UI and drivers evolution as a whole is one of the things that keeps this forum ticking. You can’t really argue against it.
Now i understand a manufacturer would want to have a one line of lights with the same UI for consistency… This is somewhat a hard choice to make when things are moving fast and you want to stay on the cutting edge. Even Simon at Convoy has started to replace the half a decade old 3/5 modes drivers with a new one running Biscoti on the S (and C?) line.
The main issue i have with the actual V2 UI on the D4 is that the default single click is unpredictable. It can be anything between moon and turbo regardless of the last level you ramped to. A single burst of turbo with a double click from off will reset the last used level to max - which will probably come as a surprise the next time you turn on the light. As i understand the Q8, GT and FW3A will not behave like that…
This is a great idea. I love the size of the D4 with an 18350 tube but it sucks the cells dry in very little time. A single emitter in the same size would be much more practical and I’d finally have a good use for my 18350 cells.
Clips would be wonderful as well. The Convoy on my D4 with the longer tube works but isn’t elegant to say the least.
As far as I’m aware, they’ll have the D4 v2 UI. However, I’d be willing to update it if Hank is interested. I sent him a message about it yesterday. I’m not sure he wants to make it all fancy like what I like, but I could still fix a few little things at least.
I’ve also had some ideas for improving thermal regulation, but I haven’t tried them yet. I should probably do that soon. Mostly I’ve been playing with the new UI toolkit I made.
I’m also hoping the D7 is reasonably priced. Something in the $75 range would be amazing (and possibly asking too much) but the D4 (and now D1) are perched at a really wonderful price point and are selling like hotcakes (pun intended!).
I would be interested in a second D4 for me, if there were any of the small improvements in the interface, which you commented in previous post. I would like above all: that the Turbo or tactical mode could be limited to lower values (60 or 70%).
I already have a newer fancier UI which allows setting a lower ceiling level for the ramp, so a double click from off goes to whatever level you set as the ceiling… and then another double click goes to the true maximum. It also uses the last-ramped level for momentary mode… and the only way to exit momentary mode is to disconnect power, so it won’t exit if you blink out Morse code too fast.
It also fixes quite a few other little things, like remembering moon/turbo and having difficulty detecting really fast double clicks.
More information is in the UI thread I just started:
Nice job emarkd! I mentioned that clip before but only had the un-dremeled sample, and no picture. The other one is staying on my hds. The oveready copper wavey washer works instead of a paper clip too but is $5 and falls out.
I wasn’t sure about that clip on the d4 due to cost but man it looks good. Hmmm
I should go back and find that deep-carry clip which looked like it would work… and then try to figure out how to order some (the site had no english version, and my browser didn’t offer to translate it).
It’d be really nice to have something similar to an Olight S series clip, or a ring-spacer clip in deep carry style. I could just get a couple more Solarforce clips, I suppose, but they’re not deep-carry.
Has anyone found a clip which works with the 18350 tube?