TK's Emisar D18 review -- 3x18650 photon grenade

I connected a bench power supply to the light, with a DMM in the middle to measure current. Connected with forward polarity, everything worked normally. Connected with reverse polarity, I measured no current flow at all and the light wouldn’t respond. Connected forward again, it was still fine. No damage.

A DMM by itself can’t test this, but it wasn’t the main device involved. Connecting a power supply backward was the real test.

Thanks for testing this!

I’m quoting it and repeating it just in case anyone missed it. This is very useful information for others who might want to try a similar mod.

Sometimes yes. Perhaps I used more flickery candles as a reference point. At first I thought I had made it vary too much, but when I compared it to actual candles it was actually less severe than some real ones.

There are a few things I’m not totally happy with in the algorithm. For one thing, it gets more subtle as the base brightness level is increased, so there’s hardly any point using it at brighter levels. Also, it doesn’t scale itself for each build target yet, so it varies based on the hardware used.

And I’d also like to make it smoother, but that has turned out to be trickier than I hoped. I have a function to set intermediate brightness levels in-between the 150 ramp steps, kinda like interpolating between pixels in an image… but sometimes it ends up looking good, sometimes it makes the animation lag, and sometimes it’s still just as choppy as the current method. Perhaps I’ll try again sometime.

Regardless, I still enjoy it in the bath. And that sounds nice right now. Plus, I’ve already posted way too many comments in a row. Biab.

Okay, this makes a lot more sense. :+1:

Interesting info, as always. I usually use mine at…well…the output level of a candle, so it sounds like I’m using the range where the flicker is most accentuated.

Regardless of whether further improvements end up getting made or not, even where the feature is now is really cool.

I really like Anduril’s Candlelight right down at the base setting, it has the most variability there and brightness is easily adjusted by adding more lights. :smiley: I find that the use of at least 3 lights really makes for a realistic experience. Doesn’t matter what size or power level, I often use the SP-03, Q8 and Thorfire TK05, very different lights but the program makes it just not matter.

Thanks TK, again I think you are working too hard…

Spec says 10k lumens for the 95 CRI SST-20 4000k but mine is the XP-L HI 4000k. XP-L HI is supposed to be brighter than even the 70 CRI SST-20

XP-L HI is only better at like 3-4+ amps per LED. Especially V2 that you have. If you look at tests the SST-20 is pretty good at lower amps but flattens out sooner

Skylumen measured around 13000 lumen for the xpl hi 6500k/5000k whatever device he is using… i measured 14000 lumen for the sst20 6500k with th TA tube calibrated.

Someone can explain why sst20 is pushing higher lumen than xpl hi…

In general these are close because SST-20 has lower Vf - therefore it’s driven higher. I’m not sure but I think SST-20 output shouldn’t be higher. Explanation? Different sphere, that difference is well within the error margin.

Different cells will matter as well.

Just look at the datasheets for this low of current. SST-20 L3/L4 bin is better than XP-L HI until somewhere between 2A and 3A. I think it’s a safe bet this light isn’t pulling 54A for 3A per emitter. Not to mention the LISA optics do not show any support for XP-L HI so could be more losses there too.
XP-L HI V2 (@ 1.5A = ~135% = 540) (@ 2A = ~170% = 680) (@ 3A = ~230% = 920)
SST-20 L3 (@ 1.5A = 100% = 560) (@ 2A = ~122% = 683) (@ 3A = ~150% = 840)
SST-20 L4 (@ 1.5A = 100% = 585) (@ 2A = ~122% = 714) (@ 3A = ~150% = 878)

You’re probably right.

It’s a bad habit.

is there any chance to insert some strong and thin magnet to the tail? or am i an ignorant?

It would work, but you’d need a very strong one.

thanks for your quick answer. once i get the d18 i will measure the diameter and look for a magnet

Subbed

I got my D18 Monday and I was sure when I first tested it that top of ramp was not the same as turbo. However, after playing with it more last night I couldn’t notice any difference in brightness double clicking at top of ramp. Need to investigate if the ceiling is too high or if I managed to find some bug. Battery charge level should be 4.0+ but I will test that too. Is there some firmware version that was delivered with top of ramp = turbo?

Mine was set to top-of-ramp = turbo as delivered. I bumped the top-of-ramp down by about 15-20 clicks.

As mentioned in another thread, on smooth ramp mode, my ‘delivered today’ D18 SST-20 4000K with brand new button top VTC6 batteries also showed no visual difference between top of ramp and turbo. However, on stepped ramped mode, there was a noticeable difference between top of ramp and turbo. I like to have smooth ramp go from moonlight all the way to turbo, anyway, so i configured that way afterward, to ensure it was deftinely operating that way. Everything else seems sweet. Amazing light. Smaller than expected. First light with Anduril, so lightning mode and candle mode are pretty neat to play with, too. Also, it fits my Maxpedition Remora EDC bag nicely!

https://imgur.com/a/RbNDcPb