have the extra capacity on top. The full blast will not even be noticibly less compared to the top performers.
The SST-20 version, with lower voltage, will even run perfectly fine regulated and full FET on the low-drain NCR18650B.
It’s just a matter of opinion. If you want to think of the 30Q as a very high current cell, then that’s fine. It’s a 3000mah cell with a 15A CDR.
I tend to think of a cell like the Sony VTC4 2100mah with a 30A CDR as a very high drain.
No biggie.
Doh! I had it wrong all this time :laughing: :person_facepalming: Thanks for the clarifictaion everyone.
NOT is a peculiar word. It can disappear from a place where it should be, like in this case. Or it pops out of nowhere to a place where it never should have been. William Jefferson Clinton can testify to that when he said: I did NOT have ……. :cowboy_hat_face:
Just modded one of my FW3As.
As expected, the FW3A is very easy to mod. Unscrew and lift off the bezel (it’s not glued and comes off easily with just hands), use a tweezers to lift out the optic and the star on the shelf is exposed. You can remove the star and reflow, or you can swap in a fresh 20mm Noctigon triple star with your choice of emitter.
The light does have a glass lens, so if you wish to insert a Lee Minus Green filter you can.
The head of the light feels very lightly built. This is a light going for compact size, light weight and clean design over thermal properties. At first glance from the top of the light the the shelf appeared extremely thin. However, from looking at pictures of the driver side of the head, I can see that the shelf is actually quite a bit thicker, but tapers inward towards the front of the light. However, even with a decently thick shelf, this is definitely not an Emisar or Fireflies with a thicker shelf, more mass to the head and body and heat sink fins.
FWIW, the recommended cells for this light are the highest-mAh cells, like a GA cell or 35E — Panasonic/Sanyo NCR18650GA and Samsung INR18650-35E. The LG MJ1 should be good too. Basically, anything from a reputable brand with 3400+ mAh.
The downside is that turbo won’t be quite as bright, but it’s not really noticeable without a lux meter. The upsides are longer runtime, less heat, and less risk of heat issues.
Even use a luxmeter and you may be disappointed, the top high drain cells compared to a GA or lower drain may get you higher output for 5 seconds, then nose-diving under the output with moderate drain cells because of the extra hot leds.
The FW3A performance makes for the perfect usable EDC, what stands out is its small size yet still impressive output and good efficiency up to 3A, but as an extra has the BLF-touch of a short FET-blast when people need to be wowed.
Swapped in a Noctigon triple with 3x SST-20, 4000K 95 CRI. The results are about what you would expect:
I’m not sure the benefits of tint and CRI outweigh the large loss of lumens and turbo runtime compared to XPL HI. When I sit this light side-by-side with my resistor-modded Jetbeam TCR-01 triple XPL HI, the stock FW3A appears brighter at 2.8 amp mode. When I do the same with the SST-20 modded version with Lee Filter, the hotspot appears dimmer. I have to go to FET mode if I want it brighter.
I suspect I’ll end up swapping this light back to XPL HI of some kind. It just seems to be a more practical emitter for small triples with minimal heatsinking.
Thanks!
Thank you for the detailed report Firelight2. It seems to verify to me what ToyKeeper has said all along …
……. the XP-L HI is the superior LED for ’this light’.
I’ll get a STT20 if it get’s made, but only to use a host. The SST20 has far to many downsides to be of any value to me in this light. Thanks for your report verifying that to me.
Although that’s what the 30Q is rated at, many drain tests show that they can achieve nearly 20A CDR in reality without any temp issues.
Found this site via a search, I am apparently too late for this groupbuy - will there be another groupbuy for this light or will there be another/newer/different variant of it?
Thank you!