FW3A, a TLF/BLF EDC flashlight - SST-20 available, coupon codes public

Juste send mine without LEDs at all… even without MCPCB would be fine.
I’ll swap them anyway…
But please stay at 30$ !

I found some tint shift measurements by maukka, and the LH351D doesn’t appear to be any worse than other emitters. So, probably not worth mentioning.

Tracking says a prototype should arrive in the next 18 hours, so the plan is to do some testing on that and then put the emitter poll online. I hope the comparison data is in order now, but there’s still a little time to make corrections. Also, I’m not sure if the flood/throw pic should be included or not.

http://toykeeper.net/torches/fw3a/emitter-poll.html

About the prototype, I have no idea what emitters it’ll have. Probably whatever was left over from other projects; the first prototype had CW XP-G2.

I’ll take 2 please.

Does it have to boil down to just one LED flavor? or is it possible to have two versions right from the start?

What I gather from the discussion of the last few days is that a single LED flavor will almost inevitably leave a good (perhaps even large) portion of potential buyers unhappy.

With two version its much more likely to please the majority.

My suggestions for that would be these two:

  • XP-L HI 5000K (highest throw, highest lumens, but low CRI & high cost)
  • Samsung LH351D 4000K 90CRI (high CRI, no extra cost, but least throw) [if the Samsungs are unobtainable for some reason > Nichia 219C 4000K 90CRI]

Both variations have their benefits.

:+1: …. Good idea if possible.

I rarely use my torches in daylight, but mostly at night, or to peer into dark places.

And I prefer light levels that don’t upset my dark-adapted eyes too much, rarely at turbo levels, often at firefly or moonlight level.

Meaning my eyes are probably operating in the mesopic or even scotopic range, rather than photopic.

I wonder whether a lot of tint preference is under artificial conditions, e.g. bouncing off white walls at close range and at high levels, whereas under my sort of usage at much lower illumination levels my eyes see the tint very differently.

I much prefer the warmer tints, 4000K or below, with good CRI, for me the difference is very marked, I don’t like cool white at-all, neutral or warm works much better. My theory is that the warmer tints, more biased towards red rather than blue, compensate for the Purkinje shift towards blue sensitivity at lower illumination levels, keeping the colours more “natural” looking.

Edit: which is why it is so difficult to take realistic photos of outdoor night-time scenes, the digital camera does not respond the same way as the human eye. Perhaps someone could develop a Purkinje shift plugin for photoshop to simulate the effect with a set of curves for different wavelengths.

I realise that those who prefer to light things up “as bright as day” may have different preferences.

I don’t have any experience with the LH351D 4000K 90CRI, but I value Djozz’s opinion. If he likes it, I’m sure it would be a great choice. Perhaps it would be best to keep the light as cheap as possible, and not go with the xpl-hi, at first. I’m sure the cheaper it is in the beginning, the more successful it will be. If its a huge hit like I’m certain it will be, hopefully more flavors will be released later with different emitter choices. This formula has worked will for the Emisar line.

Is it possible that the team test the different LEDs in the prototype and we can get numbers and beamshoots?

XPL hi is old, ineffective, with ugly CRI, and expensive. If it be used I would simply buy another D4 … I vote for any other led.

Seconded. 4000K. The floodier beam is a big plus for me too, when out searching for things that could be anywhere, possibly brown-coloured, or dripping red stuff.

I suppose when you are losing your livestock to vampire bats, 4000K high CRI is your ideal

And werewolves :wink:

Best to be prepared.

How about the Samsung LH351C (die size is in between LH351B and LH351C). It is recently introduced so probably the bins are good, it will not have the enormous flood of the 1D but should still have good output and efficiency. and it is cheap, about $0.50 when bought in quantities. (Some high CRI options ( :wink: ) : 4000K 90CRI at Digikey: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/samsung-semiconductor-inc/SPHWHTL3D50GE4TPJF/1510-2323-2-ND/7560620)(5000K 90CRI: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/samsung-semiconductor-inc/SPHWHTL3D50GE4RTMF/1510-2325-2-ND/8536264)

Offtopic: I don’t get the nude gnus joke.
sth. like nude news??

Moonlight mode is great for screening the suspect population

Edit: It’s surprising joke, by TK, aided and abetted by DB Custom.

A silver version, with a wooden “glass breaker” spike would be perfect, for dual use.

That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

This is the result of a relatively broken voting method called plurality voting. It does not capture more complex real-world preferences like “I prefer 5000K, but I wouldn’t be upset with 4500 or 4000, both of which I strongly prefer to 3500, but even that is better than 6500”.

There are voting systems that do capture such preferences, and TK will be using one for the poll.

I don’t know how to vote. Not sure where this email box is that I’m supposed to put my username…feeling kinda lost. :slight_smile: