[BLF Joint-Development] WildTrail BLF Tactical Flashlight

I tried to adopt Zanflare's design of their F1 for orientation. What spot would you suggest to use best?

I have the BLF D80v2 and like it a lot. :+1:
I wish you all the best to Jackie and the team, my very small contribution will have to be the purchase of the final product since I`m a newbie on the subject. :person_facepalming:
Thank you all in advance for your hard work. :beer:

I recognised where it came from :slight_smile: , and I really like the F1 USB solution, and now I started wondering how it was done. It took a blowtorch and some force to find where the head/battery tube joint was:

So they extended the head part a bit compared to other tube flashlights, and the driver sits lower,to make room for the USB socket. Which adds 8mm length to the F1 exclusively for the USB port which is not really needed. The cavity from driver to ledshelf is a whopping 22mm, they really made no effort to make the F1 compact.

Some ideas. Don’t worry about that magic 25.4mm/1” body tube, add some more metal and bring it up. Very rarely are flashlights mounted anymore, 1” rings shouldn’t be a limiting factor. Head shouldn’t be too much bigger than the body. My large belt light has a 30mm body, 37mm head, 143mm length. Bigger heads on belt holsters can chew up shirts and car seats. I still use tail standing for buildings without power. Recessed tail switch help stop accidentally turning on the light. Steel bezel with minor ridges.

The side switch should be raised enough to find easily by touch, lit or not. And no blinkies needed

Interested in 1

…but side e-switch for tactical?… just doesn’t makes sense

Thanks a lot for investigating how the F1 is constructed, Djozz!

I extended the head part a bit to reflect the additional space for the cavity the battery tube's thread section needs to fill before its front face touches the driver's rim, see brown highlighted part below.

I am very interested.
Don’t need the charging port.

I assume it adds costs and complexity to the design

I assume no one is completely happy at the end

Micro USB or USB C
1,2,3,… Ampere
USB, USB QC, USB PD,…
Really fully sealed,…

Maybe it’s easier to point (alongside the battery recommendations) to some cost effective decent single battery charger for people without charger.
I assume that people having chargers, but none that supports 21700, will sooner or later end up buying one anyway. And then with all the nice choices on the market.

tbh I’d be just as happy to lose the USB, lose the side switch, shrink it down to zebralight, perhaps S2+ size and call it a day, it’s rapidly becoming less tactical and more ‘tacticool’

Interested

sorry, forgot to place a vote for a tactial ring in rubber (like Armytek, Eagtac, Solarforce L2T…)

How do you intend to make the side switch work when the tail switch breaks the circuit at the battery? A tube-in-tube setup will likely fail quickly if gun-mounted.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the gold standard for tactical flashlights are lights like the Surefire 6p and Elzetta. Those are downright primitive. While it’s absolutely possible to increase complexity of a tactical light, there won’t be a trivial amount of engineering required. Whereas a 1-5% failure rate in most flashlights would annoy people, failures in a tactical light cause its immediate disqualification as a tactical light.

Edit: Also on-board charging won’t work with the tail switch off unless I’m missing something.

Dunno. M2R is tube-in-tube and people put it on their guns and it seems to work just fine(?) - it’s even sold as a weapon kit.

I can only describe what I like in a “tactical” light. Though tactical seems to mean different things for different people.

  • UI-wise: I am a civilian. I myself like a light that when I press the rear switch, it’s full power (or at least high). Always. No matter what the sideswitch says or how often I press/release or click the tail switch. If I press the rear switch I get lots of light instantly. It doesn’t even have to stay on, just momentary on the rear switch is fine for me. It’s useful to quickly check some dark spots on my way home. It’s also useful to blind people and get away. I like an additonal independent side switch for regular use that can do different modes and the regular stuff. The light should have moon mode and modes should be switchable very easily.
    This setup can be found in the Olight M2R or Acebeam T36 to name two. I also don’t care for any other gimmicks like strobe or blinkies etc. found in e.g. Anduril. If they are not hidden, they get annoying. If they are hidden, you won’t find them without a manual anyway.
  • Sizewise… somewhere between 8 and 11cm would be nice. Still easily usable with rear clicky but not too bulky and easily drawable from say a jacket pocket without catching.
  • Beamwise I like somewhat throwy lights that also have reasonable spill.
  • Featurewise I don’t need USB recharging. It adds a point of failure and it usually makes lights longer than they need to be anyway. I don’t want an aggressive bezel. It serves no purpose. It catches on everything. It makes you having to argue on whether or not your light is a weapon. And it’s not an effective weapon. If you can’t fight, you won’t hit anything with it anyway. And if you can you are better of using the light to distract your opponent. I know of at least two MMA channels on Youtube featuring professional fighters who tested a flashlight as a self defense tool and who pretty much came to that same conclusion.

