The FW1A uses a 20mm star.
A few times, IIRC. 
It’s more comfortable to hold, and easier to tell one end from the other by feel.
I have an older one with the sharp corner, and it digs in during use so it doesn’t feel as good.
The original design was easier to machine, but Fritz’s revised design is a bit nicer to use. Personally, I would have gone with a steeper slope on the front part, but I’m okay with the gentle slope too.
Thank you for following up. I like the 7A tint in the FW3A so much that I need to buy a few singles to pop in the new model. I found some in Simon’s Convoy store if anyone else is interested.
OP updated with the pictures of my samples and cleaned it up a bit.
Since everyone is asking about the beam - I don’t have any beam shots yet, but I took the SST-20 version on a night hike last night and it was fantastic. Right on the edge for me where it’s just floody enough to hike with and see where I’m putting my feet, but easily enough throw to find where the dogs ran off to in large clearings without having to melt my hand on turbo. That’s a super versatile spread, and exactly what I want for an EDC light. I actually find it a similar beam to the much larger Dobermann, which might make sense since the XHP35 Hi is a larger LED.
I think for a lot of people this will easily fit the “pocket thrower” role as is, since the reflector is noticeably wider than the one used in common lights like the S2+. For anyone feeling up to a bit of modding, an LH351D would probably also look great in this light while having a bit more output and a floodier beam.
Wish they would do black ano on this one
Wish they would do a stainless steel bezel on this one, but I imagine Lumintop is getting tired of different versions by now. Has anyone counted the SKUs in production right now?
18350 tube,18500 tube,SS bezel will be available about at September 30th. on Neal’s site, may be you can just buy the bezel by itself later.
SS bezel would look much better on a black ano or raw alu light than this fake gray color but maybe i’m wrong. the bezel is going to be so big since it’s the entire head and not just a threaded on front piece (unless they change that too?)
What exactly is fake grey?
The arbitrary blue-gray color they used in place of doing clear or no ano.
Here’s the only example I can think of, one looks OK, the other some people complained about and some didn’t care. I guess we will just have to see:
I saw an update that my order just arrived at LA this morning… anyone else seeing the same? How long do you guys think it will take to ship?
Oh. So it’s not fake grey, it’s fake “natural” anodizing.
It was never pretending to be natural ano though, like the type 3 military-grade stuff with no dye. It’s just … grey. Real grey, in a medium shade, with a hint of blue in some batches.
Natural would have been okay too, if the result could be kept a consistent shade so the parts would match… but it ended up using dye instead.
…
Totally unrelated, tracking says I should have a FW1A tomorrow. So that should be interesting.
Looking forward to your impressions. I’m thinking I may get an FW1T when they’re inevitably released.
Fake blues!
Yes, I got the same notice. I am guessing that our FW1As will be going through customs in LA, and then handed over to the USPS for delivery. Fremont was the first stop in the US last week, but it is not a point of entry for customs.
My point was the lack of contrast with the SS bezel but I get it. You guys like the gray more than me.
Okay, so the number I was trying to find out was apparently 22.5.
22.5 cd/lm in the XP-L HI version of the FW1A. Plus or minus a pretty large error margin due to my questionable measurement tools.
That’s about two thirds of the Emisar D1, which gets 33 cd/lm. And it’s about 6 times as throwy as the FW3A, which only gets like 4 cd/lm (I measured 3.8 cd/lm on a XP-L HI version with 10511 optic).
And if that’s anywhere near accurate, it means the FW1A should get about 27 to 29 kcd at turbo, for about 330 to 340m of throw.
So it’s less throwy than the official specs claim, but still more throwy than I was hoping. I’m debating whether to add some DC-Fix on the lens to tone it down a bit, since I was hoping it’d be 10 to 15 cd/lm. Will have to try it outdoors at night to check if it’s too throwy or not.
Anyway, initial impressions of the FW1A are good. It does a lot of things right.
Sounds grrreat
Does anyone remember, offhand, what the throw numbers are for the triple?