OK, Thx. I have a light around here somewhere that protected cells are sort of a press fit into because of the added wrap plus the thickness of the conductor strip that runs up the side of protected cells. Once in, a protected cell is a PITA to remove. Not an issue with any of my other lights. I just wanted to make sure the size of the unprotected BLF rewraps.
Am I correct to assume that the BLF cell offering will be fairly short-lived, and not something that will continue for long term?
On the other hand, future-wise, how can this wrapper be prevented from unscrupulous manufacturers and vendors from copying it and selling a complete but sub-standard, and even dangerous “BLF” batteries all over the web?
Just my .02
Edit: In fact, photo from the op might have given someone from you-know-where already an idea and might even sell it online ahead of this project!
I don’t have a particular end point in mind for the project. To be totally honest, the main reason I’m doing this is because I think the idea is cool.
I expect it to run till the demand drops, or I get tired of doing it, or my battery supply dries up. Then again, I went into this saying that since the LT1 project and related graphics are basically BLF property, I’d donate my finished files back to BLF. It will be a LOT less work for me if y’all print and wrap your own. What I see myself providing is a quality battery set already customized to match a popular project, and at a non-predatory price.
There are already such things as GIF and UltroFire and Gabrile “9900mAh” batteries on the market. Scammers are gonna scam. We just have to make sure to tell each other about the scams.
2) The minimum quantities involved to make a properly done copy of this are large. The demand pool for the product is small. The target audience is price sensitive, so the opportunities to profiteer are small.
Question: How are you printing the wraps? In my experience, inkjet printers use water-based inks that can easily smudge when handling if fingers are not completely dry. Laser printers use heat & pressure to fuse toner to the media, and might shrink the wrap as it passes through the fusing unit. Too, individual wraps are so small that they would be unlikely to travel through the paper path of either type of printer unless attached to a larger backing sheet.
EDIT: Seems my Reading Comprehension-Fu was weak on this one. I see where these are paper under clear wrap.
I also see where you mentioned alignment of color within the lantern lens aligning correctly within the lens outline. In printing that is called registration. If the image file contains the color inset in it's native state, a printer should be able to achieve precise registration in only one pass, printing B&W and color simultaneously.
- Yep. The fancy ones are color prints under clear shrink
Nope. Those will/may be factory printed shrink. I’m not asking for full CYMK with exact registration, but I have to get an idea of their acceptable error margins and decide if the second color will look right without mangling the design too much.
I’ve been doing some tweaking and testing. I’ve narrowed it down to three choices for stock I want to pre-make for when this turns into a proper For Sale post. Which ones do you like the best?
Another choice that might be nice for “advertising” purposes would be like choice #2, but use the actual site name/address: budgetlightforum.com but I’m not sure we want that, and certainly Mr. Admin would have to decide if it’s okay to use the site name for advertising that way.
Hmmm… that brings up a question. The LT1 is rated at 2A charging, right? If someone only has one of these installed, it will exceed the cell’s recommended max charge rate. I know that none of us are likely to have a single cell in any of our lanterns, but to badly paraphrase George Carlin, the scary thing about your average idiot is that they’re smarter than half the idiots you’ll encounter.
The TP5100 charging chip is capable of 2A, but the LT1 design holds it to a maximum of 1.5A as a deliberately conservative design choice. I believe the lantern can be set to charge at either 750mA or 1.5A using a solder bridge.
I’ve got a mockup of what the battery labels would look like with a (very) abbreviated instruction set attached. The image is the raw layout and the links are to (roughly) how they look when wrapped around a battery.
What’s your preference? A cleaner, simpler design, or a busier version with a quick reference included?
I prefer the cleaner look with just the logo and a few lines about the underlying battery. I think printing a cheat sheet on the batteries will only serve to confuse people more.
It’s not a perfect plan, but it will always be with the lantern.
I agree that the no-instruction version looks better, but I’ve learned that what I want is not always what someone else wants. Worst case, I have the design and can keep it in my back pocket for special requests.
Is there space inside the battery compartment for a rolled up instruction scroll? How thick a stack of folder paper will fit under the bottom cap before it interferes with the o-ring waterproofing?
Take a look at the BLF Q8 cheat sheet. It was intentionally designed to be folded accordion-style and stuck inside the tail-cap. I found that it fits nicely, and possibly could even be a bit bigger if you needed more space.
Using the three samples from a few posts up, I’m going to work up a few finished sets this weekend. My plan is to finalize the tally on my costs, and put up an official For Sale post once I have actual, ship-able product, images, and pricing.
For those of you who said you wanted multiple sets, are you thinking of getting all the same pattern, one of each, etc? Does being able to identify one set from another have any importance to you?
What I see myself providing is a quality battery set already customized to match a popular project, and at a non-predatory price.