I wish this project the best of luck even if it’s not what I am looking for in a light.

I’m in the same boat as Kanton (civilian use), and agree with everything he said about “his” type of tactical light. And I would add that I only want momentary for the rear switch as opposed to being able to “lock” the light on. …maybe a pressure switch for it with the ability to tighten it down for “locked on” (like the Foursevens Maelstrom X10 and Surefire 6P/G2/LX2); but I also presume the side switch would have the ability to reach “high” mode as well, so the rear only needs to be momentary.
Anyways, I also wish the project well, and wish you all good luck in designing and building it. :+1:

I like the direction this is going. I don’t think it needs to be a plain tube with one button and one mode. That already exists and doesn’t need a BLF version.

A good “tactical” light can have a tail and side switch. The M2R Pro tail button can be half or full pressed for mid or turbo modes, and can latch on or be momentary depending on whether you tap or hold it. The side switch accesses all the other modes. It’s a very good UI. Simple and requires no thinking when you need a lot of light very fast. Just mash the tail button.

I’m perfectly ok with this light being “tacticool” and not a “true tactical” light. I think it will be much more useful to most users than a single mode light.

Im not doubting you in any way but can you link us to those videos? I’d love to watch them personally.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I think we've now come to a point where there are two groups:

Group 1: The "tacticool" group

These people like a dual-switch design (some with USB-port, most without USB-port). The UI should be simple but still sophisticated enough to fulfill most people's prerequisites. This light should become as compact as possible (which it is not at this point of time to be honest). Due to its design this flashlight will probably not be as robust and shockproof as the one group 2 actually favors. This might be the flashlight we should focus on inside this thread.

Group 2: The "tactical" group

These people ask for an even tougher flashlight, made as robust as possible, without any gimmicks and with a most simplified UI (2-3 modes, always start on high). This concept will probably not need a dual switch design nor would it come with internal charging. Instead the focus here should be on potted drivers, rock-solid and shockproof assembly and well-chosen raw materials (tough-grade aluminum with HA-III coating). Maybe it's worth creating a separate thread for this concept where policemen, firemen and soldiers and anyone else who's enthusiastic about it can post their suggestions.

However, nothing is for certain yet and I will get back to Jacky (WildTrail) to discuss which concept he wants to follow up with.

You pretty much nailed it. The only issue is that the title of this post is likely to bring out more people from group 2 than group 1. I’d be interested in a group 2 light pending a review that includes abuse tests.

I carry two lights on my duty belt. It’s as you have listed here.

Group 1: The “tacticool” group. It’s a Mateminco TK01 XHP50.2 21700. I wish it didn’t have a charging port and I potted it closed. Simple UI, very long run times with a 5000 mah battery. This light gets used for everything. Search a warehouse, pop a cone on and do traffic control all night, to reading in the car, tail stand to light a room. It’s robust enough to break a car windows. It could be pressed into the “tactical” group.
Group 2: The “tactical” group. It’s a Solarforce with a potted Pflexpro dropin. 2 modes high/low. Also with a forward clicky switch for simple tail tapping. It would also be used if pistol lights didn’t exist or work. It could do the “tacticool” but not very well as it lack flexibility.

Both have spend two days at the bottom of my pool without any leaking. Both have flown across parking lots and been dropped too many times. I’m really getting hopeful that two distinct hard use lights could be developed here.

I want USB-C with simple 2 button UI. If one button UI, it’s no different than the EC01