:+1: :+1: :+1:
Thanks TK.
I wanna try Anduril 2 for my SC31 Pro.
I very interested in a AA/14500 right angle/headlamps with Anduril, but personnaly I’d want it to be as small and lightweight as possible, like a Zebralight AA. Integrated charging would make it significantly bigger, as well as multi optics/LED channels designs, and I’m not sure feature creeping helps the realisation of a project.
That said I doubt they could achieve Zebralight size/weight, Sofirn don’t seem to make very small lights, their AA are on the larger side, and ZL put the LED and driver on the same PCB for space saving.
E21a could be nice yes, but I imagine would complicate design and manufacturing, with the 300lm figure you gave and 4500K 9080 it would mean ~1.2A drive current, which I think at this current would requires a good performing MCPCB with very low dielectric thermal resistance. 3535 design is simple and also modable.
There is the Manker E03h II that released recently, but it has a 10lm ”moonlight” with li-ion which is pretty bad, and the UI while improved doesn’t allow to cycle from ”moonlight” to low-mid etc, probably don’t have PID regulation either, I sure would prefer Anduril. Most of the other available AA/14500 headlamps are heavier and larger, there is Zebralight of course but they don’t support li-ion, which is a shame because the 14500 li-ion cells have significantly more energy.
Merci pour tes suggestions, thefreeman. I'm mostly d'accord with your feedback. The integrated charging circuit is a disputable feature for sure. Actually, I do not want any feature creep here but a very simple UI that can handle both red + white light modes. Consequently, this rules out using Andúril as it is too complex and it would require significant changes in its source code to work with dual emitters, working independently. There were some discussions among the LT1 team incl. ToyKeeper using a red light mode in the next evolution of Sofirn's LT1 and maybe it can be done with Andúril 2.0 by tweaking the tint ramping feature. But again, for now I doubt this will be the best idea for a small headlamp.
Comparing Sofirn's headlamps with Zebralight's headlamps is in my humble opinion a bit difficult. For one, because Zebralight is known for squeezing high-end technology into supersmall lights, e.g. SC64 with a fantastic boost circuit and stable output above 900lm. Their drivers are highly integrated and customized to the corresponding host design, using glue and potting. For second, also because Zebralight is quite a different pricing level, about 3-4x as much as Sofirn's (discounted) prices. If we aim for an AA lamp as small as Zebralight's H502pr there would be two scenarios in my lay imagination...
a) we should try to invite Zebralight to BLF with an educated proof of concept (and expect a sales price around $ 100.00)
b) we need Sofirn to divide their business into a 'budget line' and a 'premium line', where the latter one uses highly sophisticated drivers, hand-picked emitters, ultra-precise CNC machining and tooling etc.. - effectively with a smaller lot size and significantly higher prices, too
Sofirn has difficulties sourcing Nichia LEDs, so I am open for any recommendations that offer a great color rendition. SST20 4.000K 95CRI could be a nice alternative as it does not create as much tint shift as E21A. I wonder if Cree has anything to offer since they also sell HighCRI versions of their LEDs. I still try to find out what LED layout Armytek is using underneath the TIR optic of the Wizard WR. It seems they placed both XQE and XD16 in a two-by-two quad array, like Cree's XM-L color emitter. Maybe this would work nicely for this AA headlamp concept, too.
That’s at least the configuration the pictogram from Armyteks description of the light suggests:
https://www.armytek.com/flashlights/models/wizard/armytek-wizard-wr-magnet-usb-white-red-light/
Kind regards
Frederick
Yeah, having two independent types of LED is not a recipe for small. To optimize for size, the question isn’t what can be added, but what can be removed.
I had a headlamp with red LEDs… a Nitecore HC50. It used “click for white, or hold for red”. And while on, half-press the button to change modes or brightness levels. Pretty simple. But I often forgot it had a red mode since I never had a use for it. I mostly remembered when I tried to “hold for moon”, and got bright or flashing red instead. Then to reach moon, I had to turn it off, click for white, then half-press several times to rotate brightness through turbo and back to moon.
The dual-stage button was kind of neat, but in practice I found it mostly got in the way. Quite frequently, it would register a half-press on the way to making a full press… and then activate both functions. Like, click for on/off with memory was nice… but it’d often register a half press for “rotate brightness up” while turning the light off. So it’d often come on next time at the next mode, like having next-mode memory except less predictable. Same with the red mode group… was never sure which red mode it would use next time I turned it on.
