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

Holy moly, he’s got a great voice. Would have never known from watching him barking orders on show lol.

/\ Yep… that’s the truth. I was pleasantly shocked when I heard it the first time.

Pure gold. :+1:

Please point something out to a thicko like me , what’s the difference between party strobe & tactical strobe ? To me they are the same & the only difference is the tactical strobe is brighter , am I missing something?

Usually Tactical strobe alternates between 2 different rates, but on the FW3A Tactical seems to have a longer On pulse which is more irritating plus it is brighter. Party strobe has a short On pulse that can make things seem to move in slow motion and is not irritating.

I remember because I repeat myself a lot. I say how to do a factory reset pretty often.

Factory Reset
With light turned On, click 4 times to enter ramp config mode. At the prompts (fluttering light), respectively, click 1 time, then 21 times. If there is a 3rd prompt, click 7 times (this is seen when in stepped ramping mode).

My FW3A from the first batch died last night. I was using it at work (at pretty low power, below 350mA) and all the sudden it got stuck on, I could go above 350mA but now below.
I took it apart today and found one of the 7135’s completely shorted between output and GND (I did have to strip them all to find that).

Got it going again with another 7135 but I think for many that’s above the level they’d be able to diagnose / repair.

Not upset in the least, I jumped on the fw3a train from the beginning, I knew going in there could be problems early on. What’s odd is all the soldering looked great, no bridges or solder balls or anything that stood out, no excess flux, nothing… That one bad 7135 seemed to die internally with nothing triggering the failure other than use/time.

Again not a complaint, don’t even plan to contact Neal, just reporting here. All’s well again.

7135 chips do seem to have a reputation for dying recently. I wonder if the clones of a clone of an original chip are just getting worse and worse. We may have to step up to using the more expensive (couple of cents more) resistor/resistor bank designs instead of 7135 chips. Reliability should be better and there’s no upper voltage limit of around 7 to 8 volts.

Can we get the XP-L 7A for the new aluminum releases at least?

Thanks Jason , the party strobe is more irritating to me because it’s not bright enough, I can get both strobes to freeze a fan ,although I don’t think they’re stable (in frequency speed )because it needs adjusting now & again to keep it froozed.
Edit
It must be the 3 fans I’ve tried it on that’s not stable in speed.
Unless the frequency is changing slightly as the cell gets depleted or as the light heats up & cool ?

Ordered Ti/Cu, same discount code as Ti and in theTi drop down options. This one should hold up to my rough handling. BLFFW3T

Ordered a full ti version. Probably going to swap in 7a xpl Hi’s to keep the heat down a bit. Strange this led is not an option anymore, seemed popular.

That is a tricky question, for me at least. I have to think about it. The output frequency for the strobe is controlled by the MCU internal clock which I believe recieves power from an LDO (low drop out voltage regulator) at about 1.8v. So the MCU has stable voltage and can output stable frequencies and pulse rates. It has it’s own built in precision clock/timer.

The reduction in brightness as the battery goes down is all due to factors between the battery and led and not due to anything the MCU does. The MCU still pulses the FET and 7135 chips the same rate as always regardless of battery voltage, but the lower battery voltage across the FET and 7135 chips equals less brightness. This is a direct drive design after all.

Boost and Buck drivers actually increase and decrease the voltage going to the Leds which is why the brightness level is stable to a certain point then steps down like a staircase (Boost). With Buck it has stable output until it falls out of regulation then the output slopes down. With direct drive the output starts high and then immediately starts to slope down in a smooth line.

Yes I did, thanks for the confirmation!

It just seemed odd that turbo output was only slightly higher than the max regulated output, which is part of the reason I asked.

Won’t a warmer led make more heat , or maybe you’re comparing it to sst & not XPLHI?

Max regulated is about 2.8A and Turbo is about 9A (depending on the leds and battery). So that’s a 3x jump in amperage. This also results in about a 3x jump in lumens, from 1000 to 3000. This is a big jump (both lumens and amperage) on paper, but not a big jump to your eye. It’s like a typical jump from High to Turbo. You practically need to triple the output for your eye to see a noticable jump in output. It’s just the way out eyes and brain process light. Not as linear as you might imagine.

Yes comparing to the sst 4000k I ordered.

It sure looks like a big jump in output on my light.

I often hear the “logarithmic” rule thrown around here. I’m not sure I completely buy it. It makes a lot of sense for lower outputs, where the pupils of your eye constrict (letting in less light) as the flashlight output gets higher. I’m not sure it makes as much sense for high outputs, where your pupils are already maximally constricted. It doesn’t for me, anyway. On all my lights, I see a big difference between 500 lumens and 1000 lumens, and 1000 lumens and 2000 lumens. It’s extremely noticeable, not just a little bit. Doubling output gets more noticeable the brighter the light is to begin with.

I’m not sure I’d characterize 2000 lumens as “twice as bright to my eyes” as 1000 lumens. But, it’s closer to twice as bright than it is to 1.4x (or whatever the “rule” is).

Some people see it as a small jump and some as a big jump. It can vary from person to person. It’s basically eye balls turning light to electricity and our brain is interpreting the electricity to create an image in our mind. Kind of like tint. Two people can look at the same light and see different tints. I think the general consensus is you need to triple the lumens to make it look twice as bright. You can read more about it here. Weber–Fechner law. I try not to go too in-depth into the science if I don’t have to. Psychoacoustics are more my thing. Hearing is also logarithmic. Same basic principle.

I just want to point out that LEDs will not scale their output linearly with current, especially at higher currents. So three times the current won’t get you three times the output. But Jason is correct about the output: It’s generally accepted that it takes a quadrupling of lumen output to achieve a perceived doubling of brightness. This is a very rough number, as humans are all different and yadda yadda. But the effect is definitely not linear.