TK's Emisar D4 review

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 5/21… Maybe 5/22.

It’s fun as heck! So far, I’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 don’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 can’t get there without reconfiguring. I’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 D4’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 don’t recall it being like this when I bought it some time ago.
I wonder if it’s sulking because I’ve been hanging out with a newer flashlight.
And, yeah, I could’ve input the wrong click sequence, as my fingers think the’re smarter than my brain about what I’m doing.

Any troubleshooting steps would be welcome.

I’d guess I’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 isn’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.

I’ll retry cleaning everything, though I’d done that once.

Oh, I have V2 —

I did ” “Buzzes” for 2 seconds. Release button to set temperature limit to maximum” and that didn’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 isn’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 haven’t been able to reproduce that.

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

I’m sure the three blinks every few seconds at [top of ramp /double click-should be “turbo” 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 isn’t turning on properly.

Happened again, though still not repeatable:

From off, one click-and-hold; the flashlight ramped up to as bright as usual and started the 3-blinks every few seconds.
I lifted my thumb off the switch and got an exremely bright brief flash.

Can’t get it to duplicate. Could the switch be bad?

I”m at the “who can I send this light to” stage of confusion.

Indeed. Now imagine trying to tune a single PID algorithm so it will work on everything from a keychain copter to a package-carrier drone. They all have to run the same code, and they all need to have a good response without wobbles.

For the most part, the results are good lately on virtually every light… but the D4 is at an extreme end of the spectrum so it’s particularly difficult to tune.

Yes, Hank specifically asked me to remove muggle mode. So don’t expect to have muggle mode on any Emisar lights.

Yes, lockout is 4 clicks.

To go directly to the lowest level, hold the button for half a second from off. It should go to the lowest level in the current ramp.

The last few versions I sent to Hank have some pretty significant differences. I think he’ll be using the newest version on almost everything, but it seems there were a few sent out with older versions before I even heard that it would be offered on the D4.

Specifically, here’s what changed over time… at least, the bits which are relevant to the D4:

  • 05-21: removed muggle mode
  • 05-23: merged in a bunch of updates from the main fsm branch:
    • rewrote thermal regulation
    • made strobe-group modes auto-reverse like the main ramp does
    • made lockout moon use 2 levels instead of just 1 (second click uses other ramp’s floor)
    • made momentary mode also support strobe-group modes
    • made brightest lightning mode flashes slightly brighter
  • 06-05: adjusted D4 ramp to exactly hit the 1x7135 level at step 4 of 7, also merged again from upstream fsm branch:
    • changed from “press-on” to “release-on” button timing when doing a single click or a hold from off… this makes it easier to get the timing right for the shortcut to moon
    • made button release timeout a bit faster, so the light shuts off slightly sooner after doing a single click
    • added a user-configurable option to switch from automatic memory (default) to manual memory (starts at the same level each time)
  • 06-06: thermal regulation improvements on D4

I need to add a few things to the UI diagram. It doesn’t have any info on how to configure aux LEDs, how to use manual memory, or how to do tint ramping. But if it helps, here is the latest version of the diagram. This picture will get updated periodically as I change things:

That sounds like the FET chip died or got disconnected. If it stops going up at the first ramp blink, that means it only goes up to the top of the amc7135 chip’s range. Then if it blinks 3 times every few seconds, that means it thinks the battery is low, so it steps down. But if there’s no change in brightness, it’s probably stepping from a high FET level down to a lower FET level… and with no FET, they look the same.

Could you try holding the button from off, for at least five seconds?

At a guess, what I’d expect to see from a dead FET is:

  • Light turns on.
  • Light ramps up.
  • Short blink, then ramping stops.
  • About 1.5 seconds later, the light turns off or goes to a slightly different level.

If it does this, it almost certainly has a dead or dying FET.

The ramp is divided into 150 steps:

  • 1 to 65: 7135 chip only, moon to ~140 lm.
  • 66 to 149: 7135 chip runs at 100%, FET chip ramps from minimum to maximum level.
  • 150: FET chip only, 7135 chip shuts off.

So if there’s something wrong with the fet, that last level should look a little different.

From off, holding more than 5 seconds:
— ligh turns on
— light ramps up
— two short blinks, about a second apart, and no change in brightness
— after a few seconds, does 3 blinks three times, then dims slightly and settles down to steady brightness.
— Another button press-and-hold, and it gets briefly brighter, then ramps down.

I emailed Intl Outdoor and asked someone to take a look at the problem as described here.

There’s definitely something wrong with the hardware. It sounds like it might be a bad ground contact though. If ground is really weak somewhere, it would explain both the low brightness and the low-voltage warnings.

For that, I’d take the tailcap off, take the tube off, thoroughly clean both ends of the tube and the contact rings it touches on the head and tail, then screw it all back together extra-tight. And if that doesn’t help, it’s probably not fixable without a lot more work and possibly extra parts.

Something else which might be worth trying is to take off the tailcap and hold a piece of wire against the battery and the edge of the tube. Then check if the light can go brighter. If so, the problem is likely in the tailcap, like maybe the spring or PCB was damaged.

Bypassingthe tailcap didn’t help —- but as soon as I put the tailcap back on (which I’ve done several times previously today with cleaning) — lo, the turbo brightness has recovered. “What are you doing?!” I hear being asked from the next room ….

A bit flickery on turbo, and fairly quickly I got three blinks and stepdown.

From off, the double click for turbo gets me a bright flash, then off, then turbo brightness. Is that right?

Okay, it sounds like the light has difficulty with the ground connection… but otherwise is behaving normally.

It may still be a weak connection even at the brighter turbo though, if it’s giving a low-voltage warning. That shouldn’t happen until it has been on for quite a while, unless the battery is really weak or the ground contact is still very limited.

I don’t really know for sure, but it might help slightly if you can put a thin spacer ring between the driver and the front end of the battery tube. I’m not sure what would work best… a flattened wire, a very specific type of washer, maybe even foil cut into the right shape… but something like that might improve the connection. Or perhaps the issue is inside where you can’t reach it.