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

I seem to have been spoiled by the gang at Emisar, who seem to knock a home run every few months with a ground-breaking new light.

I really doubt the work on the Emisar lights took much less time… you just didn’t see it.

I’d also argue that nothing since the D4 has really been “ground breaking”, and even its wasn’t as crazy as some make it out to be. It more that the combination of features has been impressive… at that price point. That’s much less because they solved some engineering problem than it was smart business sense and a TON of interest prior to release.

Every few months?

Technically the D4 was not groundbreaking, everything about it was already thought out and tested on BLF, the groundbreaking part is that a chinese company (Hank) watched and understood what happened on BLF and trusted that enough to develope a flashlight that combined everything and make it available for a budget price.
That is very far from the usual practice of chinese budget flashlight companies, who are very conservative in their designs and are in the habit of copying what has been shown to sell before more than anything else.

To underline how special it is for a chinese (or any) company to spontaniously make lights the BLF-way:

in 2013 here on BLF we started to use the brand new first DTP-boards (Sinkpads), and found out that on these you can overdrive leds way beyond factory specs and get unprecedented performance, and that they easily survive direct drive on a 18650 li-ion, and it was combined with dedoming leds that was already earlier found on CPF (with the game-changing Cree XR-E) to increase throw immensely.
At the time the stock Jacob A60 budget light was the king of throw, at 55kcd with a XR-E in a 50mm reflector (more expensive manufacturers were not chasing records at all by my knowing, the focus was on reliability). But on BLF, pocket size Ultrafire C8’s were rebuild with dedomed XP-G2’s on Sinkpads, springs bypassed, doing 120kcd and more, with 3 times the output of the A60. And the leds did not fry over time, my oldest dedomed XP-G2 builds from 2013 still produce the same throw numbers.

It took almost another 4 years!! of building proud BLF hotrods that gave stock lights a run for their performance before mainstream manufacturers began first even use DTP boards, let go driving leds beyond factory specs and use direct drivers. And only recently the modders are loosing the output and throw race from the flashlight manufacturers (some very unique mods excepted), but not the budget race yet, throw and output per dollar is still won.

There is a huge market for conservative low output reliable performers, for good reason, but the pure performance segment has taken years to be picked up by manufacturers, and still few companies are operating in it.

We are still best in colour rendering, which will become increasingly important, I think even in flashlights :slight_smile:

That’s exactly why I put so much time into the D4. It was clear that something new and special was happening, and I wanted to make sure Emisar got rewarded for that. It was a way of saying thanks — for listening and for taking a risk to do what people want.

It’s not necessary, but the design of this light checks a lot of boxes for a lot of people, so the question presumably arises simply from eagerness to see it completed.

I’m not going to worry it. I would definitely love to have this light in my pocket as soon as possible, but my investment in it so far is a few posts on this thread, which didn’t cost me very much.

Interesting discussions but, I am going to unsubscribe from this thread.

When and if any light is produced and ready for purchase I guess I will get the email….assuming I am still alive, lol.

As an outsider I’ve got to say that watching companies like Nitecore come out with ‘groundbreaking’ lights lately priced at $200 and $300, I have some appreciation for BLF’s efforts to get products to market for a fraction of the price without the horrific weaknesses of *fire lights on the ’bay/’zon.

That’s a really good point.

Being able to buy, recommend and help develop new lights that are affordable, powerful, customizable and have the backing of many solid minds is rare and wonderful.

I will take one.

My imagination says that what’s causing the delay is heat management. They gotta keep this thing from being a self-torching-torch, leaving scorch marks on everything it touches, and occasionally burning down someone’s house. No joke. It will be powerful enough to start fires under the right conditions. The overheat protection must be reliability tested to a high degree. :confounded:
If they can keep the heat genie in the bottle, the light will be as popular as the A6, if not more. …And that’s another reason for Lumintop to be extra cautious. If they get it right it’s a giant feather in their cap, and thousands of flashlight enthusiasts recommend Lumintop to others… If they screw it up, it’s a Buster Douglas hit to their reputation, difficult to recover from. It’s kinda make-or-break for them.
Furthermore… I’m pretty sure this is Lumintop’s first light with a triple-star. I’m sure they wanted to do this eventually, but we are pushing them into new territory.

Heat is the only thing stopping me from adding several units to my order. I want to see how safe it is, in the real world.
In the meantime, Lumintop is entirely correct to take as much time as they deem necessary to complete this project in a safe manner.

P.S. I wouldn’t be surprised if they cannot hit the price point mentioned in post #1.

If that’s the case they could just crank the thermal regulation all the way down from the factory.

I like your Buster Douglas reference. I think they will hit the target price, or get real close, because there is also the Emisar quad to compete with.

Still optimistic.

If this light happens, I would buy a second one.

PS: This thread, and the BLF lantern thread, make fascinating reading—smart people putting their heads together and working for no reward at the end but a flashlight they still have to buy. I admire the work y’all are putting in on this.

What do you mean? Of course it will happen.

I would not listen to Delusional’s post. I think he’s wrong about the heat causing a delay. Lumintop is not even in charge of that area. The thermal management is programed by ToyKeeper and she has that under control. Plus it’s user adjustable. You can adjust it to heat up more or less depending on your needs.

I think he’s also wrong about it hurting Lumintops reputation if they get something about the light wrong. They will catch it and it will be corrected. Should be no big deal.

Prices are not fixed yet, but since we are this far along and they still think they can sell it for $30, I don’t see any reason why it would go up. It’s a small light so shipping costs should already be known. I can’t think of any other factors to make the price go up.

I would love an S-Mini with better emitter choices and firmware! :heart_eyes:

Point taken. I suck at optimism. It’s my Russian soul.

I think the delay is getting the tube-in-tube durability figured out. Is there a reason they don’t just epoxy the tube inside the other tube so there is no movement or chance for wear between the two causing shorts? Do we need the inner tube to come out for any reason other than the cool factor?

The tube-in-tube design with just anodizing to insulate them never seemed wise.

A better way of doing it is how Liteflux did it in the LF2XT: Have 2 tubes - an inner aluminum tube nesting inside an insulating plastic tube. With 2 tubes, there is zero chance of wear causing a short. And the tubes do not need to be thick… very thin aluminum and plastic tubes should work fine.