Itās not back luck, itās bad soldering that lumintop is doing.
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I donāt mean bad luck in the sense of what happened when it fell. I mean bad luck in the sense of getting an item which was assembled badly ā being the unlucky person who got a dud.
If this was happening frequently, that wouldnāt be luckā¦ itād be a broken manufacturing process. But thereās only one known case of this happening, and one (yours) which looks like it could have been a near miss. So unless more people run into the same issue, Iād consider it a āask vendor to send new hardwareā sort of issue instead of a āask manufacturer to fix their processā sort of issue.
The new button is so much nicer than the old one. Lighter to press but with a more positive click. Much quieter and has less wobble in the action too, like a proper E-switch should.
The SST-20 emitters are the best Iāve seen yet. Theyāre rosy on maximum output, but unfortunately seem to still be the tiniest bit green on lower levels. Still, theyāre not bad at all and Iāll definitely be happy using these. A big upgrade over all previous SST-20s I have used.
The new optic is okay. I bought a clear Carclo and Iām going to swap it out for some extra throw though.
It appears to be running a new-ish version of AndĆŗril. It has the fancy two stage lockout moonlight mode, however when not locked it still comes on in moonlight as soon as you hold down the button. Shame itās not totally up to date, but itās newer than the version on the first run of FW3As.
I sent an email and a message to Neal about my choices regarding the optic dilemma, but it seems that neither got read as I was sent the light with the plastic optic immediately anyway. No worries, I can swap a new optic in myself, but I feel bad for the guy if he has been that snowed under that he canāt manage to read a message even with several weeks to do so.
TL;DR Itās good!
Edit:
Okay, I canāt use the Carclo that was included with my order because Neal hasnāt included the glass lens he promised! Now what?
One of mine was in the o ring bag and one was between the box and the outer sleeve, it just fell out when I was trying to get those damn things separated.
Also, side observation. One of mine had a clear āall in oneā plastic optic and one was frosted. I guess they made a few versions to try out.
Iām with teacher on this one, I personally love stonewashed Ti. Not everything needs to be a perfect shiny material, some dings, scratches, marks, patina is what makes it unique. CRK along with Zero Tolerance, Spyderco and numerous others use stonewashed Ti on their knives and it looks amazing imo.
No one yet, there is a thread about the stonewashed version to gain interest.
Aha, so is mine! I didnāt even see it in there. Thanks for the tip!
Iām not sure if itās just my imagination or not, but the beam looks a little bit more green when Iām running it with a Carclo + glass instead of just the plastic optic. Possible side effect of AR coating? I might keep running the plastic optic if this is the case.
I have a bead-blasted titanium Olight S1 and I do not like the finish. It feels like holding a stick of chalk. Similar to the rough finish of my white or blue anodized aluminum Emisar D4s.
I find these rough textures only feel good in the hands if I just rubbed them with moisturizer. But if my hands are dry, it feels unpleasant.
Bead blasted titanium also doesnāt look special. It looks very similar to grey anodized aluminum.
For titanium, I much prefer polished. It feels good in the hands, is durable, and looks classy.
Ah yes, thanks for the great chart. Thatās quite a difference.
As this light will probably spend most of its time being used around the house, Iāll keep the plastic optic installed. The flood is better than having extra throw in this case, and I would very much like to take the slight tint improvement this optic offers.
Yes, but you can probably eliminate the tint difference by polishing off the AR coating. Thatās what Iāve been doing with all of mine, and it seems to help.
As quite a few different finishes were and are tested and are proposed : aluminum with different anodization colors, sand/bead blasted copper, polished copper, stonewashed titanium, could it be possible to have a version with machining marks like it was supposed to looks like :
Here Iām speaking for myself, Iām not very demanding concerning the material used, I will be happy with aluminum or copper or brass (preferably) or titanium+copper but could we have at least and at last THE version with machining marks, please ?
I would be eternally grateful for a brass with machining marks and SST-20 4000K, or aluminum with maching marks and clear anodization, iām pretty sure they can make clear anodization right.
I donāt think they are going to do clear aluminum anodizing since they had trouble getting it to look uniform. However, perhaps they could do a limited run bare aluminum version with no anodizing?
Well, thereās been at least one other report of the problem, plus a few other reports (in the same thread) of people saying the soldering job was really bad on their light.
I think Lumintop does have a manufacturing issue when it comes to soldering the tailcap. Maybe itās just one bad person on the assembly line, or maybe the design prevents easy soldering. I know that I could only manage to solder two points down, but I admit my skill is crap.
Hey, this is the general discussion for the FW3A right? I ordered one with an SST20 awhile back and Iāve just been lurking around. From what Iāve been reading lately, it seems that the lumintop supplied optic isnāt that bad? And on top of that, it has less of a green tint than the standard optic configuration and is a bit floodier? How big of an issue is the green tint with the AR glass? Should I continue waiting for the Carclo lenses or should I just get the new optic? What are the negatives of getting this new optic instead of waiting?