Yup, I indeed failed to quote the post by Kindle. Sorry for the confusion, and thanks for clearing it up as well as the answers!
Thank you for your answer! Checked flashlightlens.com, seems that they don’t have right size for FW3A, so the lumintop is the only option. I have sapphire glass from AliExpress, but it’s without ar coating.
Neal’s Gadgets has sapphire. Communication is terrible but has been okay if you are persistent and patient.
I bought one of the launch units from Nealsgadgets way back in April 2019. I use the light regularly and am still very happy with it.
I remember writing some initial feedback when I first got it but after all this time I forgot most of them. The color temp I had wanted was not available so I went with the warmer 7A. I see there is now a 219C 4000k which is perfect but it is $$$! I can’t remember what CRI the 7A is but I wish a 90+ was available at launch.
Bummer to hear I could not buy “the same” light any more… should have bought a second one as a backup!
So thanks again for all of your hard work.
Neal stops shipping in Russia a few years ago, and with drop shipping price of the glass will be incredibly high 
so a 14500 variant is releasing soon…
Saw that, hopefully they make it a single emitter not triple.
looks to be triple.
Sorry. Where is this info?
Thanks. Does not look like a good use of the 14500 form factor.
So if someone wants to know - I have contacted Lumintop via AliExpress and they send me this glass for 6$
I bought my FW3A in November 2019 with SST20s and I EDCed it for a while but, believe or not, I put it away. I read something in a post that rekindled my interest and even ran a few tests. I was messing around with it in my 'box', after calibrating it, measured turbo, repeat turbo and max ramp. It looked like this and I'm wondering what causes the pattern circled in red... specifically the half-way point of the peak.
Thank you!
Thermal regulation.
Updated the top post:
Warning to potential buyers (2021)
The FW3A design has been changed many times since launch, with quite a few downgrades. It is not the same light any more. The 2021 model appears to be downgraded so much that it is no longer compatible with the upstream FW3A firmware. It’s missing an entire power channel, as shown in the pic below.
Additionally, the FW1A has been downgraded in at least two major ways — the reflector no longer focuses correctly, and the driver no longer has the primary regulated power channel.
These are only a few of the many downgrades though. Almost every time a new batch was produced, people reported surprising new changes, and most were not for the better. Several vendors have dropped the entire product line because it had too many problems and they had to issue too many refunds.
So, be warned: If you buy a FW3A, FW1A, or any of its other derivatives, you probably won’t get the light described in this thread.
Left: Original FW3A driver. Right: Downgraded version from 2020-12.
Total coincidence, but I just noticed this update was comment #13666, a combination of two of the most famous “unlucky” numbers — 13 and 666.
A great flashlight has apparently been ruined. A great flashlight that was not created by the manufacturer, who should have felt very fortunate. I find it disgusting.
Wow, I wonder what the newer driver design is. FET+1? Different MCU? Different firmware?
This is truly sad. You’d think that makers such as Lumintop would actually improve something created by a small project initiative. They took something great, watered it down, and then made it unreliable. I was wondering why we’d be seeing complaints from people when early release lights would behave just fine. Now… we know.
I had a feeling something was up when I saw significant changes going on with the BLF LT1. Notably, in the version produced by Sofirn. The LT1 v2 showed a number of board changes. If the FW3A is now neutered to the point where upstream software won’t work properly, what of the LT1?