You might be happy to hear that this has a few differences from the D4:
Regulated output up to about 1100 lm
There is a good chance the emitters won’t run as hot as the D4-219
Thermal regulation is smoother, less prone to oscillating, more configurable, and has a higher floor
The ramp ceiling can be set lower than turbo, and by default is set to the highest regulated level
Preset levels are available too, and are configurable to whatever you like. The default is about 10 lm to 1100 lm, in 7 steps.
Other practical improvements have been added, like faster access to lockout, and momentary moon during lockout. Direct access to the ceiling level from off. Predictable ramping direction without having to remember anything. Plus a bunch of extra modes and extras.
I don’t think anyone is sitting around, delaying the light while we all decide what kind of emitter we want. This is all just people talking, feeling good about their reasons for choosing a tint or type of emitter.
In the end the scrolls will be carefully handed to the manufacturer with the results of the emitter poll and they’ll say “Huh? oh, no, we got a good deal on some 6500k emitters that almost look like Cree made them. Thanks anyway!”
You’ll notice Fritz posted some pics of the latest version and it’s looking great. Or terrible because it doesn’t have swarf and burrs hanging off of it.
(Swarf and Burrs will be the name of my soft rock duo.)
These folks are not some fancy engineering managers ruling over a 20 million euro project with an iron hand and a grumpy heart, they just seem to be drawn here while they await the coming of the special, daresay, Elegant triple.
I did a quick thermal test just now. With the XP-G3 emitter it came with, and while holding the light in my hand, thermal regulation slowly reduced output from about 1080 lm to 800 lm, and then settled at about 800. The change was too smooth to see by eye, but it showed up in my light box. Then to make sure it wasn’t just the battery sagging, I held the button to ramp it back up to the ceiling, and it went back up as expected.
Results might not be so gentle when using full FET turbo though. It’s recommended that people treat turbo as a burst mode for brief use only, and don’t expect it to throttle itself gracefully when at full power.
Before testing, I calibrated thermal settings:
Navigate to tempcheck mode. It said the current temperature was 29 C, which wasn’t correct. This is expected though, when it hasn’t been configured yet.
4 clicks for thermal config mode.
At the buzz, 20 clicks to tell it the current temperature is 20 C.
Optional: At the second buzz, 20 clicks to tell it to set the thermal ceiling to 50 C. (30 C + N clicks) (optional because 50 C is the default)
That only needs to be done once, and then it’ll remember.
Sounds like things are progressing very nicely. I’m getting exited. I’m glad to hear they got the message about gluing things together. That’s a concern I had.
Thanks for the insight TK, by no means I believe the D4 firmware is lacking, just that for me it is more of a show off light, very fun to use but not so practical for everyday tasks. The changes on the FW3A FW sounds great and that makes it a light that I would definitely EDC.
Thanks for the work on this TK!
May I ask only 2 questions (more)?
a)The last prototype arrived with 10511 optics. Does it mean that production will be done with those optics? I actualky like it more than the 10507 and it produces a better beam IMO
b) Was there a practical or technical reason to not consider Luxeon V as a possible type of emitter? No need to justify, I would only want to understand if these emitters will not be good for this light!
Again, thank you and Fritz and all the team involved on this!! And pepinfaxera for the updates:THUMBS-UP:
The plan is to use the 10511 optic, because it produces a much smoother beam and can be polished pretty easily to increase throw if desired. The polished version throws at least as well as 10507, IIRC, but still looks better. I don’t know why they don’t manufacture one like that.
The Luxeon V isn’t XP-sized, which makes it not compatible with the other emitter choices.
Invalid vote
Confusion
To vote 1 is to put it in first place?
or do I prefer to vote 5 and give 5 votes?
My favorite is XP-L
I gave him one vote. Was I wrong?
