Emisar D1 / D1S review

Nope, he has never seen any expensive exotic lights. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I know what the materials cost both for flashlights and knives, cannot see justification for the price of some of those blades, nor some of the lights that are out there to be honest. Material cost alone on the Mokune Gane Sinner is quite exorbitant! A blade in exotic supersteels doesn’t come at that kind of price, granted some can have quite a lot of man hours.

Point being, when you pay $40.00 for a factory hot rod flashlight how can one complain about the anodizing? It is neither dry nor dusty, flaky nor gritty, handling it puts no residue on the hands. Thus, not chalky. My 10 yr old has been grinding limestone rocks down on the concrete of our driveway, he leaves white chalky handprints on the door and footprints throughout the entry, quite familiar with “chalky”.

There is also a tremendous difference between seeing an expensive light and paying for one… I went through that process once with a custom builder and got an unexpected surprise at the end of it all… the bill. Because of that experience I will never be caught in the dark without a light, but I would have never gone into that had I known what it was going to run into. Yes, I paid an equivalent $800 for a light no bigger than my index finger. Wouldn’t do it again. (couldn’t do it again)

There is a new push for the machined look, no beadblasting and no dye, clear anodizing with visible machining marks. Truly beautiful in my honest opinion. I got one in yesterday that is just stunning…

Takes time to make a unique quality piece.

Yeah, well… I had just sold my truck and inquired about a custom light, relatively basic, drawn up from the design of a Leupold rifle scope. I asked if I supplied the Titanium could it be done around $200, was told yes. Then the design morphed and it grew more complicated and in the end I had to pay $500 plus the surgical grade Titanium I sent. I know he put a lot of time into it, making a small light from a 1” bar of Ti, didn’t see that coming. Was new to all this then, just didn’t realize. He did a beautiful job of it of course, and it was more my own lack of foresight than anything else, so…

Of course, now that I have a lathe I see how it can gobble up a lot of time and for me as a hobbyist thats one thing, but a custom builder does it for the money, right? And therein lies the rub…. gotta pay to play.

I got my Texas Poker (his name for it) making 134 lumens with a blank third mode in 4 levels. That was kinda weird. So ultimately I learned to build my own drivers and it now sports an 10mm FET driver at around 800 lumens. Been wearing it on a Ti chain around my neck virtually 24/7/365 for closing in on 4 years.

Makes that $40 D4 look golden, don’t it? :wink:

Edit: I had a 1” bar of surgical grade titanium from a gunsmith friend that went to work at a machine shop specializing in medical implants. I’d had it for some 13 years, wanted to do something special with it. Hence the birth of the Texas Poker. I have a thread here on it’s build with pics supplied along the way by it’s maker, Photon Fanatic. It’s really a beautiful piece of work, done entirely on a Swiss manual lathe. It uses a 10440 Li-ion cell and pulls just over 3A in Turbo. :wink:

Edit II: Texas Poker Build Thread for those that wish to see how it’s done…

Thanks for all the helpful info. Does anyone who owns the smaller D1 know if it might work in one of the headlamp straps that are intended for convoy tube lights? something like this:

https://www.banggood.com/Convoy-Flashlight-Headband-Headlight-Band-For-18650-Flashlight-Black-p-967619.html?cur_warehouse=CN

If you've tried it let us know. If not, do any D1 owners think the weight or head size being thicker than the battery tube would stop it from being a reasonable headlamp? (just for walking around, not wearing it on a roller coaster).

I don’t recommend using throwy lights as headlamps. It has a tendency to cause tunnel vision.

True, and good recommendation, but I have a need for a thrower headlamp and have a few flooders so was just wondering if this might work. In the past I’ve used aspheric headlamps with decent results, but thought this might be better. Although, a dd flashlight pressed up against your skull would probably get a little warm on the scalp :frowning:

D1s in black arrived. Anno reminds me of thorfire C8 which I do like. Excellent throw with wide hot spot and nice spill. UI is excellent! Nice grippy feel to it. Showed it to an old timer and he really liked it. Said he would wear his hammer holster for carry. Very satisfied!! I grabbed a loose XTAR 2900 bat and it’s happy with it. Batt check showed 4.0 after some turbo use. Money well spent.

Throw right on spec. With a fully charged VTC5A I got 129245cd @ 30sec measured from 3.194 meters. 132336cd at 0 sec. Tint is very pleasant warmish and rosy. Mine is the 5D version.

@TK
from the OP

Are the petals a typo? I don’t see them on the beamshoots.

Nice to see the 5D variant has the rated candelas and a good tint.

If you own a D1, the “petals” are vaguely visible at closer range on a white wall, but they don’t interfere with actual use.

Anyone have a BLF D80 handy to compare with the D1 or D1s? Besides the e-switch, wondering how the beam patterns, reflectors, and feel in the hand might be different or similar.

Not a typo. They’re just dim, as described. These things are usually difficult to see in beam shots or during real-world use. It’s easiest to see when shining at a white wall, especially while rotating the light along its Z axis to spin the petals around the hotspot.

Virtually all flashlights have some degree of flower-petal shape if they have a square emitter in a round smooth reflector, but the degree varies quite a bit. It’s most noticeable when the square is relatively large compared to the reflector… and can be decreased by using a larger reflector, a smaller emitter, or by moving the reflector out of focus.

The D1’s petals are a sign that it’s well-focused, and the faint-ness of the petals suggest its proportions are well-balanced. The D1S seems to have some petals too, but they’re smaller due to the more dramatic ratio of reflector-to-emitter size, and they’re pretty much hidden in the corona. Also, I’ve had a difficult time getting the focus perfect on my D1S, so the petals are outweighed by the slight defocusing. I’ll fix that after I take it apart for reflashing, which will probably happen after I’ve got the firmware ready for production.

Thank you for the explanation!
I searched for petals on my lamps, it turned out I have only TIR or orange peel lamps. No smooth reflectors in da house.
:blush:

With the exception, Joe, of the Q8, right? :wink:

I was curious about the D1S runtime, so I’ve been playing around with zak’s ceiling bounce app in my NIST-certified integrating bedroom closet. Even set to a very high thermal limit, the D1S throttles down pretty hard after about 5-7 minutes and takes more than 20 minutes longer to settle at a stable output level. With a lower limit, or a higher drain cell like the VTC6 (“d1s test”), the “hump” is even more pronounced. I will repeat the tests with a proper shoebox setup soon, but I was surprised the D1S couldn’t handle a bit more since I almost exclusively use it outside where it’s cool enough the thermal throttling never engages.

In contrast, the D1 also drops down, but manages to stabilize fairly quickly.

For reference, Convoy C8 and Manker U21.

Guess I’ll have to build a copper helping hand for my D1S….

(if/when I see it, that is. 25 days and counting)

Can someone who has both a D1S and a decent pair of calipers give me an idea of the overall diameter of the head? I’ll see if I can get a chunk of Tellurium copper to beat my D1S home…

My cheap digital calipers are far from “decent,” but here’s what I got:

Bezel is 50.09mm diameter.

Switch area is 35.97mm diameter.

Bezel to start of taper is 35.47mm.

Bezel to end of taper is 41.14mm.

Bezel to end of head is 64.23mm.

Hope this helps! :smiley: