In the spirit of transparency, below is a copy of an email I just sent to The Miller at the only email address I have for him. Hopefully he is doing well & in good health and will address this matter when he sees fit.
ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦.
Subject: Item needs attentionā¦.
Hello Wim,
I hope this email finds you doing well & in good health.
There is a matter at BLF that needs your attention.
It is the thread you started about āFuture Projects Donationsā. It has not been updated since 1 October 2017. It shows a balance of $486.37.
If this is not correct, please update with the correct amount or delegate someone to do so.
If it is correct, please either start administering this fund or deligate someone to do so
Below is a link to the thread and the accounting summary when last updated 1 October 2017.
Again, I hope you are well & in good health.
Best regards,
Chuck
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āTalk about future projects and donation topicā
BLF DONATIONS OVERVIEW
Total input 830,52
Total spend 344,15
Funds left 486,37
I just sent an email to him as well, little more personal but along the same lines, CC'ing djozz and MrsDNF. Sorry to leave anyone out but feel strongly that djozz and the Mrs should be included.
Thatās fine. I would have CCād also but I do not have anyone elses email address. So I just posted it here instead, nothing to hide. I had The Millers email address from a couple of years ago. I hope it is still correct, it is the same one in the OP btw.
Good:
Low height = compact head
Wide opening = wide post = superb thermals
Short zooming movement
Interesting looks.
Bad:
They claim 3 degree beam with XP-E which seems a bit optimistic - Endermanāt calculator claims 3.5 degree for a reflector of this size.
And the beamshot doesnāt seem fully focused - the central lens should produce a square die projection clearly visible on the wall.
The rim at the edge complicates waterproofing.
When a TIR is in focused mode both the lens and the outer āreflectorā part are active.
You can see this when looking at a led lenser light that is zoomed in:
The reflector part is what causes the spot to be round, unlike with a purely aspheric optic.
Also they probably just rounded the divergence down to 3 degrees, itās not a huge difference.
Sorry, off track, but this thread reminded me -- I did hear back from The Miller from an email I sent. It took a while, and the response was a while ago, but I thought he said he'd address it. I didn't want to pressure him though, so dunno when.
If you can get a response from The Miller, Iād like to make sure he gets a FW3A. I think Neal would probably be willing to send it to him for free, but if not, I donāt mind buying him one. The problem is that he has been pretty much unreachable. I hope heās okay.
In my experience and product that tries to combine two or more functions ends up sucking at one or both of them. Iād rather a BLF headlamp focused on low weight, paired with a lantern adapter
, since theyāre usually hard to get a diffuser onto.
Thatās often the case. And pretty much always - 2 dedicated items will do a better job.
But 2 dedicated items is 50% more cost and twice the bulk.
Halving the bulk is my motivationā¦
2 separate items that would have the same total size and weight as the combined one - really couldnāt compete.
Hereā¦this is an easy case to make both functions right.
Actually I wanted to propose just one (lantern) but then realized that the compromises needed to add a good flashlight are very minor.
Fixed aspheric lens, one or more bright LEDs so it produces enough light forwards, e-switch UI.
Smooth flood is good for camping. Sharp beam cutoff is good in busy places as it allows you to easier avoid shining at othersā tents.
You donāt need the ultimate lumens here, enough is enough. This means that high CRI and nice tint do not require any real tradeoffs.
Does the lantern hurt the main light? It makes the tube somewhat thicker - which is meaningless. Makes a part of battery tube plastic - which may be somewhat less tough. Does it make it a bad light - definitely no, it can still be the best camping flashlight on the market.
Lantern?
Put many medium power LEDs under the diffuser. Tint mix to make it rosy, maybe even allow tint ramping.
This generates wide flood directed down - which is a great beam for lighting up a tent. Unlike LT1 it wonāt work well when placed on a table but thatās not the purpose. But even size aside - LT1 wouldnāt work well when itās directly over your head and this one would.
To make it possible to hang this light - in the middle it needs a steel oval loop. Oval - because when not used it would hide in a battery tube slot.
Challenge 1: the lightās centre of gravity changes with the cell inserted. And loop should always be close to that centre of gravity. Solution: When the COG of the host is in the middle of battery compartment (or close to) there is no issue. Push the battery forward by moving the driver to the tail.
Challenge 2: physical UI. UI for lanter and flashlight should be easy to locate. I believe these should be 2 different e-switches, in different places but I donāt have a solution at the moment.
Would that be a good lantern?
beam shape - very good for the use
size - OK
weight - OK
CRI - great
tint - great
UI - great (candle mode, ramping, tint ramping, ā¦)
I think it would be a better flashlight than a lantern but nevertheless it would be the best tent lantern on the market.
Again sorry for not being here. I see lots of projects have come to fruition like the FW3A and BLF lantern.
Please send me a pm if I owe you for the making of prototype stuff, so I can settle these debts and have these weights lifted and update the fund status in start post