✌ FREEME- ASTROLUX MF01 Mini 7*SST20 CRI95 26650 ANDÚRIL Flashlight Group Buy - $45.99

The DQG tiny 26650, TIR lens, 7 LEDs, e-switch, exists since about mid-2016.

The ROT66 should have been design without a batteries carrier to avoid contact problem, will be solved with version 2. The PL47 battery tube lenght wasn’t that good, low grade TIR lens from mold defects. FireFlies ruined the thermal management/thermal path of the E07 version 01. Premium for the price, not for the design and QC yet.
Astrolux has messy assembling in general, even with thermal paste or soldering paste/flux projections on LED’s dome. Cold solder joints, etc. Their QC sucks.

interested

Now when the E07 CU version was relased which did not look that appealing I am very close to order E07. so I hope we will see some pictures of MF01 Mini soon…

I was not aware of this light, the head is very similiar to E07 for sure… I guess the main difference is the battery…

i consider E07 size EDC size… A CU version of the mini would be great… but lets see how the heat management is on standard version…

CU version of E07 was released just some days ago… we have yet to see actual numbers of the difference that the Copper head make…
Also… heat path should be better with the latest E07 also since they have improved the manufacture processing… I assume they have figure out the right amount of thermal paste now ( not too much and too little).

E07 is released in copper, and people want copper… so I think Astrolux need to offer it too even though they have only done it for smaller flashlights in the past.

I doubt that the e07 in copper will do anything better, i have the e07 in 4000k sst20 and it gets kinda hot on highest atleast the head that u dont want to touch it really it feels to hot just, with copper it will be even warmer which is maybe good because it transfers heat away from emitters, but how are u supposed to hold the light? u cant… need gloves then so kinda pointless imo… host would have to be alot bigger somehow for it to work better.

lol exactly!

Olight, Fenix, Acebeam etc. multi emitter 2500+ lumen flashlight? Anywhere between $125 - $250 (example)

Astrolux, Haikelite, Fireflies etc. multi emitter 2500+ lumen flashlight? anywhere between $50 - $75

I’ll take the latter all day long and put up with the handful of potential issues one expects to encounter.

If only the super premium brands existed my light collection would be growing by one every two months instead of an average of two per month

They’re also the ones driving the competition and forcing innovation. Just look at Emisar who’s smack in the middle with a solid price and rock solid quality. Olight still wants to put out 1500 lumen max 18650 lights while Emisars like, how about 4000?

Despite the majority of my lights consist of Emisar, Fireflies, Mateminco, and I like most of them, one thing that I can only find in premium brands is efficient regulated driver, despite they are not as bright. Sometimes I want efficiency (longer runtime) and constant output for practical applications. Even Wuben made a very efficient and stable driver for the new TO50R EDC that actually measures 3k lumens on turbo from my measurements. Maybe Emisar, Fireflies, Mateminco should start looking into making fancy buck/boost driver lights in the less than $100 range.

Interested

I had to make fast prototypes ordering boards in Germany now
After some problems with the Astrolux driver maker who did not manage to solder the Aux board prototypes with a soldering iron :person_facepalming:
this is a really ugly looking soldering job, flux everywhere and on top he forgot to solder some parts

.

here I made a simply size comparism between a 0603 resistor, a fine solder tip and the new footprint comparator

no wonder with the tiny components on the Aux board the driver maker messed it up

I offered to order boards fron China weeks ago with my normal orders but they wanted to be handled by their usual prototype maker

.

I found a weird oscillation after the MAX809 chip so a cap fixed that
also for high_low settings of Anduril one more MOSFET needs to be added

here some pictures of the prototype
Solder paste Macro, I also changed the solder paste shrink so bit more paste sticks to the pads in production

parts carefully placed with very fine tweezers

also had a MF01S Aux board there but Mouser let me down the delivery moved from friday to monday, while the PCB fab delivered thursday instead monday
I put a PTC on it as the darker color likely heats up different than my usual white boards and indeed it was a lot hotter than the reflow oven dummy boards

after reflow

Piggyback 0402 cap to fix voltage break downs after the MAX809 or before the LDO, not sure which one of the 2 parts caused this to happen

here the lower board is fixed, the other still have the strange behavior and power breakdown

also can be seen the much smaller footprint NCX2220 comparator
this was choosen as its cheaper than the Maxim or Microchip ones in Umax 8 footprint and also saves space on the boards which are very dense already

