I donāt know. Thatās why I wrote this as a supposition rather than a statement of a fact.
If a LED burns you have a dead light.
If a driver burns you have a dead light.
I donāt see how improving the driver would make the matter any worse, let alone turn it into nightmare.
Now to the also important question, can E21A survive a fully charged, high drain cell? Iām not sure but quick calculations show me that it canāt. Which is a bummer indeed.
I guess few people will care about 10440 support then. Though I still do; even if I kill E21A, a good driver enables me to put some other LED in there. Like SST-20. And I would still have as bright as Iād like.
BTW, thereās one thing to take into consideration when converting a light from SST-20 to E21A. The latter is very flat and may easily have the light emitting surface well below the focal point of the optics.
I like the C01S concept, but Im not a fan of the AAAs. So here is my idea: install the C01S driver (maybe with slight improvements) in the bigger body and make the āC10Sā - twisty AA light, as small as possible, something in style of DQG Tiny AA or L3 L10ā¦No need of 14500 support, AAs with their higher capacity(comparing with AAAs) would be good enoughā¦
Iām definitely interested in the lower temperatures, but not the 5000K - if the highest temperature was around 4000K I would probably get that too.
Iām happy with the C01R UI and NiMH support. Iām not interested in 10440 Li-ion support - I wouldnāt mind if it was an option but I wouldnāt want it to compromise NiMH support.
Interested if available in 4500K D220 and/or 3000K or below, would definitely pick up both. Donāt care about 10440 support, especially if the driver doesnāt have any stepdowns like the C01S.
A bit more textured/floodier optic vs the C01S is absolutely necessary though. E21A has tint shift through the beam in narrow, untextured TIRs.