Order placed.
Lan Lee: Welcome to BLF, and also the Facebook group!
I havenāt received a code as yet, and Iām 945 & 946 on the list.
Ordered one from Amazon.
Waiting for the second code 
Great to hear Graduated from College
Now your part of the Work Force, for a long time.
I hope you like your new job and learn a lot about flashlights.
I got a different lantern today. A few weeks ago I found an Aladdin no#23 kerosine lamp on a flee market for a mere ā¬4.50. I felt lucky but did not know yet that it needed a new wick and a new mantle, and some kerosine of course. So now Iām another another ā¬35 down the road but today the wick came in and I got it working. The output is a bit less than the LT1 but it looks pretty (and makes me feel a bit āpreparedā :party: ).
@djozz
That looks like one of the lantern we used to have when I was growing up, it always came handy for we had lots of power outages.
Got a code for LT1 and placed order on Amazon.ca, no tax was charged. 
Great! Aladdinās are the best kerosene lanterns ever made, IMOā¦ Good find!
Has this been answered yet? It looks like the programming pad layout is similar but Iām not sure how that works.
They are not the same.
Contacted Sofirn via PM, got a code within hours and order placed!
Thanks Sofirn for being so responsive and helpful with my questions.
So finally I got some lull so I was able to make the mod to the LT1 so that it charges from USB-C to USB-C.
It is doable but it isnāt easy
Cable works in both orientations. I have tested with only one AC adapter but it the one that obeys the USB spec so it should work with any that does so too.
I have charged from 3.9V to completion and there doesnāt appear to be any issues, couple of minutes before the green light the cells were about 4.172V
I have taken one picture but frankly this isnāt the best of my work. And the pictures donāt show much
If anyone is interested I can put more detailed description of what I did and what to do.
Very interested in seeing more. Mine hasnāt arrived yet, but I plan to do it when it does.
I received an initial single use code for a lantern only, but due to the problems with ordering, by the time that it was available again via Amazon, the code had expired. I responded to Sofirn and let them know and was told:
āThank you for enjoy the lantern and your patience. The next batch will be avaliable around 15-20 days later. And we will pre-order it around 5-7 days. And then we will send another code to you to order more. Thanks again.ā
Iām not in a rush at all, my concern is that theyāre under the assumption that I already ordered one in the initial batch, which I wasnāt able to despite having ~ 8 reserved in the first 500, and I didnāt receive a code for Lantern + batteries. Iām not mad or even annoyed, and I fully understand the logistical nightmare a project like this entails and am perfectly happy to wait as long as needed.
My only concerns are that people like me receive all the lanterns they signed up for, and it appears that some, like myself werenāt able to order but Sofirn is under the impression they have and still others never received codes in the first place.
Again, a big thank you to all involved in this project, Iām extremely excited.
Barry, thank you for the response. I tried ordering, but the amazon link was no good due to all the problems that were occurring with the first batch. I tried ordering, but wasnāt able, and by the time the amazon link was live (I admittedly didnāt check daily), the code had expired. Iām fine with ordering one at a time, but Iād like to get at least a single unit in this next batch. I appreciate all the work that everyone has put into this and am very patient and in no rush.
As a preface, this requires decent equipment, decent skill, attention to detail and ultimately might result in your lantern being damaged beyond repair from either inappropriate use of the equipment or incorrect execution.
Even though I performed the mod successfully I give you no warranties. If you blow a hole in your PCB or one of the ICs you did it yourself.
So to mod your LT1 to charge from C to C cable you will need a following:
- Mod wire. Thinner the better. Best would a magnet or enameled wire of 40 awg or above. Like this I have used a scrapped parts of a litz wire. If you are looking for some on the cheap then if you take apart any relay, small electric motors the chances are that you will find an enameled magnet wire that will work.