It was simple, but it wasn’t intuitive or convenient. The fancy extras were neat, but they came at the cost of some basics like predictability and direct access to low modes without cycling through high modes.
Anyway, I think a single e-switch UI with two different independent LED types could be done well… but it would need to be a complete from-scratch new design built for that purpose. Anduril is not designed for that, and would not be a good choice for this type of light.
Can we have a SP31v3, with single frequency strobe (10Hz) instead of the alternating frequency strobe, and mode memory for strobe mode (as per the original SP31) so that strobe can be accessed by the forward clicky switch?
That would create the best budget light for light painting!
I’d like to put in a bid for making C01 lights with a variety of colored emitters —- blue, aqua, green, yellow, amber, and orange— like the lights Arc AAAs used to offer.
for extra collectible goodness, anodize the light tubes in matching colors, as was done with the C01R far red model.
AAA lights need sub lumen mode that it’s usefull for close ispection. I hope Sofirn will made C01S tail clicky version with 4 level bright
This would be great, but since they already stated they are only doing a single run with all the same emitter, I’m sure it won’t happen.
However, if they do offer a host version like djozz has asked of them, I’m tempted to do this. Pulling a few hundred out of the production run before the LED’s are installed should be more straightforward than running multiple batches with different LED’s. LED Supply has a good selection of colored 5mm emitters.
Also, check out the Convoy rainbow somebody shared on the flashlight reddit today. It’s glorious:
I also know there are a couple folks around here who have done sets of S2+ illuminated tailswitches that match the body colors.
Sofirn are really getting left behind now that Convoy is stocking the Osram leds. Sofirn haven’t released a new design for ages now.
….but Sofirn aren’t just going to make something just for that small percentage, they attract most sales from the general public who only care about high lumens.
You need to get into modding or installing your own the way you like it
Sorfirn entered where Convoy already was. Both do super work, but Convoy (Simon) seems to be more the “custom” guy. That said… Sofirn did bring out the C8F, Q8, SP-36, LT1, SP25a, and the latest rave now… the SC31 Pro.
Sofirn also brought us more tint and led type selections this last year— all selling at an “affordable” price. Then… they have migrated a lot of designs to give us Anduril lights in MUCH of their line. While Convoy moves along in newer customized designs lately, Sofirn is selling a heck of a lot of “production” lights that are really great (solid) builds that aren’t always “leading edge”, but they are very reliable. Oh… and the LT1 really was a super new thing actually (I own FOUR) 
I love Convoy equally, but in my case it just turns out that more than a few of my first Anduril lights happened to come from Sofirn.
And Funtastic… as a dealer you are always watching the market- I get it. But I’ve read you say more than once that people want, “… an EASY to use light without problems.” I’d guess BOTH Sofirn and Convoy are standard shelf “stockers” for you on the retail side to this point. I’d also guess customers are getting smarter with time as the Millennials start coming up to be prime consumers (where you can hand them anything electronic and they get of figured out in 10 seconds- NOT my generation) 
Interesting. Barry was talking about having SP33/Q8 “Pro” (XHP50.2 and built-ing USB-C charging) versions in the pipeline. It would be cool if Anduril 2 landed on them, but the timing will be tight.
Any news on the Q8 Pro?
I am interested in the Q8 with 4xXHP50.2 (3V).
That’ll get hot fast. I wonder what the highest sustainable output will be
~2000-2500Lm
Hopefully the same as the original Q8 which was 1500-2000lm.
The original Q8 can hold ~1500Lm for no more than 20 minutes, after which the temperature will already be over 50°C
The highest sustainable output is mostly determined by the host itself, not the LEDs used. There is some variation with different LED types, but the differences are small. So the sustainable level would probably be very close to the current versions.
Here’s what I measured in a turbo runtime test:
The direct-drive-style power circuit makes output sag over time so, to maintain temperature, the driver keeps bumping the output up. As the battery voltage gets closer to the LED forward voltage, it becomes more efficient and can sustain higher brightness levels at the same temperature. It’s not the prettiest runtime graph, but it’s normal for this type of light.