I for one like the gray aluminum. It allows for no guilt when carrying a light and it gets scratched, dropped or otherwise boogered up. I have several copper, brass and titanium lights that I don’t carry for fear of damaging them.
I hope the FW1A sticks around, because it’s a good design. But it doesn’t have a list of literally thousands of people waiting to buy it like the FW3A did, so I don’t expect it will be as popular or have as many flavors.
Plus, many of us now have quite a few FW3As so it’s difficult to justify buying more. I’m at the point where I have a whole line-up to choose from when I want a light… can be hard to decide between purple 3D, bare 3D, grey 219B, grey 5A, copper SST-20, purple 219C, and FW1A. Plus, of course, all the other lights on my desk…
Steel can be pretty nice, as long as weight isn’t importand and the LEDs inside aren’t turned up too high.
In a FW3A, I’m guessing a steel version would probably regulate down to the regulation floor, and then mostly just stay there. Steel is good at keeping the heat in, so the highest sustainable level is probably just a couple hundred lumens.
maba, I said it on FB, but I’ll say it here, too. Thanks for the pics! Looking forward to this one. I’d really like to see how it compares to the SC64 and S2+.
I’ve been introduced here by stephenk from a post on Light Painting Blog.
As a lightpainter, from what I’ve read, I think FW1A is one of the best flashlight to have in our arsenal. Especially because of Andúril and its new momentary strobe feature.
Could someone tell me if the FW1A has the new July update of Andúril firmware?
I read FW3A/1A drivers aren’t updated yet by Lumintop…
I’ve only tried one FW1A, but it has momentary strobes. I think almost all FW3A / FW1A lights are shipping with a version new enough to include that now.
Checking is relatively simple… go to a strobe mode (“click, click, hold” from off), then turn the light off, then go to momentary mode (5 clicks from off) and press the button.
Getting out of momentary mode is a bit inconvenient on FW3A/FW1A though, since it requires disconnecting power. And on this light, that means unscrewing the battery tube pretty far. It’s much easier to exit momentary mode on other lights, like the Emisar D4.
The button placement may also be a consideration when choosing a light. Side switch or tail switch may be more convenient, depending on what you’re doing.