It looks like the astrolux MF01 Mini will not be ready to be released in may or maybe even june, hoenstly all we have seen is a pcb board which now turns out to have some problems.
It would be wise to post some more render of the actual aestheticsof the flashlight…I am curious to see how it will look like more…

When my pay check arrive 25th may I will device if I should buy the Fireflies E07 or the the astrolux one… but pictures of a non functional pcb board does not make me very convinced.
I want to buy the E07 before it turns outdated already…

the decision to make this light was late february
first technical drawings for driver and aux boards I got on 1. March

I guess in the process to implement here something new delays are not uncommon,
but rather not rush it so there is more time to test and eliminate problems before mass production starts

Well the technical stuff on the inside I can understand can take some time, but is even the outward design finished ?
I mean… this thread is about a group buy, it would be strange to start it if not atleast the outward design is finished how it will look etc… I can understand some small changes and details might be changed… just like with the E07 has changed little bit…

I agree its better to take time then to rush things…

If I see no outward design in pictures in before 25th may I will buy the E07.

But this group buy was made to early… and not enough information about the actual product either.
The very existence of this thread is hurting the E07 sales for sure… and I guess that is the actual purpose of it, to buy some time…
so yes picture of the actual otuward design would be good rather sooner then later… until then this flashlight seem to exist more in the mind then in reality.

Check the title, this is a “preview” of a Group Buy. So very early days.

I understand delays and production problems. But it clearly appears Astrolux prematurely released the GB details of both this and the MF01S specifically to steal prospective customers from buying the direct competitor products the D18 and E07. What’s worse is that they initially launched both saying the first one (mini) would start pre orders in 6 weeks (April) and the second one (MF01S) in 10 weeks (May). Now the cats out of the bag and it’s clear that it’s going to be months longer than previously advised for either product.

That’s an unethical business tactic.

Is there any other manufacturer that drops lights months before they’re ready just because they’re direct competitors to other lights and then completely under delivers on the ETA to production/sales?

It kind of feels like Astrolux purposefully lied to everyone here with the only intention of inhibiting sales to Emisar & Firelies.

Maybe I’m wrong and this is just how Astrolux operates as a company? Was the MF04 group buy released 5-6 months before the group buy actually began? Also, more importantly: if it was, did they advise the group buy would start 3-4 months sooner than it actually did?

Yeah you are right I bought E07 today as you say its months away from production….

I’m not trying to drop a hammer on Astrolux. I’ve subscribed to both their MF03 & MF05 “prototype” or maybe one day project threads. Those to me is exactly how these lights should’ve been presented. Obviously with more serious indication that they’re likely to drop in 2019. But saying orders will start in 6 weeks and the details of the driver aren’t even going to be started for 2 weeks… That’s a little ridiculous.

If they choose to tell us pre-order sales will begin by a certain date and they absolutely blow that projection by double or even triple that length of time… they should expect the backlash don’t you think? Especially when it’s plausible it was done as a tactic rather than a mistake

@Ekstasis, why didn’t you just wait for the MF01 Mini?

It would just be smarter to wait and not spend any money in the meantime.

It’s just business, everybody does it. I wouldn’t give it a second thought.

Totally agree. Every company does this. For example, Samsung is the most notorious for this kind of business tactics in the smart phone world. Galaxy phones, historically, gets the most intentional “leaks” throughout the year with mind blowing features and improvements that are almost never seen in the final product. I for one have often fell sucker to these “leaks” and held off on buying another brand’s newly released phones in order to wait for the Samsung Galaxy phone only to be disappointed when it comes out but I still end up buying it because I’ve waited that long and it is still the newest phone on the market. After all those years, I learn to not trust any Samsung “leaks” but other brands like Apple, Huawei, Google have been pretty reliable. Anyways, this is all business tactics not out of the ordinary.