FW3A, a TLF/BLF EDC flashlight - SST-20 available, coupon codes public

need this light with a 18350 pipe option too O_O

The light is so short with an 18650, that my hand barely covers it!

It wouldn't fit in my hand if it were any smaller.

[quote=raccoon city]

meh at least with the 18350 will be a lot easier to have it as a keychain light :smiley: and when someone needs light boom blind the whole area for a few seconds lol

Thanks for the correction. I understand what youā€™re saying, but light behavior puzzles me. So I make about a 1~2mm turn of the head while LEDs are powered, which cuts power. I then press the switch and I get a moonlight strobe. Easy to reproduce. So does this mean outer tube contact is still good but switch senses insufficient power because head isnā€™t fully tightened?

Nope, thatā€™s above my pay grade. I donā€™t get information like that.

I sent a new build though, and I think the drivers are getting made in a few days, and I think I heard the 219C model might ship in a week or soā€¦ maybe it could end up with new firmware?

Anyway, the build I sent includes the following updates:

  • Rewrote the thermal regulation. Should be much more stable now.
  • Added momentary strobes. Pick a mode in the strobe group, turn the light off, then go to momentary mode. It should do the last-used strobe. Or, to do a normal (steady) momentary level, turn the light off from a normal ramp mode first instead. Only normal ramp modes and strobes are supported though ā€¦ thereā€™s no momentary battcheck, no momentary sunset, and no momentary lockout. What would that even mean? It does do momentary candle though, since itā€™s easier to allow that than not.
  • Made ā€œholdā€ auto-reverse in strobe modes.
  • Made lockout modeā€™s momentary moon use 2 levels instead of 1. The second click goes to the other rampā€™s floor.
  • Added ten-clicks-from-off as a shortcut to thermal config mode.
  • Fixed the bug maukka found ā€” hold-from-off then release-and-hold in stepped ramp wouldnā€™t work until it had been on for a full second.
  • Made candle mode slightly more calm but also able to burn a bit brighter sometimes.
  • Beacon mode duty cycle is 100ms now instead of 500ms.
  • Made muggle mode do smaller thermal adjustments.
  • Fixed a minor bug in lightning mode. The brightest flashes should be full power now.

With the new thermal regulation code, hereā€™s what I measured with a fresh 30Q cell:

For comparison, hereā€™s an earlier version measured by Bob_McBob:

It worked, but it had a lot of jitter. So I fixed the jitter (among other things).

These updates apply to all build targets, not just FW3A. I spent the entire day running thermal tests, and every tested light worked pretty well. The only exception so far was a D4S, which was unexpected. It bounced a little before stabilizing. I havenā€™t been able to test an original D4 yet though.

I like your updates! Wish there was some way to update existing lights. Will definitely pick up an SST-20 when they come out. Thanks again, TK. :beer:

Thanks for the improvements to AndĆŗril, TK! You continue to spoil us. :+1:

Momentary strobe sounds neat, and stephenk will certainly enjoy it.

Improved candle mode and brighter lightning strikes will be awesome. I think the shorter beacon flashes are a good move.

Iā€™ll definitely be updating AndĆŗril on the dozen lights I have using it. Thanks again for all of your hard work!

momentary strobes? Hoo-yah!

Your in luck, there is a way. You can re-flash them with the updated firmware. :+1:

Yeah, I should have qualified with ā€œWish there was some way for ME to update existing lights.ā€ :wink: I donā€™t have the necessary hardware and lack the knowledge of the program to deploy it into the EPROM. Iā€™ve flashed custom ROMs on my Android phonesā€¦ if I can do that, should I be able to flash Anduril onto my FW3A?

I would ā€™thinkā€™ soā€¦ but I am certainly not the person to ask. :wink:
I just know it can be done & the hardware/stuff to get going is supposedly pretty cheap.

Aye, the hardware is really cheap from China. Mine took forever to arrive though. I flashed a D4S easily enough thanks to the driver having little acupuncture holes, meaning I didnā€™t have to desolder anything. I havenā€™t tried it on a flashlight that Iā€™d have to do surgery on yet, as Iā€™m terrified of bricking it like I did when I tried to perform my first emitter swap.

Short tube D4 works great for that! Absolute most power you can reasonably get on a keychain. I have seen someone attach their keys to the tripod hole on a BLF GT though. Canā€™t imagine thatā€™s fun to try and fit in your pocket.

Theyā€™re not much brighter. It was maxing out at ramp level 143/150, and now it goes to 150/150. I doubt anyone will even notice.

About that though, momentary lightning is kind of neat. The way the algorithms work, every time the button is pressed, it triggers a new lightning flash. This wasnā€™t even strictly on purpose; it happens as a happy side effect of some other code I added months ago. Each button press cancels any pending timers and drops back to the FSM libraryā€™s inner main loop, so it stops whatever itā€™s doing and loops back around to the beginning of the next lightning strike.

TBH, itā€™s kind of a pain. Some lights are easy, like the BLF Q8ā€¦ but the FW3A is obnoxious to reflash. It requires unsoldering the LED wires and pulling the driver completely out to get access to the MCU.

Iā€™ve only updated one of mine so far, and that was so I could run some thermal tests. I used the oldest one which still works, in case anything went wrong. I donā€™t like having a soldering iron inside the ones I actually use, at least if itā€™s not absolutely necessary. It adds wear and tear that Iā€™d prefer to avoid.

I really like newer designs which can be reflashed by pogo pin adapters. Those only take a moment to update.

A few days ago I mentioned that the only improvement for the FW3A that came to my mind would be a less wobbly button. Iā€™d like to add pogo pins to this. Makes flashing so much more beginner friendly, and keeping firmware up to date much less of a pain.

If that optical programming thing could work very reliably, then itā€™d be even easier. Just press the bezel against a monitor and play a video with a load of different white flashes to reprogram, if my understanding of the concept is correct. :slight_smile:

The pogo pin adapters, so far, arenā€™t actually available for purchase. Theyā€™re more of a build-your-own kind of thing at this point. So they donā€™t really help much for people who arenā€™t already pretty invested. But maybe eventually theyā€™ll be easy to get.

Updating the firmware via optical programming would take like six hours, and involves a significant amount of risk. Itā€™s not a very feasible method to do that sort of thing. It could be used to edit config values though. The thing is, itā€™s not much faster than using the buttonā€¦ and the server-side details are pretty complicated. There are a lot of different versions of the firmware, running on a lot of different devices, and each one needs its own special configurator.

Mostly, Iā€™m hoping the pogo pin adapters will become easier to get. They work well, and more drivers support this method every month; theyā€™re just not widely available yet.

Wobbly button ?.

The side switch on an the SP10.V2 i have is wobbly, one can even hear it when shaking the light but I don't have a wobbly button on my FW3A.

The FW3A button is well seated and produce a firm click when pressed on the center, a bit less firm when pressed on the side but still not wobbly.

Am i Lucky or is there a problem with yours ?

Is there a way to turn memory off, so the flashlight always start with the lowest mode?

Hum, this may be a stupid question but after being baked, if it gets polished, will it turn ā€œpolished baked colourā€ or will it assume the aluminium below the brown surface?

Sorry if this is too dumb :zipper_mouth_face:

If you press & hold from OFF it will start from the lowest luminous level.

Nah, I think mineā€™s pretty standard. The button rocks a little if you donā€™t press it dead centre, which I think feels sloppy compared to the button on something like an Emisar D4. Iā€™d personally far prefer the FW3A to have a consistent, very short travel, quiet click like the D4 rather than the variable amount of clickyness it has now depending on what part of the button you press.