Talk about future projects and donation topic

Awesome job folks, thanks for remembering those of us who do not mod!

ken

Wow, thanks again!
OP updated
so kind to read the notes, truly special :blush:

Sent, thanks for making a thread!

Awesome idea!

Since I have virtually no relevant knowledge or expertise to add to these projects (other than what I’ve learned here), I am happy to contribute monetarily. I just wish I could send more.

What a great community!

EDIT: I may be the only one, but I would love to see an upsized 26650 version of the Q8.

Yeah the Q16, 4*26650 2S2P (20700/18650) driven, quad XHP35(hi) 10K lumens monster
Boosting from 2S to 12V should again result in great BLF tech :slight_smile:

A boost driver would be VERY expensive in such a setup and would not really translate well to any other light.

Take the Texas buck as an example. It costs about $25 right now and it is easier then a boost driver as it only pulls about 15A from the cells. The boost driver will need to pull around 20-30A from the cells in order to boost the voltage. This will require even larger and heavier duty parts which means they will cost even more.

Plus shrinking down the design to anything smaller would be about as likely as the Texas buck getting shrunk much. Technically possible but it would vastly reduce the power it could handle and cost the same or possibly more due to needing even higher end components in the smaller form factor.

Not to mention that using XHP50.2’s make more sense in such a setup, that should be able to reach 15k lumens with ease and you could use either a simple FET driver with 2S input or an expensive buck driver with 4s input and 2s output.

Well if Nitecore can do 4*XHP35 we must be able to do so too right :smiley:
But it’s not a project planned soon so who knows what LEDs and driver parts are available then :wink:

And second post updated with;

Well let’s broaden the topic and make it also a space for future projects a d debate about them.

The project list:

Q8, soda can light, 4 3V LEDs, FET+1 Narsil driver, 4P 18650.
nearing completion

GT, monster thrower, 1 12V LED, 1 or 2 X 4S 18650
Design housing send to contact, second iteration driver board desiged, first proto driver to be made.
Long way from completion

FW3A, single 18650 EDC triple, ! not open for debate yet !
in the works of starting, driver clear, talking to Chinese party to have it made,

Q4
Baby Q8, 4 x AA OR 14500 (challenge here is driver)

Q16
Quad XHP35HI from 2S2P 26650
Challenge here is driver

Zoomie , nothing clear just that a nice zoomie is something I like to help create.

For the zoomie why don’t we actually work with Jaxman and make the Cometa the way it should have been done in the first place?

That could be a good idea, but would a bigger lens, maybe a second for more light ot not be interesting?
you know cramp some innovations in there? maybe have the small lens close to the LED do the moving so the head holding the big lens can be part of the cooling system. a hard driven XHP35hi in there…. just thinking out loud here.

Let those ideas keep percolating mate, I’m sure you’ll come up with something special by the time the GT goes into production.

I like the sound of the Q4 and zoomie.

I’d love to see an 18650 RGBW colour mixing light. Similar functionality to protomachines, but at 20% of the cost.

thanks!

stephenk, you mean a light with three colored LEDs and a way to control each one to get the preferred colors?
That would be MELD software right?
Funny story, when Thorfire send me the S70 and S50 just bought the Uniquefire 1401. I asked Throfire to make a light like that (4 individual small reflectors with a LED, using 3 primary colors and a NW LED in the 4th space.
For the reason of people being able to blend colors to their liking. They did not understand what I was talking about, heheh had a hard time grasping the notion of a soda can light, lol we showed them what a soda can light it didn’t we :wink:

Yes, something based on MELD software with RGBW emitters and the ability to colour mix, but “off the shelf”, would be very popular with light painters. Not sure how popular it would be with the average flashaholic though.

The cometa is ok but frankly the intensity is about the same or actually a bit worse then the $13 X60 I got from banggood (I sold it so can’t do a direct comparison). The X60 has a bit larger lens so like everything when it comes to throw, size is king.

A larger lens would be a good idea, the cometa just doesn’t impress all that much.

A second reflector lens adds a lot of complication and is only to be done by a properly capable manufacture. If that is possible a second lens does increase the hot spot size, which is nice but doesn’t really effect throw.

It would be nice to see loneoceans boost driver go into production and one way would be to incorporate it into a BLF SE project as was done with the A6 driver done by wight(aka Alex Wells). It probably needs to undergo some field testing first but it’s a significant upgrade from any other boost driver currently on the market. Supporting that and similar projects is something I could get behind.

Legit enthusiast-approved right angle headlamp.

+1

Yes good point RBD!
I will contact him

As this is now declared a discussion thread, I have an opinion on the Q4:

It is tempting to want the Q4 to be compatible with alkalines and Eneloops and I am not for it for two reasons:

1) there are quite a few pretty nice flashlights out there already that run on 4xAA cells. Even if the Q4 will be a quad, that does not add an awful lot to what is out there, a bit more output and less throw. The Q4 will not stand out other than that it may have a BLF developed nice user interface.

2) in case of dual compatibility I do not see how 14500 li-ions can be run to the max when the light also is able to run on alkalines/NiMh’s (but I’d love to be wrong, I’m not an expert on drivers). The full advantage of high current 14500 li-ion cells can only be had with a dedicated li-ion driver.

So my proposal is very simple: shrink the Q8!!
(Honey, I shrunk the Q8!)
It is almost as simple as asking Thorfire to ask just that: do everything the same as the Q8, just smaller (detail: I think that many fine fins like the LuckySun D80 has will help). But I would like to try to achieve 2 extra things: 1)see where the shrunken Q8 can be made even a bit smaller, to get the Q4 smaller than any 4xAA-size light out there (to start,a quad reflector is already shorter than a reflector for a single led), 2)add onboard charging via a micro-USB port.

On max, the output will be 4 times the output of the BLF-X5, so 4800 lumen on fresh IMR’s. Unrivalled by anything this size! Of course it can only be run on max for very short bursts of 30 seconds, probably limited by a simple timer, but that is where al those lower modes come in.