- 0402 or 0603 resistors like this we need 5.1kOhms +/-20% so technically any value between 4.1k and 6.1k would work. Not sure where you could source those on the easy. If buying from anywhere buy at least 10. They are super small so if you even think about sneezing around them they will disappear. They should be cheap enough, probably pay more for shipping as compared to the hardware.
- A soldering iron. Preferably something direct heating and has decent tip on it. Standard chisel wonāt work. I worked with one like this this
- Tweezers that are angled something similar like this . Any other tweezer will do as long as you can grab a 0402 comfortably but the curved ones will make your life easier. Preferably another pair of tweezers
- other soldering equipment solder, flux, wick, wire cutters, IPA, possibly brush etc
- RTV preferably clear but a red one will do.
Once everything is gathered you can start.
You need to lay the driver flat and secure it. The wires should be long enough to allow you to pull it out, and secure so that it doesnāt move (you can use double sided tape to whatever it will be laying on). Kinda like this (borrowed from djozz from here) Any movement during soldering will be your enemy.
Note here. When I did mine I didnāt remove any of the wires going to the main leds but you can. If you do so then you will have much better access to what you want to do it. However I didnāt feel like doing so since there is a lot of wires and most of them are black.
Here is the data sheet for the USB C connector used in the LT1. What are you are looking to do is connect CC, pins A5 and B5 to A1, A12, B1, B12 through the resistor. Here is pointed out what is what on the actual picture USB-C .
Find a decent spot for the resistor, I initially put them more or less like this .
With the resistor position set, cut you enamel wire so that you donāt have deal with the whole bunch of it.
Strip the ends of the wire using your soldering iron. What I do with enamel wire I put bunch of solder on the tip of the soldering iron and then stick how much I want to strip and leave it there for couple of seconds.
Take the resistor and tin the ends of them. Similarly put a bit of solder on the tip and then touch to the end of the resistor so a bit sticks.
Now comes the hard part. Apply as much flux as you are comfortable with to the connector pin. Put as much solder as you can on the pins that you will be using. If you get some pins bridged itās not the end of the world. Use the wick to clean it up.
Once you have the pins tinned, it is pretty much solder everything in place. What I aimed to do is the following. What you can do with the magnet wire is that once it is solder in place you can āsnap it offā by keeping it taught (but not pulling strongly otherwise you might lift a pad) and move it back and forth until it comes off. Since the resistors are not attached to the board you will have to support them using another pair of tweezers or something pointy.
After about 45min of swearing and wishing that your hands were smaller and listen to your parents and didnāt sit so close to the TV you will end up with something like this . Even though it is ugly it is type of situation that if it is stupid then it works.
Clean with IPA and brush gently.
Visually inspect to make sure that there are no visual shorts etc.
If everything looks good then proceed to testing.
What I did is, I plugged in the usb-c charger to the wall, gave it couple of Mississippi, unplugged from the wall, then plugged in into the LT1 without batteries. Since the USB-C provide significant power they generally have enough energy stored in the input and output caps so that they can hold up the its internal and LT1 circuitry for few seconds. By doing this you limit the incident energy that is available so if there is anything wrong, there might be a puff of smoke but you shouldnāt destroy the connector or the board.
If everything is alright then you will get a flash, that the LT1 has power, and the green LED that the batteries are fully charged.
Once you have everything tested and confirmed that it works, apply the RTV to the area to ensure that the mod doesnāt get damaged physically. What I did is gave a squirt of the RTV and gently pressed into the board, tried not to smear it around.
Hope that helps you guys. If you have any questions then let me know, will do my best to answer them.
$12 bucks on Amazon, no soldering required, use cable that comes with lantern. Problem solved
If it works for you that is great.
All of the things that I travel with use usb-c.
So now if I want to take the the LT1 then that and a cable is another thing that I canāt forget.
Also I would much rather spend $12 on beer than another charger.
Enjoy the beer!
mlodyulek thank you very much!
Why are you dismissing his work? He was generous enough to share what he did to get usb-c to usb-c charging working.
mlodyulek - very insightful, thanks.