TK's Emisar D4V2 review

Unfortunately it looks like the original D4 is out of stock, and I really doubt it will become available again. People may be selling their original D4s if they’re buying V2s though, so keep an eye out for them I guess.

I quite like Andúril myself, as it has all the same basic features as Ramping IOS, with a load of extra goodies and customization hidden out of the way. The aux lights can be completely disabled too, though I understand your frustration at having to pay extra for them if you will never use them.

If you look at the Andúril UI flowchart, it shows you how to enter the ramp (or step) config mode. I set my ramp to go all the way from the lowest to the highest level, and my stepped levels to have three steps:
Floor = level 25 (~20 lumens)
Ceiling = level 105 (~1045 lumens)
Steps = 3
This means that the middle level is 65, which is fully regulated and quite efficient. (~150 lumens)

Totally impressed that anyone could actually feel the extra weight of a small PCB (which has more holes than surface area) and 8 SMD auxiliary lights. Those extra few grams are killer!

Oops, I still need to do that. I keep getting distracted.

It depends on the emitter type and tint, and the top half of the ramp also depends on the battery type, age, and charge level. Any numbers posted will be rough estimates at best.

The short version is:

  • Levels from 1 to 65 have regulated power ranging from 2 mA to 350 mA. The brightness goes from ~0.2 lm to ~130 lm. Runtimes go from 2 months to 8 hours.
  • Levels 66 to 150 also use a direct drive circuit so the power and brightness are less constant. Power use goes from 350 mA to ~20 A. Brightness goes from ~130 lm to ~4000 lm. Runtimes go from 8 hours to ~10 minutes.

In-between, it follows an “x^3” sort of curve, so a small change in brightness often makes a large difference in runtime. Going one step brighter than necessary may not look like much by eye, but it can cut runtime in half.

Mostly, it makes the ramp and the steps look like a fairly linear progression… on a perceptual scale. The actual numbers aren’t meant to be important. It’s meant to be easy to get the appropriate brightness for each task without having to care what the actual numbers are. If runtime is a concern, use the lowest sufficient brightness for each task, to get the highest runtime.

OTOH, I find I only need to recharge the battery every couple months even when I use the light a lot. So I mostly don’t have to care about runtime. YMMV though.

Those aux lights for me have the same effect as putting funny stickers and a keychain onto an EDC light. Completely unnecessary. But nice quote mining there!

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against aux lights in other lights I own, e.g the E07. But this is more of a shelf/look at it and drool light, not something I use as an actual EDC. I also see that many (probably most) people here love their aux leds everywhere but I simply personally don’t like the “AUX LIGHT EVERY FLASHLIGHT!!!” movement I feel is going on in recent times.

What I don’t like I about Anduril is the amount of stuff I don’t need and I can activate by accident on the one hand and that stuff I use often is overcomplicated in a way that does not suit my personal needs on the other. An example of both would be momentary mode, which I use quite often as default when I am outside at night. First of all it is easy to get into muggle mode accidentially - 6 instead of 5 clicks, and confirmation is a single flash of the light in both cases so you don’t know you made a mistake unless you want to use it. Not possible with the original D4 firmware, momentary is only 4 clicks with nothing mapped to 5 clicks and being confirmed by 3 short flashes.
And I also want it to be on turbo every time. I have no need for any other mode. But TK made it so that momentary is the brightness of the regular level you used last. So after you noticed your mistake by testing it, I have to unscrew the bezel because unlike D4 there is no way out of momentary. Then I have to manually ramp the brightness up to turbo (double tap to turbo is not working for this), turn the light off (because unlike D4 momentary can only be reached from off state), press the button 5 times to get the same result I get on the D4 by simply clicking 4 times (regardless of if the light was on or off).

So in short, the original D4 firmware fits my needs much better. Which also brings me to the (maybe off-topic) question if the original D4 firmware can be flashed onto the FW3A.

So you want Hank to manufacture and sell a whole other product just to meet your very specific use cases?

Sorry, if most customers didn’t want Anduril I don’t think they would have made the change.

The D4v1 was available to buy for a looong time.

Just means we need those flashing boards! If he can write a wall of text he can flash his to his preferences. (And maybe something better than both with a few code changes)

Here’s the thing, the code is open source. So modify it the way you want and flash your own flashlights.

Strawman argument, I never “wanted Hank to sell a whole other product”. I asked if the old D4 was still available and stated that I don’t like some of the new changes.

And I also never said that “most customers don’t want Anduril”, not even remotely. Heck, I even highlighted that those are my personal needs only, in bold font.
My question has already been answered though so I thought I would go more into detail I have with Anduril. Not everyone. I.

