【ツ】Interest check + ideas for a new multicolor flashlight

Interested

Interested, should do a throwy led plus a floody one and add colored leds along with, that would be sweet

Interested. Love the wk30. I much prefer separate leds so we can change the led combination later if we want like the wk30. If they use a dive light host like the sd05 I’d even be more interested.

I neglected to say clearly previously:

Interested.

Thank you guys for your great input, especially to djozz, iamlucky13 and amishbill. :THUMBS-UP: :BEER:

Your feedback is highly appreciated. I will check with Wurkkos and Sofirn to see what they will think about these ideas and get back to you.

So far, my impression is that they intend to develop a multicolor flashlight that can use four colors separately (RGBW) but not at the same time. Thus, I don't think they thought about mixing colors for infinite color options yet. Looking at the possibilities we may get with an appropriate driver would make this of course much more interesting and unique. Eventually, it probably depends on cost effectiveness, actual demand and - not to underestimate - the efforts both BLF members and Sofirn will need to invest to make this a story of success. I'm telling this because we are currently some kind of "stuck" with the SP10S BLF Andúril flashlight that is intended to use a sophisticated NiMH/Li-Ion boost driver and Andúril for firmware.

I think the Dr. Jones driver sounds very promising but we may need to find out how easy or difficult it will be for Wurkkos/Sofirn to get it in high numbers and how the interface can be set up conveniently. In the end, it should be complex enough to offer nice color mixing modes but OTOH not too complex to overstrain users comprehension. I do agree that 18650 is a wise choice in terms of size, current consumption and host options (to reduce additional development costs).

Another interesting option that just came into my mind...

Option 1

LEDIL ANNA optic frosted

center LED: Osram S2WP (with channel mixing?)

6x rim LEDs: Samsung LH351D or Luxeon V2 with HighCRI and 4.500 - 5.000K

Option 2

LEDIL ANNA optic frosted

center LED: Samsung LH351D or Luxeon V2 with HighCRI and 4.500 - 5.000K

2x rim LEDs: XP-E2 red

2x rim LEDs: XP-E2 royal blue

2x rim LEDs: XP-E2 green

channel mixing with those XP-E2 color LEDs possible?

Best would be an optic that is partially frosty (for color LED and floody, diffused beam) and partially transparent for best throw on white light. I don't think these exist but who knows...

Thank you Lux-Perpetua for this interesting topic, I totally agree with the single LED will has its problem in low output and less choice of special wavelengths. Multi LEDs will be the first choice if reflector beam angle will suit for each color.

Maybe we should also ask the opinion of stephenk, this light might be interesting for light painters, and they have very specific needs, nothing that costs extra to make it, just a few things in the hidden firmware like specific strobes. That is: in case special firmware is written for this light.

Here’s my 2 cents:

Make Doble-barrel one. One reflector SMO for throw and the other OP with 4-color led inside. The TIR optics could be placed in between the reflectors with warm floody light (E21As?)

Did you means make a replace reflector for different choice ?

No, I mean 2 reflectors, one next to another. There are already such solutions on the market (Klarus XT20, AMUTORCH TC750, Sunwayman D40C, some Niwalkers). IMHO it’s a little waste to apply TIR to all LEDs. We have to sacrifice 1x% of performance while in case of color LEDs we may lose even more.

So it will looks like a headlamp with 2 reflectors in front?

Probably, 1stein is referring to something like this...

This host here could be using two separate optics. While the Amutorch TC750 uses both "units" for white light, the idea could be to use only one emitter unit with white light and significant throw (e.g. Carclo 10507 triple optic or 10621 quad optic) and a second emitter unit with colorful LEDs (triple made of XP-E2 royal blue, red and green or as quad with additional UV 365nm light) and a frosty optic (Carclo 10508/10509 triple wide spot frosted or 10624 quad optic).

Supplemental: UV light will not work with most optics as these are made of plastic material that filters most of the UV wavelenghts.

Bottom line: If you want to implement UV light into a multicolor flashlight you need to go for a classic reflector design (or mule design) with glass lenses.

It’ll look like a double-barrel shotgun. Sharp!

I’m interested in anything that comes from here :smiley:

I’m interested.

I wouldn’t use royal blue LEDs! There is sufficient evidence that they will damage your eyes.
They pretend to be brighter in specs (higher lumen values) but visible output is similar to standard blue.

Instead of using multiple 7135 for each color LED you might consider a single D882 transistor per LED, I’m using them in my RGBW D4 EDC since January 2018 without any problems. D882 are slower than 7135 so I recommend reducing the PWM rate for near moonlight levels.

