You ordered another 5000k or 6500k? If 6500k, You will be the best person to show us when it arrive. :+1:
Sent. [quote=Itsme] Group Buy Price: $81.99 ($119.95) Coupon: Request in this thread. Can I please have the code for the light, diffuser and holster Thanks [/quote]
I ordered first 4000K then sold it the next day and now I'm waiting for a 6500K but it is on back order for two more weeks.
Ya man… Waiting is unbearable most of the time. I guess many are waiting for the launch of MF01 Mini.
I’ve the MF01S 5000k. With info in the thread will be great on decision on the Mini. Probably, I might try the Mini with 6500k.
May I please have a coupon to purchase the MF01S for $81.99 and the diffuser for $1.99?
Thanks!!
I was curious to figure out what tint bin is in the MF01S so I took these measurements.
MF01S with optic and glass removed on turbo
CCT: 4355K
DUV: –0.0096
FW3C Copper with optic and glass removed on turbo.
CCT: 4556K
DUV: –0.0096
CRI: 95.2
FW3A Gray aluminum with optic and glass removed on turbo.
CCT: 4404K
DUV: –0.0109
CRI: 95.7
I vaguely remember reading in the FW3A thread that Lumintop procured the FD2 tint bin. So seems like both of these are FD2 tint bin because from what TA said, there was an extremely limited number in the range of only 1,000 pieces of FA3 tint bin on the market and Mateminco bought them all along with like 10k plus FD2 bins. Fireflies said Luminus recently wanted to make some more FA3 tint bins so there should be more coming. Really curious how the FA3 looks like.
@SKV89, you mentioned before the 5000k and 6500k has too much greenish tint. How did you find that out? I really disliked the greenish tint on the DX80. Another person here mentioned the MF01S 6500k tint is too bluish, so why such difference of opions?
No overheating damage to the leds? Is the mcpcb held firmly down to the body with multiple screws?
In 6000k-6500k I only see some blue, but not green, at most the yellow seems to be a bit dirty. Bins are just that, led’s sorted into diffrent bins but there are variations with in that bin. But the biggest reason are we dont se color the same way, we need to sort ourself into bins 
MF01S mcpcb is screwed down. FW3A is not. Now that you mentioned it, I did smell some burnt plastic when testing with the FW3A
I was just asking about the MF01S because I don’t think I’ve seen it’s mcpcb without the aux led board on top, so I didn’t know if it was screwed down or not.
I was not paying close attention to the other 2 lights you tested (FW3A). Yikes! Now I see. You can cause major damage on the FW3A using turbo (or even High) if the mcpcb is not pressed firmly against the body. People have already burned leds and had wires unsolder themselves on the FW3A because they removed the lens/optic (and downward pressure). The general rule is never run a light very brightly or for very long if the lens, reflector or optic is removed or even loosened.
Some people confuse anti-rotation screws with thinking it’s applying downward pressure. Some do, most don’t. You have to use a lot of caution.
Obviously I see sst-20 4000K differently than most others who constantly rave about it. If the sst-20 6500k has a little blue in it, I like that much better than green.
It may not be that simple. Here are other factors which could be responsible.
(1) SST-20 tint changes depending on how hard it is driven.
- duv goes down as current goes up; if you only use turbo, the light will look less yellow/green than if you only use low modes; low modes look worse
- CCT goes up as current goes up; if you only use turbo, the color temperature will be much cooler than if you only use low modes
(2) Many flashlights use SST-20 bins which are above BBL, because SST-20 bins below BBL are hard to get. If you have an above BBL bin of SST-20, it will look worse. MF01S should(?) have a good bin for 4000K, but I don’t know what bins are used for 5000K and 6500K. SST-20 6500K in flashlight A may not be the same bin as flashlight B, and could look different.
(3) In typical use, a triple or a quad will drive each LED harder than an 18 LED flashlight, and 18 LED flashlights will not sustain turbo for very long. Because of this, the same bin of SST-20 in an 18 LED flashlight will probably look worse than it does in a triple.
If you don’t have any flashlight with Nichia 219B sw45k, you should get one. They can’t produce as many lumens as SST-20, but they are very high CRI and the tint is always gorgeous.