But yeah instead of getting reasonable reply replies all I get is trash talk like “if you can write that wall of text you could reflash of light”. Okay then. Will keep my posts short and without explanations in the future. Or better just vanish again, because the amount of fanboyism not allowing for any criticism to exist here is over the top, as always.

+1

I guess I misinterpreted the point of your post then. Only the D4v2 will be available going forward. You sounded disappointed with that and I wanted to make it clear why it was the case.

Fortunately, the D4v2 has options to make it do that. Set the ramp ceiling to turbo, ramp up to turbo, and activate manual memory. One-time setup, never needs to be done again, and it’s easier than flashing firmware.

After doing that, 1 click turns the light on at turbo brightness, 1 click turns it off again, and … it sounds like that’s all you need.

Yeah I was about to suggest this. It requires a few minutes to configure the light to your needs, but you can set it up how you like and then never need to mess with it again.

If those programming keys become widely available at some point soon, it should be super easy to flash a different firmware onto the new D4 too. That way you can have it exactly as you want it with no compromises.

But doesn’t that still allow the user to ramp into different levels? It’s a partial solution, but it doesn’t appear to be the “single mode turbo” solution that the poster wants.

With Narsil, for example, a user can set the light into a “1 mode turbo” mode set, and disable moonlight. After that, it’s a single-mode light, full turbo, and nothing else. Perfect for throwers, IMO. Biscotti is also good for its single-mode turbo config.

Is there something that does that on Anduril?

Personally, not something I’d want on floody light, but if it’s put on a thrower, that would be very useful.

I agree , I think the original D4 firmware is better especially the thermal control.

I lost my original D4 and ordered a replacement, sold out.
So i ordered a D4V2, SST20s, 500k

Thoughts, the Aux LEDs wil be useful for finding the thing in my tent whilst camping

thermal config, eh?? how do you set that? wont it also change the current temperature settings, or mess those up ?

Tint, dont care too much as long as its not blue, or pink

Knurling, generally good, however on the tailcap there does appear to be a little mark two thirds towards the end which presents itself as a slight change in the surface finish two thirds of the way along, im guessing that its down to the knurling wheel, either where it feeds in, feeds out, or dwells before feeding along

now located the original D4 but it will be some time, at least 3 months before i can get to it

It hurt my brain to try and read your post.

This is how different requirements are. In my personal view Anduril is much better than NarsilM and I wish someone would be able to reprogram my Sofirn Q8 and my Sofirn SP36 from NarsilM to Anduril…

The FW3A is the first light since the last ten years I’ve bought that’s somewhere near to my good old Litefluxes - the best Light ever made since now!

EDIT: on intl-ooutdoor you can still buy the old one:
https://intl-outdoor.com/emisar-d4ti-high-power-flashlight-p-927.html
https://intl-outdoor.com/emisar-d4-high-power-led-flashlight-p-921.html

Another potential solution to having true single mode turbo: you can use the ramp config to set both the floor and ceiling to level 150. Or at least 149 and 150 if that suggestion wouldn’t work. Also, as Anúdril has both stepped and smooth ramping, you could set the stepped ramp to be turbo only, and then if you ever needed other output levels, just switch over to the smooth ramp mode instead.

I know whatever we suggest won’t be a solution that you like, but we are trying to provide some options to help you.

Just a heads up, both of those are sold out.

It’s great fun putting the BLF GT in momentary turbo mode… a bit like having a laser gun. :slight_smile:

TBH, I’m not really happy with the thermal control on any version of the D4. It heats up so fast that every algorithm I’ve tried ends up either taking too long or going too far… or both. It’s the main reason why I need to make a thermal simulator, so I can test changes quickly instead of spending days at a time just collecting results after each change.

There are only two thermal settings — sensor calibration and temperature limit. Changing one does not require changing the other.

In most versions, it’s a bit inconvenient to calibrate the sensor. However, it’s important to do so at least once, to allow the thermal regulation to work.

The method used on currently-shipping lights is: Either navigate to thermal config mode the long way (4 clicks at the 4th mode in the blinky group), or do 10 clicks from off to reach that mode directly. Then at the first prompt, click like 22 times to tell it the current temperature is 22 C. Then wait until it falls out of the config mode.

Just within the past week or so though, I finally added an auto-calibrate thingy. It’s part of a “factory reset” function. So in the future, lights will probably be easier to set up initially, and easier to get back to a sane state after changing settings. Basically just disconnect power, hold the button, reconnect power, and keep holding the button for a few seconds. It should get the calibration at least sort of close to accurate, and ensure that any weird settings are reverted back to default.