BLF Special Edition Lights - Master List

Thanks all for the updates, and for the discussion in the past several comments. I admit I haven’t been very active in the past few months and the list needs some updating. I’ll work on that soon.

I also have struggled several times with whether to include a project. What exactly makes a light a “BLF Special”? Sometimes it seems very clear and obvious, but some of the builds and lights going on now-a-days seem to be in more of a gray area. Are they truly made by BLF, or really just made for BLF? Sometimes I’m not sure. That’s not to say that we don’t appreciate all that the vendors and retailers do for us here, I’m sure we do, but when I originally set out to attempt the impossible and catalog the history of BLF’s endeavors I wanted it to be just that — the tangible results of the work of BLF and BLFers. But that line has gotten harder and harder for me to see it seems, and I’m self-appointed and have no real say-so anyway :slight_smile: So I welcome any and all input regarding which projects should be on this list. I may have wound up its steward, but this list belongs to all of us.

Yes, it is hard to manage, which flashlight is made by BLF. There are many new flashlights.

Many Flashlights were made by one or some BLF-lers in cooperation with the manufacturers. The new Haikelite Flashlights have TA-Drivers which were build in cooperation with Texas_Ace. The Emisar Flashlights has Ramping iOS from Toykeeper. The Fireflies Flashlighs has drivers and Aux-LED-Boards designed by *Lexel *and partly based on TA-Driver-designs.
And what is with the Noctigon Meteor M43? The driver-firmware was build by drJones.
But all these Flashlighs was not build inside the community in this forum.
Who is involved in the Lumintop GT Mini or GT Micro? At least they use the open source firmware Narsil from Toykeeper.
What is with pre-production flashlights which were reviewed in the BLF and the reviewer gives some suggestions based of his/her thoughts and community thoughts to the manufacturer. For example the Astrolux MF02 with its bigger usable reflector-diameter. Or the Sofirn SP36 in cooperation with djozz.
Or the Sofirn Q8 which is only a little update to great Thorfire BLF Q8 from the same factory.
Or the new designed battery carryers for the BLF Q8 and Sofirn Q8.
What is with wishes to the manufacturers by the community for sofirn flashlights: Andúril 2 coming to Sofirn - The general Sofirn development thread

The early BLF special edition flashlights had only little updates wished by the community, e.g. an updated/modyfied driver or a copper mcpcb or only with BLF serial number. The latest BLF SE flashlights were complete new flashlights designed by BLF members, such as the BLF Q8, the Lumintop BLF GT or the FW3A, including the host-design, the driver-design and -firmware, the choosen LED and so on.

I think the main list schould list all flashlights which were diskussed and designed in the community.
And another list schould contain flashlights with BLF-Firmware or/and other parts designed by BLF members. But this could be a long, fast growing list. Or perhaps this could be long lists, if they are splittet into more lits by different criteria.

First of all, we have to define some criteria.

But the best of all is, that we get better and better flashlights for better prices. Overall its a good trend to nicer flashlights.

Narsil is from Tom E. not Toykeeper, sorry.
GT mini, micro is TA for the driver part

wut? Uhh, I wrote Narsil, then NarsilM. I based NarsilM on my original e-switch firmware that did not have ramping, but was already for the Attiny85. This was the plan for the Q8 - to use the original mode set e-switch firmware, which had already been around for a while. For example, I recall VOB really liking that UI and I thought a few others that used it did as well, so this is why we went with it. It was based on the "Werner UI", but I added some twists/tweaks to it.

But... (big but) Narsil, based on original e-switch, was always based on earlier Attiny13A/25 stuff around -- I didn't develop it in a vacuum, I used existing start-up, interrupt handling, hardware I/F code that was already published, and why not? I'm not making money on this, though there has been some, but if I calculated it, it would probably be under the minimum wage rate. I recall spending full weekends, which at my rates, would be thousands of dollars, and gotten a small fraction of that.

As far as the features, some stuff is my original thing, some came from others, some came from others' ideas, some tweaks were added to original code/ideas, all of the above. TK of course provided input to Narsil, and I think she used some of my ideas from Narsil in Anduril (I think but not sure I can take credit there), but that's all good, how it supposed to work.

I do still work on/use NarsilM, though I've not have time to follow through with commitments -- my fault. I do need to spend more time though on Anduril, to understand it, possibly tweak it in areas to my own liking, but the framework is superior to NarsilM for sure, and there's more features fit in to the same code space, so it's all good. If I had time, that's what I'd be doing now - either using Anduril as-is or modding/updating it in areas that NarsilM may still have advantages (custom HW support perhaps), or possible tweaks in the UI. I think the docs is one area lacking but TK and others are improving on that right now.

