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?
Surprisingly, it looks like shipping to the Philippines might be easier than shipping to Canada. The cost though - I doubt it will be inexpensive.
Edit - A quick lookup with a random post code in Bataan says Fed Ex Economy will be about $100. I seriously hope there are cheaper battery sources for you.
If you have a more local source for batteries, you may be better off doing this DIY. Please PM me to discuss.
EDIT - USPS looks like it will be much cheaper, but still more than I have factored into the US pricing. I will look into this a little more, but can make no guarantees.
Does anyone like colorful things? I now have the supplies to make each style in these colors:
I may make a sample set of one or more colors, but in general these will be request only items - same pricing but a delay for assembly and shipping.
NOTE - bottom right is a pale yellow/tan - not white.
What exactly do you mean with the ‘discharge 2.5v 10000 max’ line? The minimal voltage of the battery or the maximum discharge current? If the last, there is no unit for that ‘10000’.
Maybe change it to:
‘Max charge 4.2v @ 1475mA’
‘Max discharge 10000mA to 2.5v’
