No-no. No 14500 powered things. I have a few 14500 powered “regular” flashlights and while I like the physical size, I do like the limited capacity of that size cell. I guess we all have features that are most inportant to ourselves.
Myself, I would want nothing less than an 18650. Someone mentioned a little ways back that they would like an 18650 light as they backpack and would swap a cell between this new compact lantern and their headlight. I can see the advantage to that, as much as I also like the idea of using a 21700 cell for the new compact lantern.
I am not certain I would buy either an 18650 or a 21700 powered small lantern though. That’s my practical side showing through and overpowering my “Wow! Cool! I love that and want one” not so practical side. I must admit to also thinking about what I might cobble together myself. :person_facepalming:
I was just joking about the name because of the BLF GT. I wasn’t saying we should do this version in 14500. I was saying that this version (21700/18650) should be called the LT1 Mini. I have a habit of not making my points clear. Sorry about that.
A micro version (should it ever come out) could be AA/14500 and since the focus isn’t on output, Eneloop Pros would be the ideal battery.
I think that I mentioned it elsewhere too, an important feature for a lantern for me, more so than with flashlights, is that it looks attractive. Can we do that?
It so happens that I tend to stare in lanterns during use while camping, I did that with my ancient Feuerhand kerosine lantern and found that thing always a pretty and highly satisfying sight. A led flashlight with diffuser that I used later, however practical, never did anything to me and I think that is a miss. Personally I find the LT1 too plain looking, but is already better to look at than a flashlight with diffuser.
So the request is to pay some attention to a nice looking design. It is highly a matter of taste what exactly looks good, but just looking a bit beyond plain functionality will already help.
Very interested, not found anything that works as well to replace either my Solarforce LT-1 or T4 lantern heads yet apart from DBSAR’s LT1, a smaller version would be very welcome and very useful.
This light gave me idea. It has 2 side lights. What if that was extended all around the head? What if we made it LT1-style, with emitters at the top?
Maybe we could make LT-1 style optics around the driver space? Instead of a long screw holding the head make a short tube. Driver compartment tube. LEDs are still at the top. Use not 8 high-power but many mid-power LEDs to counter the fact that they’l be placed very close to the cover.
In front add a regular optics and LED, so it’s not just a lantern but a flashlight as well.
Tube gives little space for the driver…unless you make a flex PCB (not very expensive now) and fold it inside.
I have one like that atm, its very finicky, flickers a lot, and has some design issues. (added to the radiation-blue tint and built in charger that charged a cell to 4.32 volts.
I have one like that atm, its very finicky, flickers a lot, and has some design issues. (added to the radiation-blue tint and built in charger that charged a cell to 4.32 volts.
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Bad implementation does not invalidate a good idea.