Fireflies E07 preview

Hot damn! I’m really excited about this one.

It’s always hard to tell the true color on a computer screen, but I like the dark grey (black?) too. Gonna be hard to decide.

Thanks for the pics.

You say that like you can only get one. Remember when you were a kid and your mom only let you choose one piece of candy? Now you get revenge and buy all the candy!

Oh yeah, my D4S is like that. I forgot. Too many flashlights. Getting hard to keep up.

Thanks cowboygg, appreciate the pics… looking awesome! :smiley:

Guys, this looks awesome:

Maybe polish it before anodizing. (make it shine, round off the sharp edges a little)
Or maybe just don’t anodize it at all, keep the rich natural aluminum gloss.

This looks bead blasted:

That looks cheaper i.m.h.o.

Listen FF folks,
This is not the first time that a “fresh from the machine” body looks better than the final product.

I very much prefer the satiny, bead blasted, look. But I don’t like the bare aluminum look anyway :stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an anodized surface retain the machine finished look of metal. The best way to have a machine-finished flashlight is to… not anodize it. You lose mechanical lockout without it though.

The Convoy L2 has a non bead blasted clear anodized version that looks like fresh off the machine.

Fireflies, have you considered rotated LED pads like Emisar quads?

You laid the pads under 3 angles, clockwise 0°-30°-60°-0°-30°-60° + centre of 0°.
Doing 0°-30°-60°-15°-45°-75° would result in a slightly rounder beam. Not that I expect your current layout to be bad, it’s just that such change in the next MCPCB batch doesn’t cost anything extra and may make some snobs happier. :slight_smile:

Yes, bare aluminum il not a good idea if you need mechanical lockout and a durable finish as bare aluminum is prone to scratches and will tarnish.

Press fitted button retaining ring again :person_facepalming: modding colors won’t be easy.

Please make button retaining ring threaded please!!! :cry:

Where does bare aluminum tarnish? It might oxidize in a high salt environment but otherwise it’s not likely to change IMHO. I have bare lights I machined from scratch 3 years ago that are exactly the same today, I have reflectors I sanded down and polished by hand nearly 5 years ago that are still brilliant.

All our road signs are aluminum, bare on the backside, and I don’t recall ever seeing one “tarnished”, oxidized either for that matter.

And yes, as I already showed, Convoy makes an L2 with machined but anodized finish, no bead blasting. It’s gorgeous!

I think road signs are actually anodized on the back, but i’m not sure.
(Maybe different in different countries)

When you wrote this, i had to take a second look, and maybe you’re not wrong.
Either way, it’s a more durable finish when you bead blast it and anodize it.
Also, you lose the ability to lock out the battery when you have no anodizing.
So in hind sight, i personally agree anodizing is the best option.

It depends if it’s polished or not i.m.o.
The natural gloss of polished bare aluminium i like very much.
But it scratches and dents easily.

Anodizing over polished aluminum would be nice but I doubt FF will do that as should add a good bit to the manufacturing cost and the selling price will have to be higher.

We talked Simon into clear anodizing the L2 straight off the machines, you can easily see and feel the machine marks but it’s anodized and you can do the tail lock-out. Looks like it’s bare or raw, but it’s anodized. Sitting next to my own scratch made lights it looks just like the bare aluminum.

I have seen quite a load of big chunk of machined and polished aluminum, then bathed in acetone and isopropyl alcohol.
It has pale, rich and subtile reflections more like silver than crude, shiny and very metallic reflections of polished stainless steel.
We are working on this bare aluminum in clean room, wearing gloves, mask, etc in a controlled environment to not alter it for later use in high vaccum chamber. It keeps its nice aspect/finish.
I agree that fresh bare aluminum looks really nice but in comparison, my bare aluminum BLF A6 looks aweful, tons of scratches (it’s part of my toolbox) and hand sweat have altered its finish within a fews weeks (used daily (not in clean room)).
Finish durability might depends if a bare aluminum flashlight is a shelf queen or heavily used without particular cautions.

Aluminum doesnt tarnish. But it does oxidize in open air. A film of aluminum oxide starts to develop immediately, after milling. Aluminum oxide is an incredibly hard substance with a rediculously high melting point. But its only a sub-micron thick layer. When welding aluminum it is best to wire brush away this layer to get better welds. Painting aluminum is also a pain in the ass because of this layer this is why most painters use an acid formulated primer for a bond layer to eat away some of that oxide and mechanically adhere to the AL.

That said, the aluminum oxide layer doesnt change the appearance much of freshly milled stock. But over time it does tend to ‘dull’ the surface. Of course, aluminum that i have worked with is usually alloyed with magnesium and silicon. 5xxx, 6xxx series. I would think that the purer the aluminum the better the chance of oxidizing. I am not a chemist but this has been my experience in the field.

Ah, see your points. But an anodized A6 used daily and tossed in a tool box would also show myriad scratches and scrapes and most of the surface ano would be rubbed off. I’ve seen those lights pretty often. Of course a good ano hardens the surface and extends the life of the item which is the entire point. You can get a Military Type III hard anodize without adding the dye to color it, may not be as shiny as it could have been in the raw but it will look much like it did before the ano process. The machining lines can plainly be seen and felt in the L2 done this way. I tested it because of this thread and with the light on, a simple 1/16th turn of the tail cap kills the light, it’s anodized all right…. just can’t tell it by looking at it.

I’m looking forward to this jumbo pocket rocket.