Emisar D4V2 Review Supplement (the pickier details)

I made corrections in the battery and runtime sections. It turns out that my flashlight’s thermometer was not calibrated but was 8° low. I had checked it before, but maybe that was before updating the firmware. I did not perform a factory reset after the update as recommended. Either the update screwed up the calibration, or something happened to it since then.

Anyway, Turbo now steps down much more quickly, and the flashlight does not get as hot. That also means Stepped Level 6 ramps down eventually, even with my hand bleeding off heat. It needs a higher temp limit to run indefinitely. I effectively had my temp limit set to 53° before due to the incorrect thermometer calibration. Level 6 got pretty hot when I performed the rundown test, but not too hot to hold. Now the flashlight gets only moderately hot with the 45° limit. Not at all uncomfortable.

Don’t forget to check your flashlight’s thermometer!

Flashing the firmware erases the EEPROM by default so your calibration will be lost.

Great write up! always good to see another fellow D4V2 geeking out about the specs :smiley:
I face high parasitic drain on my D4V2 on low aux mode, even on aux off mode.

I measure my cells everyday with a multimeter and seem to be losing .1v everyday which is way too much.
During the period of testing the lights were not switched on to use at all.

Could more people do some testing of their D4V2’s parasitic drain? I have flashed to the 2020/03 latest firmware and it doesn’t resolve this issue for me :frowning:

Thanks!

TK’s review quotes the parasitic drain as the following:

Parasitic drain:

  • ~0.02 mA with aux LEDs off (17 years to drain a 3000mAh cell)
  • ~0.06 to ~0.12 mA with aux LEDs on low mode (2.5 to 6 years)
  • TBD mA with aux LEDs on high mode (my sample has different resistors, so I can’t measure)
    (probably about ~0.2 to ~0.4 mA on blinky mode, or 1 to 2 years runtime)
    (probably about ~3 mA on high mode, or about 50 days runtime)

1Lumen’s review also gives amp readings for the aux lights. With the aux lights off, his parasitic drain reading is 25μA (0.025mA). Only slightly higher than TK’s reading. At that rate a 3000mAh cell would last 13.7 years. On low they range from 70μA - 190μA. Again, just a bit higher than TK’s readings.

So there’s obviously a problem in your case. I have had mine on one aux mode or another since I got it. Recently I had it on voltage mode, low, for a couple weeks or so and I even used the flashlight for brief times and the voltage did not drop much at all during that time according to the Batt Check mode. I’m even using laptop cells with only about 2,000mAh. I do not have any way besides the flashlight’s Batt Check mode to check my batteries’ voltage, though.

I think either your flashlight or your battery must be defective. Can you get a tailcap amp reading with your multimeter to see how much current is actually being drawn? Also, are you sure your battery is in good shape? If it is worn out or a cheap Chinese knockoff, it might no longer be able to hold much charge.

I love my 4000K SST-20 gold jobbie and I’ve never bothered to fix the ‘muggle’ mode issue, since I don’t currently possess any.

Maybe one day, when I buy one off of Ebay, I’ll reconsider?

Chris

Yes I did a tailcap measurement with my multimeter and on low aux the drain I’m getting is around 18ma which is way higher than expected.

I suspected my batteries might be the issue and have purchased a new pair of Sony VTC6’s but the issue is due to the high parasitic drain.

What do you mean with “not model specific”? How did you compile it?

Disregard what I typed, I got confused with this .
I don’t really have an idea what how to navigate the site and assumed it contains all the version hex files. Got confused with the changes revision part of the website.

I have this current version installed.

Sorry I got confused

You linked the D4Sv2 version, not the D4v2 one. While it should work, it has different ramping tables. But your high parasitic drain is not related to that firmware. It sounds more like a hardware fault.

I did a search on reddit and I am not the only one facing this issue, I just hope for more users facing the issues to post more details so we might figure out a fix.
I understand why you’d guess its a hardware issue but could any Electrical engineers chime in what causes it?

Every function of my light is working as expected so it’s hard to send it back and claim its faulty.

Just how low were your cells getting? Dropping to ~4V fairly quickly from 4.2V will happen to an li-ion cell without even being in a light.

yeah I understand how fast they drop voltages from 4.2, I did measurements on the cells everyday and on average am losing 0.1v every day till they hit 3.4v and I took the batteries out
so that was roughly a week of standby in low aux mode.

Thank you for the detailed review. I look forward to get the D4V2 in Nichia 219C with frosted 10623 frosted optic, SS bezel and 18350 tube.

Thanks ConsummateV for this additional review, which I do appreciate since I'm on the perfectionist side as well

I also enjoy very much my brand new Emisar D4v2 (with Nichia E21A) and its amazing Anduril UI.

I have played with the Aux LEDs, found this feature very nice but I noticed that:

  1. As you mentioned, the red is much dimmer than all other colors. How come?
  2. I dont' understand the "Volts" function as described in TK's diagram. When I select it (releasing the switch during the next pattern after "Rainbow"), the LEDs are blue. How is this battery check function supposed to work?
  3. I get different colors for the same color selection, according to the brightness level selected, for a few colors. Example: if I select yellow (almost orange in fact) when the brightness is set to High, when I turn the brightness to Low (3 times 3 clicks) the LEDs are dim green, instead of dim yellow. This happens for yellow-orange, cyan, and a strange color which is supposed to be white in TK's diagram, but is more a light rosish orange. For all these three colors in High mode, the LEDs are green if set to Low mode.

OTOH, High blue, red, green and violet stay the same if turned to Low.

I can see this (faulty?) behavior when circling through all colors in Low mode by keeping the switch depressed after a 3H: the green shows up once shortly (corresponding to the High "not-so-white"), then shows up again after red and stays on longer because it replaces the expected yellow-green-cyan sequence.

Do you folks see the same behavior on your own light(s)?

See my comments on the other thread where you asked the same question.

Sand colour:
The head of my D4V2 looks slightly darker compared to the tube and tailcap.

Tube threads:
The start of the thread near the O-ring at the tailcap end has peeled off. A few millimetres of thread broke off. I noticed a similar thing with one of three Manker tubes. Hopefully this doesn’t impact a mechanical lockout by twisting the tailcap.

Flickering while ramping is a little annoying.

Other than that, I’m pretty happy with the D4V2. I love the tint of the XPL-HI V2 5D 4000K emitters.

That happens because the parts are made separately.

Sounds more of a concern. Maybe show us in a close-up photo?

If you mean the flickers at mid-ramp and at the top, that is a design feature of Anduril. It is visual confirmation of transition points in the ramp. Often handy!

I agree. I have a D4SV2 with those emitters. I wish I had specified them for other lights.

There appear to be two dips where the light cuts out when ramping. FET related?

Here’s a video of ramping the D4V2:

View post on imgur.com

Here’s a close-up photo of the threads using my phone:

I figure that these two points are worth mentioning for “the pickier details”. Others may have similar questions. :slight_smile:

The color indicates an approximate voltage level. Earlier versions of Anduril for example had three colors for the voltage (going from full to empty; I don’t remember the particular voltage levels): blue, green, and then red. Later Anduril builds expanded the number of colors though I believe blue is still first and means your battery is fully charged or very close to it.

I think that is the designed flickers that I described above.

That area has no functional importance and it is hidden when the tailcap is closed. Wait till you pick up a few bits of fluff on the threads and you won’t see it with the tailcap open, either.

They are nothing to worry about. Enjoy your light!