I agree with you. But Luminus SBT90-R costs about $ 57.00 per each. That drives the sales price of TS30R into regions that only few customers will be willing to spend. After talking to some resellers Acebeam's K30GT or K75 using SBT90-R are so called shelf-warmers with veeeery few sold items so far. As much as I would have loved Wurkkos to build this light, there is a too high risk they will never meet break even in selling it. SBT90-R would be around 625nm dominant wavelengh which is what I call "standard red" but far from deep red.
The alternative LED they may take into consideration is called Osram Ostar Projection Power LE A P0MQ which can be driven up to 10A with an output of approx. 1,400 lumens. This is really close to SBT90-R but at a lower current. 614nm amber colored light will be nice to cut through fog as there's significantly less backscatter at this wavelength.
Assembly of TS30S (with Luminus SBT90.2) will commence at the end of this week. IIRC, Wurkkos will probably be using the same Andúril revision number that Sofirn used in SC31 Pro (2020-03-18?). I will soon give an update about another new Wurkkos flashlight called TS30 (with Luminus SST-40 and the FC11 UI), to be launched even before TS30S.
Meanwhile, Mark gave me a brief look at the current status of TS30A today...
TS30A is currently in prototyping, the reflector geometry will soon be confirmed. So far, the TS30S head seems quite appropriate for Osram's LE A P0MQ even exceeding TS30S's throw numbers due to its smaller LED die size.
I cannot tell what driver the prototype uses but the final version of TS30A will be using a constant current driver. Not sure, if it's a buck driver converting the high battery voltage down to the low Vf of Osram's LE A P0MQ. The LED can be driven up to 8A of continuous peak current. Output is rated about 1.200 - 1.400lm at this current.
According to personal perception the so called amber tint (specified with 614nm wavelength) looks much more like red instead of orange or even yellow.
Below, some quick shots of the prototype incl. whitewall beamshots that Mark kindly shared with me to post them on BLF:
I was really looking forward to stocking the TS30 triple but Wurkkos is too expensive. As a dealer it’s the same price as a Sofirn SP70 how does that work?
If it’s the strike bezel then they need to make it optional
My observation (might not be correct) is that Wurkkos seems to start a new product with a much higher price (if there is a “pre-order” price, it still seems to start out high) and then maybe gradually lower the price. Eg. the Wurkkos HD20 has dropped in price when I check it again, as opposed to when it was available originally (which I feel was quite high-priced)…
But specifically regarding the TS30 (triple SST40), I think there are several competitors for this kind of light, so I would think that making the TS30 competitive right now would probably be better…
Eg. One of the first triple SST40 flashlights I noticed was the Nightwatch NSX3 (NS43) with triple SST40. Then the Astrolux EC03 (also made by Sofirn?) has come out with triple SST40… The Lumintop FW21 Pro now also lists a triple SST40 variant. So these are in likely in direct competition with the Wurkkos TS30, which is yet to be released…
how does that work?