^^ nice info there lightdecay thanks. I disliked the 4000k SST-20 and if I don't like their 6500K version then I won't get any flashlights anymore with Luminus leds as I have never been disappointed with any of my XPL-Hi tints ever. Also just checked my X80 with XHP 50.2's and it is really nice from ultra low mode to max too. Tint shift for sure, but overall very nice.
Nichia 219B sw45k is very rosy if I remember well so I might give it a go one day.
It can be even more complicated as the duty cycle makes a difference on drivers using PWM signals. In this video Toykeeper has set the light on the right to alternate every 1/2 second between 100% duty cyle on the 350mA channel and 6% on the FET channel. Both put out the same lumens, but you can see the tint change. (The light on the left is just for camera reference so it doesn’t adjust it’s white balance settings)
Why does it do this? What is the difference?
100% duty cycle on the 7135 chip is like solid power delivery, but limited to 350mA.
6% duty cycle on the FET is basically a short burst of full power (many amps). The short burst happens about 15k times a second so it looks like smooth continous light and the amperage that you measure on your meter is the same 350mA. If you had a fast reacting amp meter you would see something like multiple 10A pulses, but very short in length.
I don’t know if the tint shift would be exactly the same at 80% of the 350mA channel and 5% FET. That’s a little tricky. Maybe someone has tested the limits.
Generally speaking, tints get cooler as the drive current increases, but there are exceptions like in the above video.
The bottom line is this stuff can be pretty complicated. Lol
Just when I thought I sort of knew how it all works lol! Yeah, more complicated than I thought. I have no problem if there is any kind of crappy tint on a white wall as I use my flashlights mostly in the forest and if they look nice to my eye that is what I go by.
Thanks JasonWW, this is a very good point. This also makes a significant difference in tint, and the video demonstrates just how much of a difference it can make.
So… someone who wants to improve tint of their SST-20 emitters could flash a custom FET-only build of Anduril, and get rid of regulated modes entirely, at a slight efficiency cost. IIRC using FET-only was discussed earlier in this very thread as a possibility for MF01S.
Wow. This solution might even be better than using a minus green filter, as you would be able to minimize tint changes between low/medium/high/turbo, and you wouldn’t lose any lumens.
Maybe. It’s certainly an advantage that you get with FET drivers compared to regulated current drivers.
One downside of a FET only build is the duty cycle only goes down to 1% (afaik). So you might not get that really low moon mode. It does make sense for certain leds assuming the tradeoffs are worth the better tint.
Keep in mind that the video above is a special program TK made to specifically show the differences. It flip flops between the 2 channels. In regular driver software the 7135 channel ramps up to 100% then stays on as you bring in the FET channel at 1% and it ramps up to 99. When the FET goes to 100, the 7135 channel turns off. (This actually increases output even though on the surface it seems like it would reduce output a little) This is why you don’t see a sudden shift in the tint as you ramp up from channel 1 to channel 2 (or from ch 2 to ch 3 in a 3 ch driver)
You can fine tune AUX LED brightness to your preference.
This is why I have stepped away from the 3 channel drivers and have even been focusing on FET only drivers more recently.
Modern LED’s seem to have very noticeable tint shift based on input power. so using an FET makes the tint much nicer at the cost of low moon modes.
You have to balance the 1st and 2nd channels though so that you can make the transition smooth. Too low and the tint change will be too noticeable. Too high and you are stuck with the bad tint to much brighter levels then needed.
The reason the FET has the tint it does is because like you said, the LED is seeing pluses of full turbo power (so figure 5-10A for most LED’s) and thus you get the same tint you would get if you were running on turbo.
Because the average current is very low though, the total heat is much lower and efficiency is much better then actually running it on turbo.
In my testing at 50% duty the FET was only like 10% worse efficacy vs 7135’s at the same power. A worthwhile tradeoff for the better tint IMHO.
Also, to whoever asked if a single FET driver would make the SST-20 tint better. 100% yes. It would have the good tint the entire ramp. The downside is that you lowest mode would be in the several lumen range vs sub-lumen. Also the ramp would be very course in the low modes. Not good for a production light.
It is possible to reflash the driver with a different ramp that could all but disable the 1st channel if you are ok with those trade off’s.