New 4XP Noctigon MCPCB for quad optic

Commercial Sellers' Spot
429

Exactly. The D4 has no such technical issue.

I made that graph. It shows the output levels for three lights on a visually-linear scale.

Not buying a Meteor is a good way to convince a businessman to make a mini-Meteor. :smiley:

The M43 has smooth transitions between levels. It gives a nice imitation of ramping smoothly, especially when adjusting levels in UI3. However, it can only stop at 9 discrete levels. The in-between levels are inaccessible due to the technical issue, and that is what the graph shows.

The D4 has actual smooth ramping, or pretty close anyway, with 150 discrete levels. It has stair-steps, but they’re very small and very close together.

Unfortunately, Indigo is not the same as what the Meteor used. Indigo also has no published license, so I cannot legally distribute it in the firmware repository. Indigo-compatible drivers are not easy to find or buy in most of the world. Assembly code may also limit its use somewhat, since it raises the barrier to entry.

Can you help with any of these, to make it fully open and available?

“Open Source” means more than just putting code on a web site. It also means giving the code a license which explicitly allows people to use and modify it. There are several open-source licenses to choose from, but I recommend GPLv3 for flashlight drivers.

I like where this is going. :slight_smile:

430

Am I the only one who finds ads on fonarevka extremely annoying?
Anyway, back to reading.
Very interesting links. Thank you Serp!

431

Typically there are as many recommendations as there are recommenders. :wink:
I tend to recommend CC0.

432

Registered users have the option to disable forum advertising in their profile.

433

Of course Indigo is not a Meteor. In the Meteor, improved algorithms and other modes. And Meteor commercial product. The firmware have only manufacturer.

434

If I understand correctly, the D4 might be able to do 60W with XP-L HI emitters and a high-amp cell. It’s like a smaller version of the Q8, and the Q8 does over 20 amps. I have a single-cell triple-XPL which does 15 amps. Limiting it to just a few amps would be practical but kind of boring.

The high modes are not intended for long-term use, and if it’s too hot or too bright, there are 100+ lower levels available. Hold the button until it is bright enough, then let go. It does not need to be on “wow” mode all the time.

Many people feel exactly the opposite about this.

In general, I would really appreciate it if people would try not to phrase personal preferences as if they were true for everyone. They’re not. Different people like different things, and it appears that all the recent drama in this thread exists only because the D4 caters to a different population than the M43. It’s a matter of taste, not quality.

Below are a few more examples of things which could be considered over-reaching or rude:

Many people feel this is a good modern driver, not cheap or bad, and that it will be great for everyday use. It’s just a different type of modern driver than what you wanted. Me, I was hoping for a 3-channel driver, like a FET+N+1. But I’m okay with a FET+1.

I’m sure insulting people is the best way to make things go your way in the future.

Comparing this to Astrolux and Manker is a false equivalence. The Astrolux attempt in particular was a disaster.

The D4 is not an Astrolux. I’m sorry you didn’t get a mini-Meteor, but a mini-Q8 is a silly reason to go around insulting people. Even if the runtime graphs aren’t perfectly flat, and even if it might be a few percent less efficient in some modes, it excels in other ways and is still better than most torches in the world.

You have never touched a D4, and claim it is low quality? You claim the UI is bad without trying it? You reject anything with PWM or DD, even though the FET+N+1 multichannel PWM technique is virtually the same as what some premium brands use for current control? Maybe this is just a translation issue, but it sounds like hot air.

It seems almost nobody named AEDe interesting in productive discussion , and respecting other cultures. Hyperbole and insult are the main thing here.

We can stop phrasing exaggerations and personal taste as objective universal truths, please?

435

Ok, so how does it work? There is ramping from min output to max output, and then there is the FET turbo. So do we know approximately how low low is? And there is a gap between max and FET turbo right? So how bright is max?

436

This version is free for non commercial use. Newer than M43 firmware version has been developed but it’s not wide spread and avaible only locally to support diy community. Indigo and M43 schemes are almost the same, disadvantage of the fist one is Attiny85 which has not really good built-in amplifier vs Attiny45, that’s it.

40W driver costed me 20-25$ using best end components from digikey and local stores. Here’s original Indigo interface description. Simple words there are 3 main modes with discrete and smooth regulation.

Yes, as you said there are many types of open source licences, this question should be discussed with the author. I’ll try to clarify this topic. What’s your goal, you wanna share drivers and do bussiness? At the moment we’re not allowed to do this.

Yep… that was crazy days :slight_smile: Got a tons of experience.