I prefer a double head light (not double-barrel but one head at each end), similar to my RGBW Q8 but sized as a D4. One powerful quad head with TIR for a couple of thousands lumens and one head with 4 color LEDs behind a TIR. This would require a special tube which leads the positive terminal of the cell to the rear head (hint: FW3A).

I find double-barrel heads really ugly and I fear that I’m not alone in that. And I do not see why the white led should need a larger reflector than the coloured ones, a EDC-type beam is even preferable for a light like this in my opinion.

Okay, some more thoughts and rough ideas...

Multicolor flashlight with reflector

Let's just imagine we had a quintuple reflector as in Acebeam's X65 flashlight. Now, the X65 is a heavy duty flashlight with a large reflector. So, please take this as reference for the reflector design only. Getting there entire reflector smaller the configuration could be:

center emitter: Cree XP-L HD V6 3D (4.885K) or for even more throw Cree XP-L HI V3 3D (4.885K) or - more cost effective - Luminus SST-20 4.000K 95CRI / SST-20 5.000K 70CRI

adjacent emitters: Cree XP-E2 red/green/blue/amber or just three colors and UV (e.g. LG LEUVA33W70RL00 365nm or Seoul Viosys Z5 365nm).

the adjacent reflectors would at least need to have a structured surface (orange peel) to reduce artifacts. However, I'm not sure if the shifted angle (not being in the center of the host) would cause an uneven beam shape.

Multicolor flashlight with LEDIL ANNA-40-7-X (where "X" defines clear spot, medium spot or frosty wide beam)

source: https://www.ledil.com/search/?families%5B%5D=Anna-40&q=

Ideal would be an optic where the center LED part is clear for a narrow spot beam of white light and the adjacent "rim" part would be frosty wide spot for a diffused colorful beam without artifacts. A compromise could be ANNA-40-7-M with light diffusion.

center emitter: Cree XP-L HD V6 3D (4.885K) or for even more throw Cree XP-L HI V3 3D (4.885K) or - more cost effective - Luminus SST-20 4.000K 95CRI / SST-20 5.000K 70CRI

adjacent emitters: 2x Cree XP-E2 red/green/blue each.

In any case, the biggest challenge however is the driver. The most intriguing questions are:

  • Is the Dr. Jones (or any other) driver capable to fulfill are requirements in terms of hardware and software (UI)?
  • How difficult will it be for Sofirn to source enough drivers from third party manufacturers?
  • Alternative: How complex and difficult would it be for Sofirn to develop a comparable driver on their own?
  • How much costs will be generated in developing/sourcing the driver and will these costs be reasonable with regard to the targeted sales price?
  • How much effort in terms of manpower will be necessary both by BLF members and by Sofirn's engineers? I deliberately pose this question because we may overstrain things too far here. The development of the SP10S Andúril NiMH/Li-Ion boost driver is stuck for some weeks for reasons unknown. I assume that Sofirn's engineering team is kept busy with a lot of other topics right now and even if there was room for additional developing our driver experts still have no direct communication channel to the manufacturer's engineering department.

For sofar as I have come to know Sofirn, they are pretty good in developing driver hardware at the moment: for the SP36 they managed to combine the Q8 Narsil driver with USB charging hardware, including extra indicator leds in the switch. All without any BLF involvement. This tells me that they are pretty capable in that department. They are not good in designing good user interfaces though, every UI that they developed sofar have flaws. It is because they are not end users so they have to guess what their customers want and are not very good in that. In contrast: Hank from the Emisars is a flashlight enthousiastic himself and he actually carries a new design around for a while for testing.

So I think that Sofirn can make pretty sophisticated designs, but will need a lot of input for the user interface, and they are stubborn enough to have an opinion of their own about it which you will have to overcome or meet in the middle.

Yep, most of these look like ugly Frankenstein this would biass the sales probably. And it’s crucial to gurantee good sales since the volume will not be huge I believe.
How about three reflectors then? :laughing:

Anyway I do hope to have a bright and throwy red LED - anti-insect, no-blue, preserving night vission goodness…
In terms of blue&UV - I think there should be some warnings stated (inprinted on the body?). Also those regarding melanine, prostate cancer and eyes damage. I think these hazards are also covered by world standards (EN/ISO/UL/ASTM etc.)

Left picture is a beamshot of a single color LED in my RGBW D4 with TIR.
Right picture is a beamshot of a single color LED in my RGBW Q8 with quadruple reflector.
Which one do you like more (if you are not a Mickey Mouse fan)? :smiley: