The throw on this D4S XP-L 5000 is great!
Got me wondering what the 6500 will do, it’s on its way, due Tuesday.
I just received my pair of D4S from Mountain and am thrilled with the results. The XPL-HI NW 5000K and the Nichia 216c 5000K 90CRI. Pleased to report both a winners in the tint lottery, very pleasing to the eye with excellent color rendition, a truly neutral white. No noticeable tint artifacts or shifting. If the rest of the light was mediocre (which is FAR from the truth — it is excellent!) I would be sold on the quality of the emitters ALONE.
I did notice fairly quickly the Nichias generate much more heat more quickly at high output levels, and after 60 seconds of turbo the XPL-HI was noticeably brighter, also $18 more expensive.
Im so impressed with the quality of tint on both emitters, the clincher for me, that if you had to have just one, spend the extra and go with the XPL-HI 5000K NW. The Nichias color rendition is superb, perhaps offsetting its heat penalty, which is really only evident at long interval high level settings/turbo. With fully charged cells, the Nichia is actually noticeably brighter than the XPL-HI NW with 3.7V cells.
The real lottery winner is the XPL-HI 5000K NW. Compared to the BLF Q8, the D4S XPL-HI NW has a much better, even pure white tint, vs the Q8 and its yellowish halo around the hotspot and slightly warm artifacting in general.
While not 90CRI, the XPL-HI impressed me greatly with its color rendition quality. Produces less heat and greater overall output than the Nichia. Bottom line, if it has to be one, go with the XPL-HI NW 5000K. OTOH, the exceptional tint quality of BOTH is so good, the die hard tint fanatic should be very happy with BOTH. It’s really a best of both worlds scenario here with the excellent D4S.
I was going to experiment with the XP-G2 at 5700K, but budget limitations kicked in. I’d be really interested to hear from someone with the CW 6500K XPL-HI and how it compares to the 5700K XP-G2.
I used to be a die hard CW fan, yet recently have warmed to neutral tints in favor of sheer maximum lumen numbers, perhaps a midlife crisis adaptation, hmmmmm.
One small nitpick, but serious. The lanyard mounting hole is a very small square cut machined into the end of the tailcap, its edges are RAZOR sharp, a bit uncomfortable. Requiring a bit of Dremel massage or grip tape to cover it.
Oh! Almost forgot... the Bonus Easter Egg feature... the (i’ll Wager it’s neodymium) magnet in the tailcap is wonderful, extremely powerful, so you will love it or hate it. With it, and 2 D4Ss, you easily place them end to end (be CAREFUL when you do this, at first) and together they form a very strong bond, in fact an entirely new Q8 Killer form factor: like the double-edged Light Saber from Star Wars.
End to end, its a much more comfortable, naturally balanced, lighter weight, and better fit in the hand than the BLF Q8. In ceiling bounce tests, the XPL-HI NW actually edges out the BLF Q8 with 30Q cells on turbo and holds its own against the BLF Q8 over most of its battery life, with just a single (the exceptional Shockli 5500mAh 26650) cell.
When 2 are conjoined by tail magnet, you have double the runtime AND output for less than the weight of the BLF Q8. It’s a single cell Q8 killer, that when doubled, becomes a Q8 Dominator. My fun nickname for the D4S Squared Configuration.
For the true DieHard: The D4S Squared “Dominator” EDC, if it has to be only One... (here’s 2-in-1 :-) )
Conclusion: this is an exceptional “total package” flashlight, with every detail for high performance already turn-key and built in, and an exceptional value for the money. Highly recommended, with exceptional prompt customer service and shipping from Mountain Electronics. Kudos and Thanks, Richard !!
Congrats to the other owners, and strong recommendations to the BLF community!
Cheers and Good Lux!
This is probably answered elsewhere already, but I’m unable to find it…
The Anduril files for the Q8/GT/D4/D1/D1S/D4S/FW3A can be found here:
http://toykeeper.net/torches/fsm/
- I notice the Anduril for D4 doesn’t identify if it works for 219C or XPL-Hi (my guess is it works for both)
- there are 2 different Anduril files for D4S - one is for 219C while the other is for “the others” — my guess is the 219C also follows the “80%” of max power, that was mentioned above, or are there other differences?
~
Another question: where can I find the “stock/factory” hex files for RampingIOS v2 (for D4/D1/D1S) and stock RampingIOSv3 (for D4S)? In case I want to test the “stock” firmwares again after flashing them to other firmwares like Anduril…
My green XP-G2 S4 3D came in today. The slew of tiny LED’s on when the light is off is just stunning! 
Output is really pretty too, nice tint from the XP-G2 3D, have a Shockli 5500mAh 26650 button top charging up and I’ll get lumens and lux numbers. Sorry it’s taking me so long Valera, wife wasn’t feeling the greatest and needed me to go with her to get groceries…
An initial read on Turbo showed me 3529 lumens with the cell down around 4.09V as I recall… (I wrote down the lumens numbers but didn’t write down what the cell showed when I stuck it in the charger, should have)
EDIT: Forgot to mention, it is NOT glued, bezel comes off easily enough and the optic falls right out. 
The 219c version is identical except that the FET part of the ramp has all the values multiplied by 80%. This is to reduce risk of making the emitters burn themselves. The D4 also has a 219c version, but I didn’t have the automated multi-target build system in place at the time so it’s not included in the automatic builds yet.
