I’ve been really disappointed with the new Emisar finish so far, aside from feeling cheap and unpleasant to me, it flakes off too easily. I have a D1 with the original finish and it is flawless despite much harder use.
Thanks for the beamshot comparison, looks pretty promising.
goshdogit, that’s a really good beamshot / hotspot comparison. The PCB pic also reminds me I still haven’t taken mine apart to get pics and reflash it…
I didn’t get a shipping notice or tracking number, just an order confirmation email. I didn’t notice that at the end of the message, it instructed to reply back with my phone number.
Neal sent me another email a few days later asking again for my phone number, but I didn’t see it for several days because it went to my spam folder.
The D1S got here only 7 days after I replied to the second message with my phone number, so I wonder if Neal sent the light before I replied. Oddly, there are no dates on either of the shipping labels.
When I placed my order it gave a date of when it would arrive. I let it go 4 days past (I live in Alaska and somehow it takes a week longer to get priority air mail….) before contacting Neil.
He pulled a tracking number for me and it was here shortly after that.
I did not have any dates on my package either.
give him an email and see what he says and see if he will send a tracking number. I know all orders going forward for me I will pay to have tracking number so I can watch it fly around.
I’ll include my D1S tracking info so you don’t feel left out. “Send to Chicago 11/08”
Number: LSxxCN
Package Status: In Transit
Destination Country: United States
2017-11-07 02:05 Origin Post is Preparing Shipment, We have received notice that the originating post is preparing to dispatch this mail piece.
2017-11-07 02:05 CHINA, GUANGZHOU EMS, Processed Through Facility
Origin Country: China
2017-11-08 22:42 Guangzhou, leave Guangzhou sent to Guangzhou Express Company
2017-11-08 22:42 Guangzhou, leave Guangzhou and send to Chicago.
2017-11-06 18:42 Guangzhou, Guangzhou Postal Courier logistics Company International Business Branch has received (name of the Collector: Jianbo, Tel: 18818911168)
Since it requires soldering for each reflash, I’ve been kinda waiting until I go back to tweak thermal regulation again… and I’ve dragged my feet on that because it’s a long and obnoxious process.
My last D4 thermal regulation test showed some pretty annoying oscillation, but perhaps it’d be fine on something with a lower power-to-mass ratio. Perhaps I should flash the D1 as-is and find out.
Wish these enthusiast lights would create a way to easily re-flash the light. Now that mfg’s have entire lines of fancy lights it makes sense. You want to keep a user in your product line give them a consistent experience from light to light through firmware updates.
Finding a place to fit a USB port, though, is not so great. Or fitting the internals to handle it.
With a bigger MCU, though, direct USB reflashing is at least possible. Some of the atmega chips support it. They’re a bit overkill for flashlight purposes, but it was nice being able to reflash my keyboard that way.
I can’t quite put my finger on why exactly, but something about its strictly utilitarian minimalist design makes it seem distinctly different than other lights. It’s like it sheds a pretense of being aesthetic in nature and instead is unabashedly functional in an unromantic and frugal kind of way. It has not a single detail which can truly be called fanciful or cosmetic, posh or indulgent. Even the label on its tailcap serves a practical purpose, to indicate make, model, and what it does. Not unlike the first few days of owning a label maker, in which everything in the house receives plain labels like “table”, “door”, or “cat” (sorry about that, Mister Bigglesworth). Its strict adherence to purely pragmatic plain-ness is kind of an aesthetic of its own, like manufactured buildings made entirely of right angles and concrete. Or, more appropriately, like a rocket which consists only of an exhaust cone and a column of fuel.
I kind of like it better in 18350 shorty form, because then it’s even more blatant that it’s mostly just a big reflector with a power source and a shell, and really challenges traditional ideas of what a flashlight is supposed to look like.
It is, regardless, very good at what it does… but “what it does” is not “look pretty on a shelf”. It’s made to be used.