I tested waterproofing of the Q8 for a couple of minutes in a bucket, and to my surprise it did stay dry inside. But there is just one thin o-ring at the battery tube opening, so I would not trust it submerged for very long. What helpes is that the battery tube will not be opened much as the lantern has a charge port, so the o-ring does not get a lot of wear.
Looks good. Please add me to the list for one unit.
Done
They shouldnāt have to open it. It charges via USB-C. To pretty much anyone you were to lend it out to should see it as a complete unit and thereās no reason for them to ever open it (or even knows it opens).
Or you can put it in Muggle Mode.
which videos are you looking for?
I may have missed this somewhere, does anyone know what the max brightness will be in muggle mode? Iām considering getting an extra for a gift but I think the UI will be too overwhelming for them so am wondering how worthwhile this lantern is if used just in muggle mode.
These are the only exception I know of to the Button Top Only warning that comes with this style light.
Itās really hard to show the clearance of a GA flat top. Here is a collage of a set of BLF-LT1 wrapped cells. There are small differences based on manufacturing tolerances and individual wrap and top insulator thicknesses, but they all extend far enough that the insulating wrap never touches the positive contact ring.
Have a look at post #7291 on page 243
The UI shouldnāt be overwhelming at all with a minute of initial setup. Find out what color temp they like, set it to that, and then tell them the very basic controls. Click for on or off, hold to go up in brightness, click hold to go down. Thatās really all any muggle needs to know when using the lantern. Leave it in discrete ramp with the 5 initial steps and it should be fairly easy for anyone to figure out.
Put me down for one please!
How does one choose a conformal coating? MB Chemical offers an acrylic (419D) and a silicon (422B) version where both meet UL 94 V-0 specs. The acrylic has a somewhat higher temperature limit, but both are rated to at least 200C, which seems pretty high compared with the operating limits for our semiconductors.
I understand that the acrylic is a hard coating and the silicon a more flexible one, but this also means that the silicon coating can be cut through or even soldered through in a pinch. Also, the standard RTV Silicon product is rated to 400F, which is effectively the same as the MB Chemical silicon coating.
This suggests that purchasing the less expensive, non-certified RTV Silicon, which is commonly available even at home improvement stores, is probably a more economical choice than the MG Chemicalsā 422B, but in which cases is it more appropriate to use acrylic?
Thanks but according to the manual the muggle mode has a reduced max output, I assume that means it wonāt go to the 600 lumens mentioned in this post but I donāt know how close it gets.
Hopefully thatās the case for them, thanks for the input. Iām just afraid theyāll be turned off by knowing it can get a lot more complicated and not want to use it, they like just simple on/off functionality but maybe this is close enough.
A quick word of warning - not all silicone sealants are the same. Some are corrosive, so make sure you get the right stuff. The one BlueSwordM linked to says itās non-corrosive.
If you ever buy silicone sealant and it smells of vinegar, donāt let it anywhere near your electronics. That vinegar smell is acetic acid.
If you just need a temporary solution for charging stuff that isnāt waterproof outside, one of those watertight clip-seal food boxes can be an option. Make a hole in it, pass a cable through and then permanently silicone seal the cable into the hole so itās watertight again. Device in the box, plug in, clip seal the box shut until itās done.
It looks like the version Lumintop is using will probably max out at about 200 lm in muggle mode, if my math is right.
For lantern purposes, that may be a bit low. Itās a bit less than step 3 of 5 in the default stepped ramp. So I just changed the lanternās configuration to make muggle mode go from about 20 lm to 350 lm instead. Thatās the same as step 4 of 5 instead of being ~2.9/5.
It was using Andurilās default muggle mode limits, but those are probably more safe than necessary for the lanternā¦ so it now overrides the default to make it brighter. I also need to go through some other lights and make the limit lower since people have requested it.
Anyway, the higher muggle mode limit will probably be in batch 2. Iāve been collecting changes to send for the second batch, and this seems like a good change to include.
http://toykeeper.net/torches/fsm/anduril.2019-10-02.blf-lantern.hex
Thanks Phlogiston
I do recall some discussion years ago regarding Acetic Acid being bad for electronics. Good to be reminded.
As far as the lunchbox idea, I made two of these exact rigs from IKEA clip-seal boxes for a trip in 2016. They worked well. I used cable glands rather than silicone and each box has two USB ports inside. 5 x 2.1 circular plugs on the outside with adapter leads to go to my X-Dragon 20W folding panels. (Which are great, for anyone interested in solar.)
I suspect the LT1 would be too large to fit inside the ones I have. Having said that, I was also considering just removing the batteries and using this arrangement again. It means taking 4 x ML-102s, or buying a different charger that can cope with the intermittent nature of solar availability in a moving canoe.
Iām interested in this light, please add me to the list! Thank you for your incredible work and effort on this as well as all the members of the team!
Great, thatās exactly what I was looking for, thank for the details ToyKeeper!
Please add me to the list
Please add 3 more for me, for a total of 5
Previously on the list at
- 963 NuggetMcNugget
- 976 NuggetMcNugget
Well designed light, please add me to the list!