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

Please add 2 more for me making a total of 6 :person_facepalming:

(Iā€™m giving away all but 2)

Yeah, Iā€™m sticking to that story

My first group buy and post on BLF.
In for 1!

ā€¦ one could get a lot less for more money, WHY is this so affordable? Shhhhh, quiet!

10,660 is obscene!

So, if I were to buy an FW3A, how many lumens would be too many lumens? :wink:

LOL, maybe the other directionā€¦ high CRI lower output emitters, high capacity cell for run time. Quality over quantity.

What? It could happen!

There you goā€¦ put a handful of Yuji emitters in there! How about the BC-3030?

For me, itā€™s about output first and foremost. If we could pack 30,000+ lumens into a package the size of an Emisar D4 with a 18350 tube that (somehow) doesnā€™t get hot SUPER quick, thatā€™s what Iā€™d like to see.

Question for you Dale: of all the emitters youā€™ve used over the years, is there much of a difference in heat created by different emitters running at the same wattage? Does a XML2, XPL2, XHP35 etc heat up the same at sayā€¦ 10 watts? I wonder if there will ever be technology that would give us LEDā€™s that donā€™t get hot as quickly and could give us 30,000 lumens in a pocketable flashlight.

Welcome to BLF! You got in on a good one, and at a good point.

This sounds less like a flashlight and more like a camera flash. Lol

WELL, 10 watts from an MT-G2 doesnā€™t make much heat. Especially from a 9V variant MT-G2. Barely running. 10 watts from an XHP-35 is pretty miserly as well, still making lumens, just running well within itā€™s limits. See a pattern here?

30,000 lumens, pocketable, and we win the lottery twice a year, right? All fly Lear Jets and drive Corvettes? See a pattern here? Even if the emitter technology headed us that direction, what Alien is going to bring the battery technology up to par? Canā€™t say it wonā€™t happen, but itā€™s doubtful Iā€™ll live to see itā€¦ never know though. My Dad is 90, remembers lighting their house with kerosene lampsā€¦

Hahaha I guess one can dream right! I kind of figured watts = energy = heat in one way or another. I was just curious as to wheather the newer LEDā€™s were getting exponentially more efficient in energy to output or not really.

I suppose the next step would be to put a laser behind a diffuser lens and see what you get. Maybe a triple; red, blue, green lasers with a heavily frosted optic.

Or just carry around a MT09R :+1:

The thing is that we tend to push these emitters up against the ceiling, and of course theyā€™re inefficient up there. We need to lower our demands to conserve that heat and bring them into the realm of efficiency, maybe use 70.2ā€™s in 12V at lower current and use more of them, something like that. Like the SST-40 really shines over an XM-L2, but not so much at lower levels as the Cree is more efficient down there. So we need some lights like this one that are elegant, stylish, more of the gentlemanā€™s EDC than a Search and Rescue master blaster. There needs to be diversity, not an all or nothing approach.

Yā€™all didnā€™t think I could see that, did ya? :stuck_out_tongue: Of course I like making a light do all it can do, but when I use them I typically spend most of my time in level 4 or 5 of 7. :wink:

This is one of the things I love about Anduril, itā€™s two lights in oneā€¦ the ramp ceiling keeps the light sane, a good all around working light. Double click to find the alter egoā€¦ :smiley:

Iā€™d like to grab one please

Put me down for one, please.

I havenā€™t set up anything yet. Iā€™ve been a bit busy testing the light todayā€¦

ā€¦ which brings up a thing people should be aware of for these samples. They seem to have shipped with 10508 or 10509 optics, which are both significantly more floody than the 10511 optic it is intended to have. I heard back from Neal today about this, and Lumintop hasnā€™t received its order of 10511 optics yet so they used some others they had in stock.

1. No. Zebralights use buck/boost drivers, which are more efficient than linear drivers. The FW3A uses a linear driver.

2. The ramp is not the same as the D4. The full details are in the cfg-fw3a.h file, but hereā€™s a summary:

  • 1 to 65: 1x7135
  • 66 to 130: 8x7135
  • 131 to 149: 8x7135 + FET
  • 150: FET only

I like floody. How much more floody is the 10508 than the10511? And can I purchase this 10508 optic somewhere and just drop it in myself without issue? The beam shown on Maukkaā€™s review looked terrific to me!

Iā€™m hoping at least one of the prototype testers can swap a 10511 from one of their other lights and put it on the FW3A so we can see what the pattern really looks like.

With the wrong optic and emitter, we canā€™t really evaluate that whole aspect of the light. Bummer.