TK's Emisar D4 review

Okay, done playing with it for now. The D4 has pretty much rendered all my other flashlights pointless. Lol! My custom Convoy M2 with FET driver and MGT2 got its ass whooped!

I really dig the candle and lightning modes!

Seems to like my LG HG2 more than my efest purple 18350. not surprising.

I have some pocket clips that work but I think I like it au natural. Haha.

I take that back a tiny bit. The color rendition of my MGT2 is more neutral. And my BLF A6 XPL 3D is more rosy. Thereā€™s a touch of green at low levels with the D4. Totally nit pickyā€¦ About on the level of my Astrolux SC and S2 XPL 3B.

The ā€œnotchā€ in the ramp is only there as a reference point, to indicate that itā€™s roughly halfway up the ramp and has just gone between a regulated mode and a hybrid mode. Itā€™s basically a mile marker.

Speaking of the Anduril D4 thoughā€¦ I spent almost all day and half of yesterday trying to tweak the thermal regulation response for it. It runs so hot that itā€™s really difficult to make the light respond correctly. And while testing, I managed to break the hardware ā€” emitters started dying. So I think Iā€™m done for now, at least until I get some new hardware. Then again, this was intentionally set up as a worst-case scenario for testing purposes. I was using a 219C model with the FET running at 100% power with a full 30Q cell. Hank normally sells those with the power artificially reduced, so my test case was theoretically worse than the real thing.

In any case, the results arenā€™t perfect but theyā€™re a lot better than they were before I started. Before, it was overshooting and bouncing pretty badly. It still does now, to some extent, but itā€™s much milder and flattens out after one cycle, maybe one and a half at most.

To the right, the graph is basically just flat with occasional small step-ups to compensate for voltage sag as the cell drains.

Virtually every other light Iā€™ve tested responds really well without bouncing, but the D4 is particularly stubborn because itā€™s so ridiculously overpowered. The 219C version especially so, because the emitter type makes it run extremely hot.

A lightsaber shouting ā€œOUCH! WATCH IT DOOFUS!!!ā€ when you hit something with it?
Would make a cool present to a lighsaber fan. :slight_smile:

From what TK told me, my order was like 3 days short of having the new/true version of Anduril on it. I ended up with a dev build. I believe the new orders have the full functionality, but I could be wrong. I thought I remembered reading that Hank specifically requested no muggle mode, but I cant find that post to reference. Might have been on my reddit post.

Ha, arent PID controllers fun? Got my first taste of them with race quadcopters and the associated tuning. Nothing like trying to tune changes in attitude to be fast, responsive, and crisp with no wobbles on a quad with a 14:1 power to weight ratio.

Emisar D1S lightsaber mode when? Pschewww, vwooooom, vwoom, schooooop. Can we get a fog machine built into it too? :smiley:

I also find the D4 with Anduril quite interesting and I am thinking about purchasing one, perhaps the 3000K version with the SST20 LED.

Hopefully this does include the muggle mode. I cannot imagine, how muggle mode might be too confusing (since it a special additional mode).
Perhaps it would be helpful if the shop clarifies which version of Anduril is actually shipped.

So, in the version of Anduril that Hank uses does lockout still take 4 clicks?

Thanks for the description Toykeeper. What are the revision differences between the last few versions of anduril? Mine shipped on 5/21ā€¦ Maybe 5/22.

Itā€™s fun as heck! So far, Iā€™ve got it set up for 6 steps, low mode is moon, ceiling is 50%, double click turbo to freak people out.

Is there are shortcut to moon?

I was going to start the adventure with programming adapters. HQ PCBs are on the way. Maybe for fun I could try to do some for D4.

But probably someone will overtake me.

I would need dimensions. I already have three D4 and one on the way and I would not like to buy another one.

I have d4 white blaster, after 2 month of daily use, 2 holed pockets and generated habit to squeeze the head, I changed the driver to buck one with stabilized modes. No more pocket weapon, 4A max. Still love d4.

I believe when you turn on, hold the button and it will stay at the bottom of the range for that time turned on. If you donā€™t change the level, next time you turn on it remembers the where you were before you shortcut to the bottom of the range.

If moon is the bottom of your range, then you can shortcut to moon. If moon is not in the stepped or ramped range, then I guess you canā€™t get there without reconfiguring. Iā€™m writing this playing with mine, not looking at the diagram which helps explain things.

If you search for Anduril flashlight UI you will likely find a cool diagram that explains a lot. Its fun for sure!

My D4ā€™s maximum brightness is really not very bright.
When I click-hold from off, the ramping lasts only about one second before it blinks and reaches full brightness.

When I leave it at that full brightness, it blinks 3x every few seconds.

Fully charged Samsung 30Q cell.

I donā€™t recall it being like this when I bought it some time ago.
I wonder if itā€™s sulking because Iā€™ve been hanging out with a newer flashlight.
And, yeah, I couldā€™ve input the wrong click sequence, as my fingers think theā€™re smarter than my brain about what Iā€™m doing.

Any troubleshooting steps would be welcome.

Iā€™d guess Iā€™ve got a setting wrong, but not sure what to fiddle with first.

I tried 11 clicks and wait til stutter, which I think ought to have turned off thermal protection, in case that had gotten set to room temperature.

I notice sometimes the max output on my D4 isnā€™t as high as it should be. When this happens I take a Q-Tip and clean both ends of the battery tube and the contacts in the tailcap and driver. That fixes it right up.

Might be worth a try.

Iā€™ll retry cleaning everything, though Iā€™d done that once.

Oh, I have V2 ā€”

I did ā€ ā€œBuzzesā€ for 2 seconds. Release button to set temperature limit to maximumā€ and that didnā€™t resolve the low brightness.

If you double click from off does it go to Turbo? When ramping, the ceiling level is only half of Turbo. If it isnā€™t going to Turbo, try cleaning contacts and try a different, newer fully charged unprotected cell.

Double click from off goes to about the same brightness as ramping up.
Once, when I clicked the light off from the top of the ramp, it became extremely bright for a fraction of a second. I havenā€™t been able to reproduce that.

Cleaned everything again and swapped in a new known good cell. No difference.

Iā€™m sure the three blinks every few seconds at [top of ramp /double click-should be ā€œturboā€ brightness] is telling me something. But what does it mean?

I think the only person qualified for this diagnosis is Dr. ToyKeeper.

I wonder if the FET broke. Output might not be very bright on turbo if the FET isnā€™t turning on properly.