The stock hex files aren’t really published, but the source code is. If you flash back to RampingIOS V3, it may be best to build from the latest source in case there are any updates or bugfixes. Maukka found a bug that I hope to fix soon — usually the stepped ramp works as expected, but when given some specific config values it behaves a little weird. The specific values are floor=1, ceil=146, steps=10 (1 click, 5 clicks, 10 clicks). So I’m hoping to fix that soon and send new .hex files to Hank.
I tried translating the code directly to Python for testing, but the bug doesn’t happen there. So I suspect it may be an integer overflow issue or something. Next I’ll try exporting the relevant bits of code to a standalone C program, and then have it test every possible set of values, to identify the cause of the issue and make sure it’s really fixed.
I just measured mine with XP-G2 S4 3D emitters at 5M and it shows 34.25Kcd for 370.135M throw.
Appreciate the detailed explanations.
Would it be possible to request for the updated RampingIOS .hex files when they get updated? (So far, I have only learned how to flash pre-existing .hex files, but not to build .hex files from source code…) Thanks in advance.
I have a d4s xpl 5000k already… i love it so much. Its not too yellow or too white…
Do you happen to have a lumen specs with your tube ? Of course with the fully charged 26650. Thanks
I swapped the XP-G2 S4 3D’s out for Samsung LH351D 5000K at 80CRI. On the Shockli 26650 at 4.13V it’s making 4988.7 lumens. I used 18ga Turnigy leads and synthetic diamond thermal compound putting it back together.
When I charged up the Shockli to begin with, the XP-G2’s didn’t show above 3529 lumens.
So if I were to swap XPL-HIs into my 219C D4S, they would only get 80% power? Or is that for ramp ceiling only and turbo is still 100%?
Also, thanks for your work on this light, it’s amazing.
Sure, though I don’t know when that will be, exactly.
For now, the most recent builds are here:
http://toykeeper.net/torches/emisar-d4s/dev/rampingiosv3.2018-07-14.hex
http://toykeeper.net/torches/emisar-d4s/dev/rampingiosv3.219c.2018-07-14.hex
Yes, even turbo is limited to 80%. There wouldn’t really be any point in limiting the power if it didn’t apply to turbo, since it’s the primary mode which was giving people problems.
I suggested LH351D as an alternative since, from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t run into the same heat issues. But I don’t know if that will happen. Ideally, I think it would work well to do 2x4000K and 2x5000K, both at 90 CRI.
Highest reading yet from 4 Samsung LH351D 5000K 80CRI emitters.
Using a brand new LG HG6 20650 fresh off the charger at 4.20V my new Emisar D4S made 5,920.2 lumens in Turbo mode.
Wow that’s insane! I just got my D4S XP-L HI 5D tint and my TA lumen tube calibrated with Maukka calibration lights measures 3,800 lumens at turn-on using two different Shockli fully charged. I’m surprised the LH351D can make that much more than the XP-G2. On my M43, the XP-G2 5D is brighter than the XP-L HI 5D, which is also much brighter than the LH351D 4000k 90cri.
I’m also very impressed with how nice the auxiliary lights look. Just an idea, would it be possible to make the auxiliary leds glimmer individually by a future driver update? If that’s too hard, maybe having the LEDs “breathe” simultaneously.
BLING!
I think my Samsungs are U6 binning, lot of room on top but they’re considerably brighter than the current 90CRI offering which is why I went with the 80’s… splitting differences as it were.
[quote=SKV89]
Love the idea of making the AUX LED’s breathe!
In terms of max lumens on XP-sized emitters, the scale is generally (from most to least):
- XP-L2 HD
- LH351D
- XP-L HD
- XP-L HI
- XP-G3
- 219c
- XP-G2
- 219b
- XP-E2
If I recall correctly, at least. Assuming other things are equal, like color temperature and CRI. Warmer tints and lower CRI generally produce fewer lumens per watt.
So it’s not at all surprising that a LH351D would beat XP-G2 on lumens. It’s enough steps above that it can still put out more light even with somewhat higher CRI.
The Meteor isn’t a very good way to gauge emitter capabilities. It doesn’t run the emitters as hard as they can go, and it is limited by Amps instead of Watts so it will generally deliver more power to older higher-voltage emitters, like the XP-G2.
Not really. The breathing effect costs a lot of power. Instead of just powering the LEDs (0.03 to 0.90 mA), it requires keeping the MCU awake to pulse the emitters on and off fast enough that it looks like it’s dimming. The MCU by itself requires several times as much power as the LEDs (2 to 6 mA). So “breathing” mode would be less bright and have only a fraction as much runtime.
You could make it “breathe” by changing the firmware, but I don’t think it would be worthwhile.
A point to ponder…
The availability of the Samsungs to date shows us only about mid range output levels. The binning goes up to “W” and then in increments of 1 all the way to 9… I used U6 bin so as you can see, there is a lot more to be discovered from Samsung while Cree is being left behind. The XP-L2’s are not very pretty for flashlights.
Given a disregard for CRI clarity, there are some significantly more powerful Samsung’s available that easily match the Cree XP-L2 in output, showing over 2000 lumens per emitter. I opted for the 80 CRI in 5000K tint to achieve some of the best of both worlds, but am seriously considering going for some of their top bins available just to see what gives. I mean, sure, 5920 lumens sounds really nice and all, but it’s only a measly 1480 lumens per emitter, now on the other hand if I’d left smaller wires in place and purposely limited high current draw then it would be easier on the light, give a more efficient output and in a very pleasing tint with high color rendering. So perhaps it’s time we look at quality a lot harder than quantity.
I know, right?