437

I don’t have a D4 to measure yet, but as far as I can tell it will likely go from about 1 lumen (maybe lower?) up to about 3000 lumens (ish, depends on emitter type and battery type). My light box maxes out at about 3000 lumens, and I would not be surprised if the D4 exceeds that. If it does, I’ll measure it in some other way.

There is no gap in the ramp. It is a smooth slope all the way from 1 lm to ~3000 lm, with 150 steps between.

This is only an estimate, based on my Q8 prototype which should be very similar, but I expect the 150 output levels will be very similar to this:

1: 1.00 lm
2: 1.30 lm
3: 1.64 lm
4: 2.05 lm
5: 2.52 lm
6: 3.05 lm
7: 3.66 lm
8: 4.34 lm
9: 5.09 lm
10: 5.94 lm
11: 6.87 lm
12: 7.89 lm
13: 9.01 lm
14: 10.23 lm
15: 11.56 lm
16: 13.00 lm
17: 14.55 lm
18: 16.22 lm
19: 18.02 lm
20: 19.94 lm
21: 21.99 lm
22: 24.18 lm
23: 26.51 lm
24: 28.99 lm
25: 31.61 lm
26: 34.39 lm
27: 37.33 lm
28: 40.43 lm
29: 43.70 lm
30: 47.14 lm
31: 50.76 lm
32: 54.55 lm
33: 58.53 lm
34: 62.70 lm
35: 67.06 lm
36: 71.63 lm
37: 76.39 lm
38: 81.36 lm
39: 86.54 lm
40: 91.93 lm
41: 97.55 lm
42: 103.39 lm
43: 109.46 lm
44: 115.76 lm
45: 122.30 lm
46: 129.08 lm
47: 136.10 lm
48: 143.38 lm
49: 150.91 lm
50: 158.70 lm
51: 166.76 lm
52: 175.08 lm
53: 183.67 lm
54: 192.54 lm
55: 201.70 lm
56: 211.14 lm
57: 220.86 lm
58: 230.89 lm
59: 241.21 lm
60: 251.83 lm
61: 262.76 lm
62: 274.01 lm
63: 285.57 lm
64: 297.45 lm
65: 309.65 lm
66: 322.19 lm
67: 335.06 lm
68: 348.26 lm
69: 361.81 lm
70: 375.71 lm
71: 389.96 lm
72: 404.56 lm
73: 419.52 lm
74: 434.85 lm
75: 450.55 lm
76: 466.62 lm
77: 483.07 lm
78: 499.90 lm
79: 517.11 lm
80: 534.72 lm
81: 552.72 lm
82: 571.12 lm
83: 589.93 lm
84: 609.14 lm
85: 628.77 lm
86: 648.82 lm
87: 669.28 lm
88: 690.17 lm
89: 711.50 lm
90: 733.25 lm
91: 755.45 lm
92: 778.09 lm
93: 801.17 lm
94: 824.71 lm
95: 848.71 lm
96: 873.17 lm
97: 898.09 lm
98: 923.48 lm
99: 949.35 lm
100: 975.69 lm
101: 1002.52 lm
102: 1029.83 lm
103: 1057.64 lm
104: 1085.94 lm
105: 1114.75 lm
106: 1144.05 lm
107: 1173.87 lm
108: 1204.20 lm
109: 1235.05 lm
110: 1266.42 lm
111: 1298.32 lm
112: 1330.75 lm
113: 1363.71 lm
114: 1397.22 lm
115: 1431.27 lm
116: 1465.87 lm
117: 1501.02 lm
118: 1536.73 lm
119: 1573.00 lm
120: 1609.83 lm
121: 1647.24 lm
122: 1685.22 lm
123: 1723.78 lm
124: 1762.93 lm
125: 1802.66 lm
126: 1842.99 lm
127: 1883.91 lm
128: 1925.44 lm
129: 1967.57 lm
130: 2010.31 lm
131: 2053.66 lm
132: 2097.64 lm
133: 2142.23 lm
134: 2187.46 lm
135: 2233.32 lm
136: 2279.81 lm
137: 2326.94 lm
138: 2374.72 lm
139: 2423.15 lm
140: 2472.24 lm
141: 2521.98 lm
142: 2572.38 lm
143: 2623.45 lm
144: 2675.19 lm
145: 2727.61 lm
146: 2780.71 lm
147: 2834.50 lm
148: 2888.97 lm
149: 2944.14 lm
150: 3000.00 lm
438

^ Aha! And the intervals are probably made to make it (quasi) visually linear I guess?

439

I would love it if you could talk to the author. :slight_smile:

My goal is a healthy collaborative community with a solid foundation of open projects that anyone can use and build on. The idea is that a rising tide raises all ships. Instead of trying to make any individual ship taller, I hope to raise the tide for everyone.

