to address the “Battery vampire” question, I`v done a test and they will work right down to 0.46v! maybe even lower if I let it, but the light at that voltage isn`t really usable anyway, the led looks just about lit even in the dark.
But the caveat is that you need to be at a higher voltage than that to get the driver board to fire up in the first place! and once it does you have to leave the light running and not turn it off at all else it wont turn back on again.
I`m not sure what the minimum trigger voltage is, I`m guessing at least 0.7v, but it Will run a battery down to Well below this if you just leave it running
A small addition to that, an effect that helps a bit: almost empty alkaline batteries tend to recover their voltage a bit when the load is taken away, it may take some time. So even when you switch the light off at say 0.5V and the light will not turn on again, after a while you may measure over 0.7V again, maybe enough to fire up the chip. Once the light is on the voltage nose-dives back to 0.5
This is making me want an AA version of the C01 now!
Surely I`m not the only one that would love to see this scaled up a little (but still identical) to accomodate AA batts?
maybe a bigger magnet slot obviously, but still with a single Sophia or Yuji Led.
These would make great emergency “candles” around the house!
I got both a red (670nm) and black (3400k) C01 and both are potted. They’re nice little lights for going to the toilet or something. My C01S produces wayy too much light on the low-setting for such a thing, but the 3400k C01 produces a much more diffused (less throwy) and dim, warm light. The C01 670nm has a distinct “squarish” dot, presumably the LED dye being visible by the optics. The LED is indeed dark red (my first “real” red light so I don’t have a lot to compare it to, but two C01R’s are on its way too). I won’t carry’em everyday like my C01S but they’ll probably find a good space next to my night table I’ll try to take some beamshots tonight.
The C01R is insanely bright. For me, I only use low or medium at most. If the red C01 square-ish hotspot irks you… you could mod the LED by scratching it up. I’m in the process of doing it, and it does soften the dye mark in the hotspot.
Why C01R have thicker positive contact and C01 still tiny contacts driver?
Seem already marked by battery and may be a weak point.
It hasn’t been improved
Don’t worry. One of my first batch C01 got lots of use, multiple times a day. Estimate the years you’ll likely spend on earth, divide by two and buy as many lights to be safe .
Frankly don’t need a lot of them for myself
It’s not the first time that it turn on just touching the head involuntary
To avoid that you have to do half twist off,because threads are a bit sloppy and clean contacts often
Yesterday I received my latest order of C01 lights (with the new led) + 1 CO1S !
3 of them will be given to kids of friends (blue, green, orange all with diffusers).
The other orange C01 and the orange C01S will be kept
Here’s the whole collection, with the original black / red / blue C01 (top right), the “sandblasted” C01S (middle bottom), and a red C01R (right bottom)
Things I would like to note (sorry if someone did it before):
- the colour of the new Sophia led is different (3400K vs 3200K of tyhe previous), is less warm than the Yuji, and outer edge of the side spill seems to be slighly greenish, unlike the Yuji that has no variations
- it also has a narrower “hotspot”, if compared with the red/blue C01 with Yujis (the original black versions that had a completely “flat” beam no hotspots)
- I thought the orange was a little darker, but I’m ok with this colour
the new blue is also darker than the original one, and the green is probably the best anodizing colour
I guess so or maybe the leds are in a different position towards the reflector! And indeed, they are really funny lights. I guess this orange one will be a “user”, and I’ll keep the others as “relics”
What would be the best way for the potted versions to sand the reflector (and LED)? Just try it all assembled? Or push out the driver (just press on the LED)?