FW3A Troubleshooting / FAQ

In Anduril the zero is a very fast blink. 3.9v is 3 slow then 9 slow. 4.1v is 4 slow then 1 slow. 4.0v on the other hand is 4 slow and 1 fast.

It’s a bit different from NarsilM which simply shows 4.0v as 4 slow blinks then a longer than normal pause and then 4 slow blinks again.

Thank you very much for the information. The tolerance of +/-0.15V is exactly what my FW3A shows. I understand the limitations. It is still a nice feature.

I added voltage calibration to Anduril - wasn't that difficult to do. TK sounded interested in it, but not sure it went anywhere. I have a modeed Anduril from the Dec 2019 base of code, so doesn't have the new temp regulation.

Hi

Is there a chart/table/equation somewhere that shows how many lumens correspond to each step level? Is it damaging to the torch to set a ceiling of the ramp higher than step 130 (say around 1500lm)?

Sorry in advance if this is a newbie question

Thanks for the help

Lumen measurements would differ depending on emitter type and color temperature. As long as the temperature calibration is set correctly there should not be any risk of damaging the light.

Thanks Rayoui. I have the FW3A with Cree XP-L.

Hi, I just got my FW3A today but i noticed it has no glass lens, Does the FW3A still come with a AR coated lens?

I think they switched to a one piece plastic lens about a year ago. It works well. If you want to swap in a Carclo then you need to buy the glass lens seperate. I believe Neil was selling them.

JasonWW, thanks for the info, Lucky i sent for 2 Carclo 10507 and 2x glass lens last week, one for my EDC18 and one was for backup but ill fit it on the FW3A.

Last night I left my LM-10 on until the head got quite hot (this required me double-clicking to re-activate turbo after rampdown).

After several minutes of this I noticed the light was no longer shutting off completely. All the controls worked fine, but in the “off” position, all 3 LEDs were still lit at a very low level. Lower than the moonlight setting.

My first thought was a bad 7135 chip. I swapped the driver for one from an FW3A, but it still wasn’t working properly. The light was still on when it should be off, except now it was brighter than before. It turns out the driver was fine. The problem was the star.

The problem was this:

  • When I ran the light until it got really hot, excess solder under one or more of the LEDs melted.
  • Pressure from the optic, then pressed the LEDs into the star. This caused some of the solder under at least one of the LEDs to spread sideways and bridge to the center ground pad. Initially, this bridging was tiny so the light output was very low. After the driver reinstall, things moved again and the bridging was more severe. This explained why it was brighter after the first attempt.
    The solution:
  • Removed the star and LEDs. Used a vacuum suction pump to remove all excess solder from the LED pads on the star, then reflowed the LEDs.
  • During reassembly I also removed the stock thermal compound and replaced it with Arctic Silver 5. Not sure it will help, but it is my standard practice to apply fresh thermal grease any time I remove a star. And it’s especially important with a hot-rod like these lights.

Now the light is fixed and works fine. But one caution is it probably isn’t a good idea to constantly override the temperature rampdown on the lights with a titanium head. These lights look and feel great … and I like them much better than lights with a copper head, but titanium isn’t the most practical material for removing heat from the star.

Take a super thin/light, super small light with max super output and then to make it even better, make it out of titanium :FACEPALM:

We are rolling the dice.

Any information where can I get spare switchboard or blank driver board?
Trying my luck searching at Oshpark but none the result.

Dunno if anyone cloned it. I don't know if it's been public who designed the driver, yet alone, made the design public, shared. Of course Lumintop could offer them here somewhere: http://www.lumintop.com/flashlight/lumintop-wholesale-led-flashlights-accessories, but I don't see any spare parts offered, like Sofirn does.

Lumintop will sell you parts if you email them service@lumintop.com

Unfortunately the shipping from China made it impractical. If you’re ordering another light, though, you might be able to get them to include some parts.

Thanks Tom & treellama, I will try to reach them :+1:

Quick question. What is the better battery for this light between Samsung 30Q vs 35E?

Samsung 30Q

This flashlight doesn't pull a lot of amps, so the 35E is better.

Are you talking about the FW3A? It does pull a lot of amps. Either type of battery is fine. A 35E will pull less amps than the 30Q which means slightly less output on Turbo, but you can run Turbo a bit longer before it heats up. I would just use whatever cell you have or whichever is cheapest.

The FW3A pulls a moderate amount of amps, and the 35E can handle that amount of amps just fine.

You're not going to see much of a difference between using a 30Q and a 35E, except in runtime.

The FW21 Pro, for example, pulls a lot of amps, in comparison.