I got a crazy full-time consulting gig, and some health issues, and just plain old age to deal with as of late which all doesn't help.

Nice, we got some info straight from Tom E. I deleted my post.

@Tom E.

I am delighted that the work on NarsilM has not stopped!

Tom, do you think it is possible to send Thorfire/Sofirn a firmware update for the Q8?
I think they use still v1.0 on the BLF and Sofirn version.

v1.2 beta
has the option to go reverse in modes and strobes and bug fixes.
Imho Sofirn does not use v1.2 because it has a Beta label and you where not around.

And can you change the default 8 seconds for configuration menu to 16 seconds?
Some have problems with that
(I mentioned here one guy NarsilM - configurable e-switch firmware for Multi channels, v1.3 - #418 by joechina )
Texas Ace use this in his lights as standard and has no complaints about people landing accidentally in config.

I could, probably should... I think I'm in troubles with Barry, maybe Tracy, Hank, just to mention a few... PM me - I'll really try to answer very soon.

I discovered this forum 7 years ago, but I didn’t “get it” back then, as much I do now. man did I missed out :person_facepalming: :frowning:

The history behind the Q8 is intriguing, thanks for sharing Tom E.

RampingIOS V1 was made by Tom E, based on Narsil. RampingIOS V1 and NarsilM are both divergent branches of Narsil. About 98% or 99% of the code was written by Tom E.

RampingIOS V2 is the same thing, but I added and changed some things at Emisar’s request.

RampingIOS V3 is has completely different origins; I created it as a parallel fork of Anduril.

It’s almost entirely by Tom E. I only made like 1% of it (he used some short header files I wrote). It’s just barely enough that I can bother manufacturers about following the license, instead relying on Tom to do it. He’s pretty busy.

The M43 firmware was created by INFERION at Fonarevka. It’s a custom version of his Indigo firmware. DrJones and BLF were not involved.

The BLF 348 AAA flashlight is still in production with a Nichia NVSW219BT LED.See https://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_554388.html?wid=1433363#goodsDetail

And the Sofirn C01 with Yuji led is not in development anymore, in the meantime even sold out.

Tom E.

“”and just plain old age to deal with as of late which all doesn’t help.“”

Simple cure there lad.

I’m 77 yrs.
Just walk along any area on a warm sunny day. Beaches/Foreshores are perfect.

Peruse the lithe beautiful body’s. Thinking back 60 yrs or so.

It puts a spring in your step and a twinkle in the eye.

NOT… a “dirty old man” Just reminiscing a little.
we were All there once.
I’ve got 8 Granddaughters from 11 yrs to 33yrs.
So they keep me young’(ish)
Have a great one hey.

I have a question. Will there be a BLF zoomie flashlight? A big zoomie like Uniquefire 1405 or 1508 ? I would love to buy it. I am too stupid come up with an original design, but since this forum created a BLF lantern, a BLF GT thrower and a BLF Q8 soda can flashlight + a bunch of other flashlights, making a BLF zoomie should be possible as well.

There was the Cometa a few years ago that used Toykeeper’s firmware. Frankly, zoomie are a style of light that is not so great to use. You get full brightness with a wide beam and maybe 1/4 1/3 brightness when focused tight. I keep my Cometa in the box.

Really cool idea!! A bright zoomie. Maybe multiple color leds and shapes you can make…?

Yeah, I have a few zoomies, and I never use them...

(By the way, I think you have the highlighted part backwards.)

I wish you would get full brightness with a wide beam!

No, I got it right. I measured 810 lumen on wide angle. As you narrow the focus the output drops to 270 lumen. The battery is still drawing the high amps and the led is still generating lots of heat, but you only get a fraction of the lumens. Hmmm, it’s exactly 1/3 the output so that’s a 66% loss in brightness.

I'm sorry, but that's not how zoomies work.

EDIT:

Zoomies are brightest in throw mode.

They are very dim, in comparison, in flood mode.

I own several zoomies, and have read about them on BLF for years.

He’s just using the wrong word. What he means by “brightness” is the total lumens output, which is definitely lower in throw mode, because of various losses. Some of the losses are inherent in the design, and some are because of low quality parts and/or bad design.

Now you both have it wrong.

A zoomie will output many more lumens in throw mode than in flood mode.

Am I the only one on BLF with zoomie common sense?