I have 3 Shockli 14500 cells looking for a home, and can’t for the life of me find anything to put them in. I’m waiting for the new Ti 14500 Reylight, but I’m pretty sure that will have a larger diameter than ideal as well… Reylight ticks all of the boxes, but they’re too thick - nobody else is even coming close (although I do like the Lumintop EDC05C I just got, and the thickness is acceptable because of the side LEDs).
1. Thin
2. Sublumen moonlight
3. High turbo
4. Good mode spacing
5. Non-garbage UI
6. Good clip
Doesn’t seem like it would be all that hard to make, but evidently its impossible. If Rey’s upcoming 14500 Mini Dawn is considerably thinner than the Lan and Pineapple, he will sell a billion of them - people want 14500 lights to be as thin as possible - all the other puzzle pieces are there.
Maybe we can just email Reylight to ask abount making a thinner one? That’d be ideal. Like give me 19mm in diameter and I’ll buy a few of them for myself alone.
He has a facebook group that’s super active - he’s said before that he likes to make the lights thicker so they’re stronger, so I’m not sure if he’d be interested in making a thinner one… But if he did, I’m pretty sure it would become the #1 recommended / best 14500 light. Everything about the Lan and Pineapple is pretty much perfect - moonlight, max output, mode spacing, tint, they look nice, great clip, great build quality - the ONLY thing that some people don’t like is the thickness. The Mini Dawn is supposed to have a new programmable driver - realistically, I’m gonna end up buying one regardless, but if it were thinner than the Lan (like about the body width of the Pineapple, without the wider head and tail), there would literally be nothing on the market that could touch it. I know its still in design, so hopefully it comes out thin and trim!
Could always ask lumintop to do replacement pills for the tool ti like they have in the normal tool hm kit, with the amount of aa tools that have sold I’m sure pills with better cri led options would sell well, especially for those that want to swap but still haven’t mastered soldering!
correct
specifically the AA models have non removable bezels. The pill is press fit from below the glass. That means modification of the LED is not possible, unless someone breaks the glass and presses the pill back out the bottom of the head.
since you cant have a drop in, and you cant solder…
consider adjusting your dream, to include paying someone to modify a light for you
I agree btw, that the stock Tool clip is not very good, it sits too low, and it can pull off. Mascaratum showed you how he solved that.
Huh? My Tool AA 2.0 Ti has a two piece head that can be opened fairly easily, and the PCB is the same as in my Tool HM kit, it’s just on a shelf not in a pill. I swapped a 219b into my Ti and it’s my favourite light to carry. No breaking glass required.
I’ve been on a similar search for a while now, though I’m a bit more lenient in terms of maximum width. The Stainless Steel Amutorch 1xAA is an interesting platform to start on, maybe drop in a 15mm FET driver from mtnelectronics and an LED of your choice. I currently use a Convoy T2 w/ a bolted on solarforce T1 clip and a 17DDM with Bistro, however that’s closer to 20mm in width and you lose AA support. The Jaxman E3 starts from a similar position to the T2 in being very moddable, but is also on the wider side. The E3 does take the old Olight Baton S1 deep carry clips (can be bought from olight on ebay).
The Amutorch with 219c is very nice (i bought one from Neal last year or so)
No need for another driver, this one puts out plenty and it does get hot on turbo with 14500
The overall build of the Tool Ti is much better, but the parasitic drain is high and my led wires came off while doing runtime testing.
So hardware is top notch, electronics definitely needs improvement
The Amutorch had mediocre mode spacing and terrible PWM on the stock driver. The backlit tailcap in the Tool is the source of the “parasitic” drain no? It’s a mechanical clicky otherwise and should have no standby current.