The new button is so much nicer than the old one. Lighter to press but with a more positive click. Much quieter and has less wobble in the action too, like a proper E-switch should.
The SST-20 emitters are the best I’ve seen yet. They’re rosy on maximum output, but unfortunately seem to still be the tiniest bit green on lower levels. Still, they’re not bad at all and I’ll definitely be happy using these. A big upgrade over all previous SST-20s I have used.
The new optic is okay. I bought a clear Carclo and I’m going to swap it out for some extra throw though.
It appears to be running a new-ish version of Andúril. It has the fancy two stage lockout moonlight mode, however when not locked it still comes on in moonlight as soon as you hold down the button. Shame it’s not totally up to date, but it’s newer than the version on the first run of FW3As.
I sent an email and a message to Neal about my choices regarding the optic dilemma, but it seems that neither got read as I was sent the light with the plastic optic immediately anyway. No worries, I can swap a new optic in myself, but I feel bad for the guy if he has been that snowed under that he can’t manage to read a message even with several weeks to do so.
TL;DR It’s good!
Edit:
Okay, I can’t use the Carclo that was included with my order because Neal hasn’t included the glass lens he promised! Now what?
One of mine was in the o ring bag and one was between the box and the outer sleeve, it just fell out when I was trying to get those damn things separated.
Also, side observation. One of mine had a clear “all in one” plastic optic and one was frosted. I guess they made a few versions to try out.
I’m with teacher on this one, I personally love stonewashed Ti. Not everything needs to be a perfect shiny material, some dings, scratches, marks, patina is what makes it unique. CRK along with Zero Tolerance, Spyderco and numerous others use stonewashed Ti on their knives and it looks amazing imo.
No one yet, there is a thread about the stonewashed version to gain interest.
Aha, so is mine! I didn’t even see it in there. Thanks for the tip!
I’m not sure if it’s just my imagination or not, but the beam looks a little bit more green when I’m running it with a Carclo + glass instead of just the plastic optic. Possible side effect of AR coating? I might keep running the plastic optic if this is the case.
I have a bead-blasted titanium Olight S1 and I do not like the finish. It feels like holding a stick of chalk. Similar to the rough finish of my white or blue anodized aluminum Emisar D4s.
I find these rough textures only feel good in the hands if I just rubbed them with moisturizer. But if my hands are dry, it feels unpleasant.
Bead blasted titanium also doesn’t look special. It looks very similar to grey anodized aluminum.
For titanium, I much prefer polished. It feels good in the hands, is durable, and looks classy.
Ah yes, thanks for the great chart. That’s quite a difference.
As this light will probably spend most of its time being used around the house, I’ll keep the plastic optic installed. The flood is better than having extra throw in this case, and I would very much like to take the slight tint improvement this optic offers.
Yes, but you can probably eliminate the tint difference by polishing off the AR coating. That’s what I’ve been doing with all of mine, and it seems to help.
As quite a few different finishes were and are tested and are proposed : aluminum with different anodization colors, sand/bead blasted copper, polished copper, stonewashed titanium, could it be possible to have a version with machining marks like it was supposed to looks like :
Here I’m speaking for myself, I’m not very demanding concerning the material used, I will be happy with aluminum or copper or brass (preferably) or titanium+copper but could we have at least and at last THE version with machining marks, please ?
I would be eternally grateful for a brass with machining marks and SST-20 4000K, or aluminum with maching marks and clear anodization, i’m pretty sure they can make clear anodization right.
I don’t think they are going to do clear aluminum anodizing since they had trouble getting it to look uniform. However, perhaps they could do a limited run bare aluminum version with no anodizing?
Well, there’s been at least one other report of the problem, plus a few other reports (in the same thread) of people saying the soldering job was really bad on their light.
I think Lumintop does have a manufacturing issue when it comes to soldering the tailcap. Maybe it’s just one bad person on the assembly line, or maybe the design prevents easy soldering. I know that I could only manage to solder two points down, but I admit my skill is crap.
Hey, this is the general discussion for the FW3A right? I ordered one with an SST20 awhile back and I’ve just been lurking around. From what I’ve been reading lately, it seems that the lumintop supplied optic isn’t that bad? And on top of that, it has less of a green tint than the standard optic configuration and is a bit floodier? How big of an issue is the green tint with the AR glass? Should I continue waiting for the Carclo lenses or should I just get the new optic? What are the negatives of getting this new optic instead of waiting?
Yes, GroovyBro, this is the general discussion for the FW3A. There is a lot of info in this thread, as well as the other FW3A threads. If you ordered one, you should wait for whichever one you ordered. You will like it. Welcome.