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

I’d be interested in 1 please.

Thanks. Been around CPF for … a long time … and happened across this a few weeks ago, finally signing up.

Cool. Got a feel for how volunteer efforts go so I’m patient.

Already mid-August and this light still isn’t ready for production.

I wonder if these will ship before the end of the year. Seems to be awfully slow.

Sho nuff, but Lumintop has been pretty busy. They recently released the ODF30, the ODL20C, GT Mini and GT70. I’m guessing they may not have a lot of resources right now to work on the FW3A. It seems like once they devote some people to it, the project is capable of moving very quickly.

We are approaching the busy season in China. I also hope we can get these lights this year.

Hey, if I was in Lumintop HQ the FW3A would not be my first priority…
Look : the GT is a best-seller but is quite pricey for the average flashaolic… so what do we do ? We make a MINI GT, which has nothing revolutionary, a basic FET driver with a free firmware, an XP-L HI, a SMO reflector and VOILA a nice pocket thrower with a familiar design so everyone wants it…
OTHO, the FW3A gives us some problem because, you know, it’s a bit tricky to make an insulated aluminum tube that doesn’t wear with time…

Anyway, I’m sure I’m not the only one who is annoyed by all this waiting time…
I might end NOT buying it because the novelty has faded…

I just wonder if all those lights have a +1500 (near 2000?) interests list on them, or eventually a close number of buyers…

I do see they have to match the competition of other brands, but…almost 2000 units (despite it’s cheap price) must mean something!!
I am sure that the hundred thousands of people that participates on forums and watches YouTube flashlight’s reviews would be interested in having something like the FW3A!

Just my point!

Used to work for a small manufacturer as a designer. We did short runs of our parts in house - mostly prototypes and high-urgency components - but mostly bought from machine shops and sheet metal houses. I was quite frequently reminded that as many hours as I would put into designing and documenting a part as a design drawing, a vendor would then have to put a similar effort into a production drawing specific to their equipment, run prototypes, then optimize their own workflow so as to balance setups verses delivery schedules. As a smaller outfit, we ended up back of the line and/or buying larger quantities than were ideal at times just to get parts made at all or with a predictable delivery date.

I don’t know what Lumintop’s production volumes are like, but I suspect that a run of ~2000 is on the low end for a custom design with so many unknowns relative to their own doubtlessly higher-volume products.

Then again, I only heard about the FW3A about two months ago and signed up … yesterday … so I’ve not been anticipating for anywhere near as long as everyone else.

I for one would settle for the basic version coming out first :slight_smile:

I don’t think a 21700 version is realistic without a significant redesign

Hi. I’m the one who took that picture. I also wrote the code for both the D4S and FW3A.

It’s no longer soon-to-be-released; it started shipping a couple weeks ago.

Nope.

The D4S has three power channels:

  • 3x7135 (0 to ~400 lm, regulated)
  • FET (~400 to ~6000 lm)
  • aux LEDs

The FW3A also has three power channels:

  • 1x7135 (0 to ~160 lm, regulated)
  • 7x7135 (~160 to ~1100 lm, regulated)
  • FET (~1100 to ~3000 lm)

Adding aux LEDs would mean redesigning the driver, but we don’t have someone to do that any more. And redesigning the MCPCB. And it would mean sacrificing some other feature to free up a pin… or switching to a bigger MCU. These things aren’t going to happen before release.

Also nope. That’s a complete host redesign, which isn’t the planned direction after this project. The FW3A is aluminum, FW3B would be brass, FW3C would be copper, FW3T for titanium…

If it were up to me, I’d make the next one a single-emitter model with 18350 or 16340. Basically a clone of the Olight S-Mini, with better emitter choices and fancier firmware.

Me too.

I hear Lumintop has CAD files for proto3 though, and is working on manufacturing it. In theory, this is the final sample. So hopefully that can get approved without any further issues and then production can start.

Whoa! What is the timeframe for those releases after the FW3A?

Sometime before the next manned mission to Mars.

… probably.

LOL…Good answer!

They are also doing some special runs for Massdrop in the AA tool and AAA tool configurations.

Yeah, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge in the last year and 4 months since this project started

A single emitter for the next version would be great. I’d still prefer 18650 though. Nonetheless, it’s very premature. I’m still looking forward to this one. I think it will be worth the wait.

:smiley:

But the 2000 is not your typical production run of a new product, which would normally be speculative and require marketing effort.

In this case the 2000 is guaranteed sales, the product is already known to a large audience, and there is guaranteed ongoing discussion of the product to a wide audience independant of marketing efforts. Sounds to me like these factors make this one of the least risky ways to take a stab at a new product. Unless it has major flaws which are not solved soon after launch it is practically certain it will be a success and sales will continue well beyond the 2000.

I don’t know what the ultimate over/under is on BLF special editions, but there’s typically some falloff between initial hands raised and committed purchases in these sorts of ventures. I imagine that they’ll all eventually sell even if some of the original pledges walk away, but I Wouldn’t take that 2000 figure as guaranteed sales.

I’ll agree that a project like this is probably free market research for any manufacturer that takes on the project and indicative demand outside of the BLF market.

It’s futile trying to figure out the motivations of the Chinese flashlight companies. I don’t even try. It’s less stressful that way. :smiley:

If I recall correctly, people were keeping track of follow-through rate on the Q8 project. The main issue was that the manufacturer couldn’t keep up with demand, not that people didn’t buy what they pledged for. I think the follow-through rate was something like 95% before the purchases opened up for general audiences, and then it has continued going up since then.

Other projects have mostly gone that way too. So it’s probably pretty safe for Lumintop to make 2000 units, especially if they do 1000 each of two flavors.