Fireflies ROT66 Flashlight

LED Flashlights – General Info
401

I just received my Nichia ROT66 with the Aux LED’s. Beautiful light! Impressive if it can reach 1.5 to 9 years with the auxiliary LED’s illuminated as measured by ToyKeeper.

One thing I can’t get straight is the UI. I can’t seem to get into the strobe modes with any combination of clicks directly from off. I can double click to turbo, then double click to get to strobe. If I double click one more time quickly it goes to a bike mode. That is all I can access. Is this normal for this UI or is there another way to go through the strobe modes?

402

I assume you have NarsilM.

In ramping mode you do have to double click to go to Turbo and then give a pause and then you can double click to go to strobe. At this point you should be able to cycle through all 5 blinking modes by pressing and holding and it will go backwards through the blinky modes.

When you first go into the strobe mode you’ve got 1.2 or 1.4 seconds to click again which allows you to cycle up through the levels.

You can check out my video of strobes in ramping here.

Here’s a video of the newer NarsilM v1.2 strobe modes.

The only difference is the newer versions allow you to go past the first strobe mode back to the 5th blinky mode instead of turn off.

403

I check fireflies website and anduril is coming.

404

Well, I no matter what settings or angle I tried to photograph from, I couldn’t get my camera to show the tint differences between my 3 ROT66 accurately, so I’ll have to write out what I observed.

The 3 ROT66’s I have are:

Nichia 219B R9080 4500k
Samsung LH351D + Lee 804 Zircon Filter ~4000k
Luminus SST20 HCRI 4000k

The comparison between the ones with the Samsung and Luminus LEDs is more interesting since they share similar CCTs. The Samsung emitters have the 804 filter over them, which makes them slightly less green, and according to Maukka’s measurements, puts them at or or very slightly below the BBL. The hotspot is massive compared to the SST20, but naturally less intense.

The Luminus emitters are maybe a little above 4000k according to my subjective impressions, and are on the green side of things. The Samsung emitters might slightly be below 4000k, but look to be very much on the BBL without too much green. I personally still prefer slightly more rosiness to the tint.

The Nichia emitters make for a beam profile that’s near identical to the Luminus emitters, although I would say the transition from the edge of the hotspot to spill is slightly more sudden on the SST20 emitters compared to the 219Bs. Again, LH351Ds throw a massive hotspot by comparison (really a huge, bright corona, with a small but subtle hotspot in the middle.)

I tried to take the 804 filter from the Samsungs and put it on the ROT66 with the SST20, but it seems as though Fireflies is now gluing in the Bezels, because I couldn’t take mine off. This might be part of their solution to solving the crushed XPL HI issues. So, the best I could do was put the lens with the Filter on it over the Luminus emitters with their lens already on.

Comparing the SST20s with no filter to the LH351Ds without the filter and/or lens, their tints are extremely similar, but when shining both on wood and skin, the SST20s shows more of a rosy vibrancy. The SST20s with the 804 filter on would be very special I think.

So, if I had to list my preferences in beam pattern and tint, it would be:

1: Nichia 219B R9080 /possibly Luminus SST20 HCRI w/804
2: Samsung LH351D w/ 804
3: Luminus SST20 HCRI
4: Samsung LH351D.

405

That pretty much matches my experience too, twisted raven. Including the difficulty of getting a camera to accurately show the differences.

406

Apparently the ROT66 is now shipping with a glued bezel in addition to the glued driver. Really, Fireflies?!

407

That is a sure way to anger customers and reduce sales.

Nobody likes glue/threadlocker except the engineers designing the light.

408

Thank you for the heads up.
I was waiting for a few things to mature before buying a 2nd ROT66 and also waiting for the PL47 but if they are starting to glue their flashlights, I won’t buy.

409

OMG, I hope they don’t glue the PL47 too! That’s such a bad move!

410

I’m okay with it, but it is a bummer, because I wanted to put a Lee filter over those SST20s.

411

It’s true that ROT66 will be glued by default, many customers (especially Muggles) have no ability to assemble the TRI lens well when they take off the bezel, this would have big chance to get the emitters damaged.

We will discuss more about the cases . Better thought is flashlight collectors who have good assembly skill can require un-glued lights. However if you choose un-glued, we only grantee that the products arrive safe and sound . If in any chance it’s got any problem in long term use, do make sure that you have good skills to fix lights with the parts we send. Anyway disassembly flashlights increases too much risk of damage cause.

Jack

412

I am happy to assume some level of risk if a flashlight manufacturer is willing to offer unglued parts. The glued driver is even more of an issue for me since it prevents firmware updates. If you’re able to honour requests to ship lights without gluing the bezel and driver it would be a huge plus to the BLF community.

413

But when you sell to BLF, there are alot of enthusiasts that have the ability to modify flashlights. All of the Emisar flashlights including the Meteor M43 are not glued and there have not been any reported problems of people screwing up those flashlights. So far, only the ROT66 XP-L HI version have been having issues but that is a manufacturing problem only seen in the XP-L HI version.

414

Thank you. That is a very helpful description.

415

What is the time difference stepdown in the turbo between Nichia 219B R9080 and Luminus SST20 HCRI 4000k? Is there a difference in heating during operation?

416

That’s not really true. Some models have used glue, and some people have damaged their lights. But I am not aware of people expecting a refund or anything like that after breaking their own light. Instead, they usually contact Hank and ask to buy spare parts, because he sells those.

It may help to put a very visible statement somewhere that there are no refunds for lights people have opened and damaged.

417

Hi, I’ve been doing some testing. What I found is that, for now, it probably won’t be feasible to make the ROT66 aux LED board turn off via firmware. The indicator LED pad only gets about 2.5V on a full battery, so the aux LEDs don’t turn on when connected there. This could be fixed by modifying the driver, since the MCU pins are about 3.95V on a full battery, and that’s easier to work with. But that would also require modifying the aux LED board a bit (at least recalibrating its voltage thresholds). It is not as simple as moving a wire.

So unless there are some hardware changes, it seems unlikely that people will be able to turn off the aux LED board. I’ve informed Fireflies about it though, so it could potentially happen in a later version.

418

Also, there is new firmware available:

These links may expire when newer builds are made.

As far as I can tell, only the 219B model uses 7x7135 chips. Everything else uses 14x7135. At least, the SST20 model I have does, and there is no reason for any higher-powered emitters to use fewer chips.

419

So 14x7135 can regulate at a higher current for higher output? But can it handle the heat?

420

Thank you for sharing these details.

Which CCT and CRI of SST20 model do you have?

I would very happily buy a 14×7135 chipped SST20 4000K 95CRI model, if it would be confirmed as available. Do you see any chance, that this will happen?