FREEME ✌ ASTROLUX FT03S SBT90.2 4500lm 1428m 26650/ 21700/ 18650 Flashlight - EXPIRED

No, Sidney added something that hurt performance then changed it after realizing it. Now performance is back to stock, so no actual improvement.

I have all the FT03’s, not all tints but I couldn’t bring myself to buy this one for $90. I did get an NI40 from Neal. Probably should have got this one for the all around better light. Really not sure why I didn’t jump on this. Maybe it’s the $60 difference for this particular LED. Guess you all are happy with this version? Maybe It will be cheaper at a later date. Maybe.

No. You must not have read the last several pages.

This version of the light received some bad reflectors not capable of focusing the beam properly. The throw numbers are way less than advertised. Even with good reflectors from the FT03 swapped in it’s still a bit short of throw.

1400 meters is way more than the other versions. The SST-40 is about 900 meters. So 500 more meters is a really big jump. I think they estimated what is should be instead of actually measuring it.

I can feel your disappointment.
I had some problems with this unit also. When I took it out for a test run I had no mode memory. Then the turbo wouldn’t hold up. I was somewhat deceived as I had purposely set my order to be in the second batch - bugs and kinks are too often present in the first run. But with the overall picture of a great thrower and equally good UI, I dug in and found my mistakes. This version of Anduril has user selectable mode memory deactivation / activation. The ring I had placed as a shim between the driver and the retaining ring had some kind of brass like anodization or varnish. That limited the conductivity.
I had noticed the led’s phosphor reflection not completely filling the reflector but it wasn’t till ZozzV6’s post (#863) that pointed to an improper parabolic shape. Will see if a FT03 reflector will be available after CNY.
As for the green tint, yes it is visually striking at the lower outputs. This being a thrower, I set it to stepped from 1200 lm at lowest which gives a much better hue. I can’t see myself using this light for a night walk or searching for things in the house. It is for the great outdoors. BTW have set at two levels, high at 3000 lm plus the turbo, ~ 4500 lm sustained 5 minutes.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with the “overpriced” light. It does throw well to 200 m, above that my eyesight can’t detect well enough. The 5700ºK is a good temperature outside in my urban setting. The build and form factor are ergonomic.

Toykeeper got back to me and said she was not consulted to do a version of Anduril specific for this light. So the thermal response code may not be optimal. Mateminco probably just used an Anduril build from another light and adapted it to this one. This means the thermal code might be reacting too quickly on Turbo or the FET might be transferring heat directly to the MCU.

We are back where we started. :neutral_face:

for the price… just too many issues etc… bleh :confused: too me a rushed light asking premium money but failing to deliver…

Not every product is a runaway hit.

I wonder if a FT03 can be bought, then buy a SBT-90.2 and a MT-G2 mcpcb to put it on. You’d have to enlarge the centering ring, but in the end you’d get a perfect light. Good reflector, good driver, maybe even a cheaper cost if you don’t count your labor. One downside is this led is not easy to find at the moment.

Is there anything that can be done (like a relatively simple fix) to increase the turbo runtime on this light?



just keep it cool ;)

i compared the FT03 and FT03S here:
www.youtube.com/embed/FMvP4NDLg78

We haven’t really figured out why it’s stepping down prematurely. If the FET is responsible for heating the MCU, you could add extra mass to the FET. You take a cube of copper and attach it to the FET with thermal adhesive. What it does is make the FET heat up at a slower rate. This theoretically would make it step down when it’s supposed to.

Someone needs to test it, though.

Does your FT03S step down after 20 seconds using a high drain battery even though the exterior isn’t very hot?

I still don’t know if this is a widespread problem or not.



with a small fan / 23°C room

What temp do you have it set at? Even at 75°C mine steps down in 20 seconds. This only happens when the cell is at above 80% charge. Might be the FET overheating but I’m not sure.

limit 55°

So it looks like your light steps down at about 25 seconds?

What battery did you use?

Do you know if the exterior felt hot at 25 seconds or did it seem like it stepped down too soon?

Seeing as how the output went back up I’m thinking it’s just the software reacting prematurely and not the FET prematurely heating up the MCU (at least not all the FETs fault). The software measures the temp going up fast so it reacts sooner rather than later. A lot of Anduril lights act like this and there’s not much you can do about it. Still, adding mass to the FET might help smooth out the big dip in output or at least slightly delay when it starts to ramp down.

This is some interesting science.

How do you like the NI40?

I have the SBT-90.2 led in a Wildtrail D90V2 host, it has a Lexel FET+5+1 driver that runs flintrock's bistro firmware. On a fresh VTC6 battery (high drain 18650) it draws 19A at max. At maximum setting with a fresh VTC6 battery I measured the temperature between the fins near where the ledshelf is with a IR thermometer:

time after switch-on (s) fin-temperature (degC)
20 38
40 48
60 55
80 62
100 68
120 73

At 120 seconds it stepped down, I will have to look up in the UI if it is a timed stepdown or a temperature-stepdown but I like that it is at 73degC (the led will be hotter but still some distance from desoldering temperature), a good safety measure and the tube is still cool enough to hold, I need no gloves to switch it off when needed.

I would think that the FT03 should be able to handle more heat than the humble D80V2, so two minutes before stepdown sounds reasonable, not 20 seconds

I think we learn that it's time to go from measuring the driver temp to using the MCPCB temp for our high power flashlights...

it needs just one check-run with a new flashlight model to learn how the led-temperature relates to the MCU-temperature, in temperature difference and in delay, and then adjust the step-down parameters in the firmware accordingly. If this is too challenging for a company like Mateminco, they need to hire a first-year student for a couple of weeks to acquire that expertise. Tip: It works perfectly fine for the D80V2, time to look at the flintrock firmware.

The problem is you can maybe set it up so that Turbo reacts well, but then when you heat the light slowly (like on a med level) the response will react very differently and people will complain again. Toykeeper was constantly testing and rewriting the thermal code for the FW3A and still had to use a compromised version that only worked “decently” for all power levels.

BTW, Mateminco didn’t write any thermal code for the FT03S. Anduril is all Toykeeper and she wasn’t brought in to tweak the thermal response for this light.