Fireflies E07 preview

read #1027

Thanks man.

Greetings, All.
I’m new here. This is my first post. I happened upon your site a couple of months ago and noticed the interest in a flashlight called Fireflies E07. I followed the posts daily, the good and the bad of the E07, and three weeks ago ordered the clear, with the XPL 6500, from Neil’s. I could not be happier with it. Its looks and its performance are stunning. Fourseven’s got me started about twelve years ago. However, I was losing interest (on the wagon) after they closed up shop. But your interest in the E07, peaked my interest to the point that I now possess what I consider to be this flashoholic’s dream. Ramping to high is awesome enough. Then double clicking to boost… just blows my mind. Thanks, Guys, for renewing my interest in a hobby I love.

Welcome to the group Doug!

E07 is my fave light Doug, and I have over a 100!

+1! I got over 200 and I'd say my clear ano E07 is in the top 5. There's nothing perfect - wish the clip was better, and there's been some QC problems, but the power for the size, the UI, the button is protected pretty well and still is somewhat easy to find, the looks - it's a winner for sure.

I still might want to get another one in gray and different LED's. The ROT66 isn't so bad either.

I have the gun gray XPL 5K w/purple aux and it is my goto shadowchaser.
I conversed with Jacky re:clear ano w/ice blue aux and matching switch leds.
No joy yet, butt I put my standing bid in for what would be a beautiful combo.
Anyone else want to bug him? (gently)

I have my 1 xpl clear ano and another 1 grey nichia on the way. But honestly if they start matching the aux power button with the lense I will be buying another. I like the pl47 but it looks really top heavy for a angle light, and I’m a angle light fanatic. :person_with_crown:

Hey guys does anyone happen to know which version of Anduril the SST-20 lights use? I know it uses the same build as the PL47 but is it the 219 reduced current version or the full current one?

I don’t think Fireflies uses the PL47-219 build at all. If I understand correctly, all PL47/E07 models use the regular PL47 build.

So just to be clear, even the 219b E07s run the regular version? Does that hold for the ROT66 as well?

The ROT66-219B uses the ROT66-219 firmware, because its driver has fewer 7135 chips.

I don’t actually know why it has fewer 7135 chips, because the 219B emitters could easily handle all 14 chips. But it does, so it needed different firmware to accommodate the different hardware.

My guess is that the reduced number of chips was done to make the NarsilM version regulate down to an appropriate level after it sensed an overheat condition. It may have been easier to take off a few chips than to modify the firmware to set a different step-down level. But that’s not relevant with Anduril, so it would probably be fine now to run the regular driver with the regular firmware on all versions of the ROT66.

Basically, the ROT66 builds are separated by the number of 7135 chips — 7 or 14 chips. It’s not really about the emitter type.

I see, I was under the impression that the turbo mode was limited on the 219 version as the low Vf of the Nichia would cause it to draw too much current and go blue.

The whole reason I’m asking is because I had an early NarsilM 219b ROT66 with no aux LEDs. Long story short it failed and Jacky sent me a replacement head, but not before they sold out of 219s, so I got a modern SST-20 replacement. Was wondering if I had to reflash before swapping out for the 219s, but it sounds like I don’t then! That saves me a lot of trouble.

Thanks TK for your helpful reply!

So mine heats up very slowly on turbo, which I am assuming is down to the poor thermal path/lack of thermal paste issue, so my question is what does this mean for the longevity of the flashlight, and should I therefore avoid turbo to make sure nothing overheats?

If you have the skills to do so, it’d probably be a good idea to pull out the MCPCB, file it down a bit, and put it back in with better thermal contact. Failing that, it’d probably be a good idea to limit the use of turbo, at least with the high-CRI emitters.

It sounds like the MCPCB is so thick that it can still handle heat reasonably well even with the air gap though… and I think the heat transfers to the driver through the power wires, so the driver activates turbo step-down early enough to generally keep things safe.

So, basically, just keep an eye out for a blue shift, and throttle it back hard if that ever happens. Or if you can, open it up to fix things. Be warned though, some of the work involved in that is somewhat delicate. It’s probably not a good first project, but someone with experience should be able to handle it pretty easily.

I’ve been trying to wade through this thread, but it seems like most of the recent posts are about DIY techniques people are using to fix faulty flashlights. Are the problems still ongoing, or have they been fixed in new production? Since FF offers DHL shipping, I would think that the delay from a new order to when its quality can be reported on isn’t going to be super long, like some of the other flashlights shipped by epacket only…right?

Fireflies has supposedly fixed the issue of an air gap under the star by adding a much thicker layer of thermal grease to their latest production run.

However, it is unknown whether that run has made it to market yet. To date, no BLF’er has reported getting a flashlight with the extra thermal grease.

Have there been any reports of issues or fixes for the PL47 or ROT66 — or have the issues been limited to this model only?

Oh well, sounds like it is one for the box of shame, where all the broken things go to die :slight_smile:
I have plenty of reliable flashlights and won’t miss it.

Or you can just use the light and ignore the “under the hood” issues. It will probably still work fine even without opening it up.