I just sent an email to him as well, little more personal but along the same lines, CC'ing djozz and MrsDNF. Sorry to leave anyone out but feel strongly that djozz and the Mrs should be included.
That’s fine. I would have CC’d also but I do not have anyone elses email address. So I just posted it here instead, nothing to hide. I had The Millers email address from a couple of years ago. I hope it is still correct, it is the same one in the OP btw.
Stumbled upon a nice zooming TIR lens:
Good:
Low height = compact head
Wide opening = wide post = superb thermals
Short zooming movement
Interesting looks. 
Bad:
They claim 3 degree beam with XP-E which seems a bit optimistic - Enderman’t calculator claims 3.5 degree for a reflector of this size.
And the beamshot doesn’t seem fully focused - the central lens should produce a square die projection clearly visible on the wall.
The rim at the edge complicates waterproofing.
Anyway - it may have nice potential.
When a TIR is in focused mode both the lens and the outer “reflector” part are active.
You can see this when looking at a led lenser light that is zoomed in:
The reflector part is what causes the spot to be round, unlike with a purely aspheric optic.
Also they probably just rounded the divergence down to 3 degrees, it’s not a huge difference.
I am used to seeing both die projection and a round reflected spot in TIR zoomies. But maybe overexposure hides it…
Sorry, off track, but this thread reminded me -- I did hear back from The Miller from an email I sent. It took a while, and the response was a while ago, but I thought he said he'd address it. I didn't want to pressure him though, so dunno when.
Thanks for the info. Glad you at least heard something back. Hopefully he will follow through on what he told you. :+1:
A bit OT…but I spotted something I don’t understand on that Led Lenser. What is the circled thing?
I want this:
Quality host, quality lens, quality UI…maybe even optional shorty tube…one can only dream…
I suppose there are no news?
ye p - no new news unfortunately.
If you can get a response from The Miller, I’d like to make sure he gets a FW3A. I think Neal would probably be willing to send it to him for free, but if not, I don’t mind buying him one. The problem is that he has been pretty much unreachable. I hope he’s okay.
How about making a camping light?
Something similar to the light below but of much higher quality:
How do I see it?
- has a hook so you can hang it with the floodlight pointing down
- CRI90+
- compact, single 18650
- aspheric flooder
In my experience and product that tries to combine two or more functions ends up sucking at one or both of them. I’d rather a BLF headlamp focused on low weight, paired with a lantern adapter
, since they’re usually hard to get a diffuser onto.
That’s often the case. And pretty much always - 2 dedicated items will do a better job.
But 2 dedicated items is 50% more cost and twice the bulk.
Halving the bulk is my motivation…
2 separate items that would have the same total size and weight as the combined one - really couldn’t compete.
Here…this is an easy case to make both functions right.
Actually I wanted to propose just one (lantern) but then realized that the compromises needed to add a good flashlight are very minor.
Fixed aspheric lens, one or more bright LEDs so it produces enough light forwards, e-switch UI.
Smooth flood is good for camping. Sharp beam cutoff is good in busy places as it allows you to easier avoid shining at others’ tents.
You don’t need the ultimate lumens here, enough is enough. This means that high CRI and nice tint do not require any real tradeoffs.
Does the lantern hurt the main light? It makes the tube somewhat thicker - which is meaningless. Makes a part of battery tube plastic - which may be somewhat less tough. Does it make it a bad light - definitely no, it can still be the best camping flashlight on the market.
Lantern?
Put many medium power LEDs under the diffuser. Tint mix to make it rosy, maybe even allow tint ramping.
This generates wide flood directed down - which is a great beam for lighting up a tent. Unlike LT1 it won’t work well when placed on a table but that’s not the purpose. But even size aside - LT1 wouldn’t work well when it’s directly over your head and this one would.
To make it possible to hang this light - in the middle it needs a steel oval loop. Oval - because when not used it would hide in a battery tube slot.
Challenge 1: the light’s centre of gravity changes with the cell inserted. And loop should always be close to that centre of gravity. Solution: When the COG of the host is in the middle of battery compartment (or close to) there is no issue. Push the battery forward by moving the driver to the tail.
Challenge 2: physical UI. UI for lanter and flashlight should be easy to locate. I believe these should be 2 different e-switches, in different places but I don’t have a solution at the moment.
Would that be a good lantern?
- beam shape - very good for the use
- size - OK
- weight - OK
- CRI - great
- tint - great
- UI - great (candle mode, ramping, tint ramping, …)
I think it would be a better flashlight than a lantern but nevertheless it would be the best tent lantern on the market.
Again sorry for not being here. I see lots of projects have come to fruition like the FW3A and BLF lantern.
Please send me a pm if I owe you for the making of prototype stuff, so I can settle these debts and have these weights lifted and update the fund status in start post
Oh hey, I recognize you.
Hi Miller, glad you found sometime to write a post. I hope you are alright. Yes, new stuff happening all the time here, but the Q8 is still widely appreciated as a very good flashlight.
Hi Wim, good to see you!
As Jos already mentioned, the Q8 is still a masterpiece, is has set a very high standard in the flashlight world since 2017.
Hi, Miller!
I hope you’re doing well.
We miss you!