*BLF LT1 Lantern Project) (updated Nov,17,2020)

I quite like the black and white logo personally.

lol. while you guys are obsessing over the batteries. i’m hoping we can still somehow get a bright pink light as rendered a bunch of pages back. Ain’t nobody gonna steal it and easy to spot. :beer:

but of course, i’ll settle for a red or of course a black. :smiley:

There are several suggested options shown on that page, but I don’t see that any were adopted as the official logo.

Checking about a quarter-mile down the first post, the official logo appears to be the one I’m using.

Here is a photo of the production logo to clarify its close to the one i sent you. (though Sofirn may have adjusted its perimeters & font style a little to make it work for their laser CNC engraving machine:

Thanks DBSAR - At the scale we’re working, there are no discernible differences aside from tweaking the color/size of the button.

As this is the official production logo, it’s what I’ll be sticking with.

I got a bit distracted last time I tried to catch up on this thread… but not today. Apologies for the delay in responding to posts.

Yes, the actual behavior is a bit difficult to put into a one-line formula for estimating power usage. When it’s just one channel and it’s running at 100%, it should be 350mA multiplied by the number of chips, like 5. But at lower levels or at mixed tints, it gets more complicated because of analog effects on the rise and fall of each pulse, and code which attempts to correct for that digitally.

It tries to keep the total power usage as close to flat as it can, when changing the tint… but when changing the brightness, it’s still pretty non-linear.

No, it keeps power pretty constant, so maximum brightness is approximately the same regardless of which tint is used.

The default is configured so the highest level can be used safely without overheating, since this item is intended to run for long periods of time without being touched and it has no thermal sensor to use for regulating itself. However, it also allows for a very simple hardware modification to run it even brighter, for those who want more light at the expense of having to be more careful.

Using fewer chips is also slightly more efficient at the same brightness levels, and allows for slightly lower low modes.

Keeping li-ion cells fully charged all the time is one of the fastest ways to reduce their life span. It’s not a good idea to keep li-ion-powered items plugged in all the time with the charge always at 100%, unless you don’t mind having to replace the batteries significantly more often.

It won’t exactly kill cells overnight, but it can definitely reduce the life span from like 5-10 years down to just 1 year.

The pencil trick might not work. I never got it to work on a nanjg driver’s stars, much less on a connection which actually needs to carry a reliable signal during use. But maybe I just need a different pencil.

Yes, it can be reflashed pretty easily. The code is open-source and the driver has programming pads and a standard SOIC8 control chip.

All modes share the same color temperature / tint setting. It can be ramped in almost any mode, by doing a “click, click, hold”.

Candle mode has its own brightness level, configured by holding the button to ramp up/down.

That issue isn’t relevant for the lantern. It doesn’t have thermal regulation, and it doesn’t attempt to do any LVP while it’s off.

Regardless, even if the lantern did those things, the issue was already fixed months ago. :slight_smile:

It should be possible in a D4. It even has a good number of LEDs for this purpose, so it can have two of each. It’d basically just need the MCPCB and driver redesigned to have two separate LED- outputs, and the firmware would need some extra code to handle four power channels instead of two. Not sure how hard it would be to fit everything onto a D4-sized driver though; it’d probably be necessary to omit the RGB aux LEDs to make room for the extra power circuitry.

It is probably not over 1000 lumens. By default, probably about 500 or 600 perhaps. It’s hard to measure, due to the unusual beam shape and the black top surface.

The tint, however, is very nice on the middle color temperatures. The warm and cool LEDs mix in a manner which results in a pinkish tint instead of a green tint. This happens because the colorspace is curved, but the mixed tint line is not. The available tints span the pink line here, approximately:

I hope I’m not too late, but I’ve finally been updating the diagram to make a lantern-specific version. Here’s what I have so far:

Thanks Toykeeper for the updates and new manual Andruil diagram :+1: :smiley:

I am interested.

Tonight I am feeling a bit like the Simpsons’ kids. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

Ready to play with my LT1 lanterns!

Especially if they come in pink, purple, metallic red, or other fun colors. :slight_smile:

(though I don’t think that’s in the plan… IIRC the only planned colors are black, sand, and forest green)

Thanks for the updated Anduril graphic, TK! This thread is difficult to keep up with if you get more than a day or so behind, so I think we can all appreciate your effort there, as well.

Maybe we can convince Sofirn to offer the optional bright colors. :smiley:

:+1: Definitely agree! The firmware Toykeeper developed for the LT1 is my favorite firmware with the perfect modes for any lantern (and for a flashlight even)

We should never underestimate the importance of having adjustable-tint high-CRI momentary bike flasher mode in a lantern. I mean, it would be totally useless without that. How else would we stutter-signal to others while riding down the mountain in our bike-mounted camping tents? :stuck_out_tongue:

Quite right!

Tactical strobe should also randomly vary the tint for extra tacticalness. :stuck_out_tongue:

I want multi color color RGB mixing perimeter mounted aux lights with storm mode so we can use it on the Christmas Tree instead of twinkle lights & tinsel!

I don’t know about you guys - but I’m wanting a disco mode for when I’m sitting movin’ around the camp site. :wink:

We totally need two tint disco mode!

lol most of the modes anyway. :sunglasses: