DARKSIDE | NYMPH (10440 twisty Fet+1 flashlight w/ 4k 9050 219C)

Thanks for all the kind words guys! And huge thanks to mattlward for all of the excellent constructive feedback about the beta light. Could not have sent it to a better guy.

Just wanted to add, for those that might not believe the numbers…. the little 10440 Li-ion cells can actually deliver over 3A in direct drive. My Texas Poker uses these and while I’ve had it making 1100 lumens before I finally settled on the Nichia 219C for it and it’s at 738 lumens in Turbo on a 12mm FET +1 driver I built myself several years ago. This light has been running strong for over 5 years… so yes, it actually is very doable and I’m excited to see the workmanship on this light.

Not sure what’s currently available but I’ve always found the Efest 10440 to be exceptional for my neck light, will continue using these I’m sure. Until you’ve seen this type of light in action, it’s pretty unbelievable. The output is so much larger than the actual light, they sure do come in handy!

Anyone not liking the price… consider that I paid $800 for the little Texas Poker to be built from a bar of surgical grade Ti that I had for years. I honestly didn’t expect it to run that high, but in the end I wouldn’t do it differently. This is truly a custom made one of a kind light and as such, the price reflects the effort that Photon Fanatic put into it. Wasn’t easy carving a 1” bar of Ti into this small light. That said, I know good and well Hoop spent many working hours developing this beauty, the external style shows an intricacy beyond the price by an easy tenfold! Grab em up people! You don’t find work like this these days! Especially not at the asking price!

Thanks Dale. Yea, there’s quite a bit of time and money into this light so far. Fun fact: without custom tooling, the beta prototypes each have about an hour and a half machine time into them. This is because the rpm has to be pretty slow to leave a good finish, and each level of the pattern is cut individually multiple times. With custom tooling ($,$$:money_mouth_face: the pattern will be much faster to cut though.

The Efest 10440 IMR V1 is an awesome little cell. The 219C pulls almost 3A from it. It absolutely does 700+ OTF lumens for a short while.

I can confirm that a well-made AAA-size light in combination with the Efest 10440 is an amazing combination. My copper Maratac with the little Mtn FET-driver and 4000K 80CRI XP-L2 does 960lm at startup and 650lm at 30 seconds (maukka calibration), and actually has increasing output then because the battery warms up. And the Maratac has a mediocre aluminium pill that spoils quite some performance, Hoop’s design is much better. (It also runs for 16 hours at 4 lumen on that tiny battery, you have all options).

Very…VERY nice, though I strongly miss a lug or a hole so I could hang it on my neck….

thats a beautiful light Hoop!

As a side note, since there’s still space left in the ROM, it may be worthwhile to add a little extra code to under-clock the MCU on the lowest level. It could increase runtime on moon while also making the output more stable at different voltages.

I’m not sure how much it would change the power usage, since I haven’t tried that on tiny13 before, but it’s a thing to maybe try.

Is there enough extra ROM space to put your code for selecting how many “levels” it has? :smiley:

(I know, I know… “dead horse” and all that stuff :stuck_out_tongue: )

It’s probably possible, but it’d be a lot of extra work and it’d be a pain to navigate a config mode on a twisty.

I understand all that. I’m just one person out of all potential buyers. So, I’m probably not even nearly representative enough to warrant the extra work needed to make it possible. However, on the issue of it being “a pain to navigate a config mode on a twisty” I will just leave it at this: It’s a pain I’d be willing to endure, since I’d only do it once anyway. Again, other peoples’ opinions may differ. :smiley:

A twisty with a SPRING! Even tougher as the contact would be a soft touch as the spring makes contact and begins to compress.

My Texas Poker is a “crusher”. Works great but is very cell specific… not a problem here as there is really only one cell that is available in this size to supply the current a DD set-up requires.

positive terminal and the FET look to be too close

most of the 3.3mm site have 2 tiny contacts on the sides which would collide with it

LFPAK33 are better suited as they dont plus they have a fin

also I would go to 0402 parts for the FET resistors and add 4.7Ohms and a 0.1uF cap on MCU

also the viases without any copper around it and the small diameter make boards pretty expensive,
standard fabs make cheap with 0.3mm drill and 6mil copper around it

Pogo pin programmer will be beast if you got one or better 2 of the pads being vises to align the pins

It’s a twisty with an e-switch. Battery tube compresses the switch, so it shouldn’t be hard to operate. BTW, it opens new UI options as unlike a clicky it has 3 states:

  • power off
  • button depressed
  • button pressed
    Though it may not be easy to distinguish 1 and 2.

What gives you that idea?

There are two states:

  • Battery connected.
  • Battery not connected.

There is no e-switch. Just a metal cylinder for the battery to touch.

Super nice Hoop!

The black box on the driver looks totally like a switch.

its a good oldschool AMC7135

Yeah, that’s a 7135 mounted upright… not a switch.

OK, thanks for clarification.

Twisty with a spring like the old school Surefire lights or with out the spring like the Zero Rez switch, that can be used as a twisty or push button if set up correctly. I have guppydrv. and guppydrv3 on most of my Surefire lights with stock or zero rez switch not a problem when it comes to changing modes or mode groups with the mechanical push button set up.