It’s nice to have things which are free for non-commercial use, but it’s nicer to have things which are free for any use. If someone takes my code, modifies it, and sells it, I am not harmed. Especially with a “copyleft” license like the GPL, which requires people to give back their changes under the same license. Share and share alike. It may seem strange, but it has proven itself to be a very effective tactic in an information economy. Even traditional institutions like banks are catching on these days:

As someone in the study put it: Open-source makes sense because “You get what you pay for, everyone gets what you pay for, and you get what everyone pays for.”

440

Not really.
The higher the output, the smaller the % increase per step up.

441

Thanks. I just put the data in excel, and in single log it’s a declining line. Not sure if it’s supposed to be a straight line in single log to be visually linear; I have to look that up.

442

There are a few different theories about what makes the best “visually linear” brightness curve. The one I showed was a cube-root method, as recommended by CPF’s “selfbuilt”.

However, if you don’t like the cube-root curve, the firmware repository has a ramp calculator to generate other curves. It includes square root, cube root, fifth root, natural log, and base-two log… or it’s pretty easy to add others by changing only two lines of code.

I expect it will probably be reasonably easy to reflash the D4; just take out the driver and use a SOIC8 clip with avrdude on the MCU. So you should be able to change the ramp shape or change the interface entirely, if desired.

443

^ Great, thanks! Interesting… I don’t find myself reflashing firmware… or tinkering with drivers… Who knows in a couple of years…

444

Same mistake again. You are not able to give lumens because you never know actual conditions that influence on output.
Of course smooth ramping is very usefull for flashlight which cant work longer than 30sec from start :smiley: .
And no steps is great achievent when any level will loose several % of output every minute :person_facepalming: .
Just imagine that youve bought car, and seller claimed that it can go 100mph. But after some time you realize that this can be only reached with 95-100% tank load, with 50% tank load it cant go faster than 70mph. And there is no document which will show this feature, no method to calculate actual values.

445

In this analogy (it is always cars…) it is easy to see where you and some others differ from reality: you demand another safe and road-legal car (another Zebralight) while Hank now offers a drag racer (D4).

It is just different people who buys the two types, no reason to argue. It is Hank who made this choice, I’m sure also for commercial reasons, but I can just imagine that as many others he is attracted to small wow-lights as well :smiley:

I’m really looking forward to the D4 :slight_smile:

446

Im not with them :wink: . Im just trying to prevent some problems caused by claiming values that are not always repietable.
Drag racer dont need 18650 cell. Just imagine how many times you can turn it on (100%), wait until you cant hold it and then turn it off. New aspire 18350 capacity is more than enough for such using.

447

And that’s why some of us are getting 18350 tube too :slight_smile:

448

As stated, it’s an estimate. The actual output is complicated, but the estimate gives people a rough idea of what to expect.

You might have a point if the light only had “off” and “direct drive 100%” modes. Fortunately, there are 149 other levels in-between to cover a wide variety of situations. Unfortunately, exaggeration and polarization are almost never helpful, so I hope that can stop.

Levels 1 to ~64 are current-regulated with long runtimes, and are quite useful on a small light. Above that, the levels are partially regulated and partially direct-drive. The runtime graphs should look similar to the BLF A6, where high modes sagged over time, medium modes sagged but only a little, and the entire bottom half of the modes were very close to flat.

This method gives low and medium modes which are pretty stable and practical, while also giving good “wow” modes. So it can be practical or fun depending on what you want at the time. Is it a problem to have some fun modes?

Reviewers didn’t generally measure the lower half of the modes, because the runtime was too long, but the graphs for those are mostly just a flat horizontal line.

On a FET+N+1 driver, the regulated portion goes much higher, like 3A instead of 0.35A. So it can be regulated up to about 1000 lumens instead of just ~150. This doesn’t matter much to me because I normally use less than 150 lumens, but it’s nice to have sometimes.

You mean, like how the M43 can run at 100% without losing any output over time? Let’s find a runtime graph… (red line)

Maybe car analogies aren’t very relevant here.

The M43 does a pretty good job with power and thermal regulation (though the thermal regulation is a bit bumpy). However, virtually every flashlight sags quite a bit when running at 100%. And that’s okay. Some manage to get a flat graph on medium modes, which is nice. Others still sag a bit over time, which is not as good but usually not noticeable by eye. And both the M43 and D4 have regulation on low modes.

They are both good lights. I don’t understand why a few vocal people are upset about the D4. I expect I’ll enjoy mine quite a bit. :slight_smile: