[Closed]

LED Flashlights – General Info 21700 Flashlights
33

Major design change:

In conjunction with the multi-emitter flashlight concept that is being discussed here, I have revised the WK30S concept to work with a magnetic control ring and a mechanical tail switch. This will probably make the rather complex UI much more easier to handle.

User Interface:

Magnetic Control Ring (MCR)

  • controls brightness from moonlight to high steplessly for the selected LED
  • infinite turning into either direction is yet to be decided - a limited turning angle of 160° could maybe suffice to regulate brightness conveniently

Tail Switch (option A - forward clicky)

  • Tap to preselect the mode (WHITE / RED / UV)
  • Fully press to turn ON/OFF
  • Half press to use momentary mode
  • Keep fully pressed for 2s to activate strobe, then tap to cycle strobe modes (SOS / Beacon)

Tail Switch (option B - reverse clicky)

  • Fully press to turn ON/OFF
  • Tap to cycle through modes (WHITE / RED / UV)
  • Keep fully pressed for 2s to activate strobe, then tap to cycle strobe modes (SOS / Beacon)

34

At the risk of getting dogpiled on, I gotta confess, the more “improvements” I see to the original WK30, the less appealing to me it gets.

35

21700, lighted switch ring, thats it. That would fix its two glaring faults, its chunkyness and that sweetch is a beech to find in the dark. Agree with Lightbringer!

36

That's fine with me. I did not expect to receive nothing but positive feedback. The more criticism I get, the better it will be to find out what's best concerning improvements. So, go ahead ... ;-)

37

I just picked up a WK30, and it’s pretty great already. Personally, the most important things I’d change would be adding USBC, a (removable) magnetic tailcap, 21700, slightly longer times for double/triple click (I’ve accidentally entered strobe when trying to enter UV a few times now), and press for off instead of hold for off. There’s a couple of other minor changes that have been discussed, like an always-on button, knurling on the tailcap, asymmetric reflector, or a diffuser, but much more than that seems like it’s getting to be too much of an entirely different design. A three color rotary light would be cool, and it might even share a lot of parts with an improved WK30, but that’s a pretty major change from what the WK30 is.

38

Honestly, it’s more like turning one light into a whole other light, vs just improving any shortcomings on the original.

365nm vs 395nm, okay, I can see that. (Well, figuratively.)

Photo-red vs “regular” red… yeah, okay, but as long as people realise that photo-red will not be as bright as regular-red at the same power levels (unless you can see into the infrared, that is).

Lighted switchcap, that’d be a hoot, so sure, I’m in.

I’m perfectly fine with using a 26 as-is, vs a 21, as you can always drop a 21 into a tube bored for a 26, but not v/v. Plus, that just makes the tube skinnier vs on-par with the head, making it more like a stubby plunger light vs a chunky tubelight.

The UI, honestly, I’d leave as-is. For the ’30, it’s nigh perfect. 1/2/3 clicks to get into white/red/UV, then diddle with brightness, etc. And nomem on red/UV, always start on low. (To this day, I still can’t replicate the white+red both glowing bug.)

So yah, if anyone wants a different light based on the WK30 concept, great. But I wouldn’t molester the original ’30 and call it a WK30S :confounded: or WK30A, or WK30v2, or anything like that.

And definitely don’t discontinue the original. I think they pretty much nailed it on the first try.

39

OK, I'll pitch in. Nothing to argue with the added ring, except two issues:

  • great as long as it's a one handed operation
  • added cost? Guess we won't know yet

Swapping the e-switch for a power tail switch? Seems like we are going backwards there. I'd prefer 2 e-switches or dual e-switch - easy to do on the newer Atmel's we are using. I'd be out, specially if the tail switch is the only way to turn the light OFF, and not by the ring. Again, feels like a step backwards.

40

Would have to be, ’cause mag sensors are generally pretty power-hungry. 10mA parasitic, each one, in the ones I measured. Without physical cutoff, you’d drain the cell in 2-3 weeks.

I don’t recall testing the Wurkkos/Sofirn diving lights that use ’em, just other lights (DV-S9, etc.). But even the discrete Hall-effect sensors I played with suck down that much.

41

Hhmm... That explains the drain the old dive lights I got. So bad, could not sell them, got stuck with them. The RRT01's, etc. have the same issue? I modded one years ago but thought you had full OFF control on the ring?

The Niteye Eye10 has no power switch with a ring:

https://www.batteryjunction.com/niteye-eye10-xml2.html

42

Okay, I see combining a mag-ring with a mechanical switch is not really fancy even though it might work. A dual e-switch design is probably the best idea at all. I try to revise the design accordingly. UI-wise one button could work for ramping/stepping up and down brightness and the other button would trigger mode changes etc.. With two illuminated buttons there will be more nice options for status indications (locator light, beacon light, battery status, ...).

Slightly off-topic here: If I got ToyKeeper right, she even said something like Andúril was dualswitch-ready as long as both switches work the same way.

43

Sorry, brutally honest, but I'm only one opinion. Would be nice though to leverage all the dev that went into Anduril, for sure.

44

:+1: :+1:

45

I like especially that UV is seperated. Removed this LED from the Fitorch K3 Lite because it works the opposite way: You likely have to cycle through all LEDs including UV to reach the desired LED, headaches included (I’m very sensitive to reflected UV light).

The magnetic control ring would be a big plus, much more so if it would allow continuous adjustment of brightness.

Not a customer yet, but this light as proposed by Thomas would be my first Wurkkos.

46

I agree that the mag ring plus a mechanical switch was not my best attempt so far. Thanks to your helpful and brutally honest input - really appreciated - I now stand corrected with another new concept. :-D

I am still thinking of a rather simplified UI for this one here but as you (Tom E) already said, it would be great to finally leverage all that work that went into Andúril into an actual dual e-switch flashlight. Anyway, with two e-switches we get the chance to enhance the UI in its complexity without giving up simple basic operation of mode switching and brightness control.

47

Nice!

48

USB C (power bank), real sub-lumen moonlight mode, direct access to turbo, magnetic tailcap (or optional), and I prefer the 26650 size since I can always size down and the included 26650 is great since it’s actually closer to 5800mAh than the listed 5000.

Also NOT glued bezel.

Those things are all the changes I would want. Honestly just the sub-lumen moonlight mode would be enough for me and everything else left the same.

49

I am a new user of this light (bought 2 about a week ago).
Sofar I like it.

I think many people on amazon are asking about nanometer length of the red light, because of that study that said that 670nm red light can improve vision.
Their description on amazon says it is 670nm, but what I am reading shows different number. That’s unfortunate.

I would like to keep 26 battery option.
For several reasons

a) it allows me to use pre charged LifePo4 26650 (I had tested an undercharged vapcell 26650 briefly, works fine). I have devices with those cells,
and 26650 is not going anywhere in LifePo4 world.

If anything, I would really like this flash light to have some difficult-to-reach-switch that would let me charge lifepo4s when installed there.

So would be very good to have 26650 lifepo4 as a fully supported option.

b) slightly larger diameter is comfortable in hand, and adds a bit more structural rigidity against lateral forces (eg when flash light can be used to break a window).

I certainly would like illuminated non-blinking switch, PD powerbank, and magnet if they keep price below 40$. I do not think I would buy 2 of them for 55$ or above…

50

Very nice! I'm a big fan of my WK30 and think there's room for the original one and this new one. If sofirn makes this new version I'll buy it right away as well.

51

I know this thread is getting a little old, but came across it today and thought I’d throw in my 2 cents since there’s a couple things that I don’t see mentioned above. A lot of great suggestions there that I hadn’t thought of too… Very cool that there are people out there looking to improve products, not just market AT their customers.

As it is, this is the closest I’ve found to being the perfect flashlight, for me. There are a couple things thought that I think would improve it significantly though, not as technical as most of you folk, but more usability issues that could be addressed.

1) Zoom/focus on the white light. I realise this is probably a challenge given the multiple emitters, but nonetheless, shame having all those lums and not being able to focus them.

2) The UI needs to be slowed down slightly, it often takes me several attempts to get to red or UV, especially when it’s cold out, my hands simply aren’t fast enough.

3) The rubber cap for the USB port is hard to replace confidently and easily damaged. Moving it to the end and covering it with a sealed screw cap would be preferable, or even leaving it where it is and using a hinged metal door. I’d still have 2 that were water resistant if this were the case, and as an added bonus it would remove the confusion over whether I’m touching the switch or USB cover.

Hope it helps, looking forward to seeing what comes next.

52

Actually, Wurkkos and I are about to get the ball rolling now. Based upon my latest concept they will now go into discussions with Sofirn's engineering to see what's feasible and what's not. Wurkkos is thinking about maybe replacing the UV emitter by another color LED, e.g. green. That would allow us to take TIR optics for reflectors into consideration as UV light is blocked by (most plastic) optics. I will now have some more thoughts on the new dual e-switch design to get a good compromise of reasonable functions and convenient accessibility. As always, I encourage everyone to join with suggestions or criticism, so we can make WK30S as good as it gets. Fenix has numerous lights with a dual e-switch UI, so maybe that's a good way to start with. Again, Andúril will not come into consideration for it cannot be adopted to a dual e-switch UI using two independently working switches.

Thanks for joining with your ideas StevenH and welcome to BLF!

Zooming/focusing would indeed cause significant efforts in redesigning the whole flashlight. It would also significantly increase the head size. Moreover, it would clash with the triple LED board layout making it nearly impossible to align the collimator with the corresponding LED beam. What you are maybe looking for it something like Brinyte's T28 Artemis...

But that's not what WK30S is meant to be.

Alright, noted. Thanks for the advice. I will have a look into it next time I talk to Wurkkos. Finding a good balance between too slow and too fast clicking is always a little challenge, though.

I see what you mean. This topic is being frequently discussed here. If you take a look backwards in this thread you will see that I also suggested an integrated USB-C port inside the threads. I talked to both Sofirn and Wurkkos about such a design already. I am confident that we can get closer to it step by step with a sensitive approach. For now, I don't think it can be realized just like that. Same applies to moving the charging circuit into the tail section where it probably requires a double-tube design with even more design changes.

Instead I hope I can convince Sofirn/Wurkkos to use the "potting" method in order to make the integrated port fully waterproof and not only water-resistant. That means encapsulating the electric components of the port to protect them from any ingress, even if the rubber cap gets lost or loose. The plan is also to have reverse charging in place to recharge external devices via the integrated 21700 battery. Wurkkos will launch this feature with their new HD20 headlamp as well as Sofirn will do with the next batch of their LT1 lantern.