Talk about future projects and donation topic

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.

+100

Would like to see 17mm driver version sold separately also

I would love to see a Q4 14500 only happen! I would second that it would be nice to see a good boost driver with a good interface in 17mm!

Well, if you had a buck driver with a wide input voltage range, it could use either AA Alkaline/NimH or 14500 Li-Ion cells in series. 4X Eneloops could put out a respectable amount of light if the driver was designed well, and 4X 14500’s could really fire up the imagination!

Having said that, I’d prefer the Q4 to be designed as a mini-Q8, with 4X 14500 in parallel feeding to 4X XP-L HI or something like that, using a multi-channel FET/7135 driver.

The Manker MK41 looks like it does pretty well with both AA and 14500.

Hmm yeah parallel cells for the Q4
That is the challenge IMHO
So there will be a BLF driver that can run on AA or 14500
For else there would not be something new coming from it, just a scaled down Q8 is nice and all but rather boring for all would be clear before the actual start :wink:
It is rewarding for me to see new things and just a BLF remake of something doesn’t feel new

don’t get me wrong I love my BLF special lights that are remakes but it doesn’t feel worth my time to just mix existing stuff
For example I kind of dropped the idea of a Q10/16 when I only thought it would be a scaled up 26650 Q8, when a quad XHP35HI quad 2S2P 26650 light popped up yeah then it made sense to go for a Q16 for this means a challenge.

As for 4 14500 only for the Q4, TA wrote in the GT topic that making a light for a 32650/26650/20700/18650 just makes more sense in this case and with that I agree hencey stubborn AA wish :smiley: for of those a lot of cool things are already in existence