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.
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.
I like the UV on this light, red white and UV covers about everything. To me, another color LED would not be useful. Would you look at perhaps two TIRs and one reflector? It looks like it needs a lens anyway, so this would allow keeping the UV.
I am also for maybe moving the USB to the tail or someplace with better protection, the rubber flaps work, but are not as good as a protected USB behind threads and an O-ring.
Maybe a way to select red as the initial click would be good, this way it’s up first for a real eye saver at night. This isn’t that important, but figured I would throw it out there.
Whatever this becomes, I’m more than likely going to buy one, thanks for doing this!
Wow! Thanks for the welcome and quick and detailed response!
I’ll look into the T28, the UV light really is a main feature for me though.
I saw the comments about the USB-C, I didn’t realise the port itself could be waterproofed, that would be neat.
Looking forward to seeing what they/you end up with, but for now I’m happy with my WK30’s (intentional plural). Just saw an opportunity to contribute, not a common occurrence these days, and figured I’d chip in.
Instead of a green led, a nice royal blue xp-el would be nice like in the X80. Would be nice if Wurkkos gives us an option of green/red and blue/red and UV/red. Much more sales and everyone would be happy.
I don’t have any objections against another model name. None of the beforehand discussed ideas are confirmed yet. I just hope that many of these ideas can be realized.
Two items I would like to discuss-
Leds- I would like to have a warm white, high CRI, led instead of the red LED. Keep the main white LED and UV LED as they are. I don’t mind swapping the LED myself as long as the light is easy access- no glue!
Ramping mode- My favorite lights all have ramping UI and I really prefer the ramp to go all the way from moonlight to max. I like the Anduril ramp the best. From off, holding down the button starts the light at the lowest mode, and if I don’t release the switch, it starts ramping up. This would not work with the 4 second long press to switch into and out of ramp mode.
Not sure how far along the development on this is, but I found this thread after looking up the WK30. I like the new designs, any chance we could get a few different white emitter options? I’d love to have a 2700K light in one of these, seems like it would compliment the red well. Certainly keep the red and UV emitters, they are the main things that drew me to this light.
At this point of time a major update (or should I say upgrade?) of WK30 is rather uncertain. Wurkkos said they had problems with the correct alignment of those three emitters in the reflector. Eventually, at least one LED is often off-center as they do not use any gaskets to keep the LED board aligned with the reflector holes. Now, I proposed to redesign the entire head unit, using centering gaskets and different reflector ratios, in particular white against red and UV. If we decided to sacrifice UV light for another monochromatic LED (green, amber, blue... you name it), we could use a plastic TIR optic instead.
Another major aspect is the dual side switch design that I personally favor most. It offers a broad amount of functionalities without causing too much complexity in operation. Fenix uses these switches for quite some time but their UI is rather crappy. Now, convincing a manufacturer to step up from one side switch to a dual side switch, including a whole new user interface that needs to be created/programmed/tested, is a big leap to take. I fear they are reluctant about it and worry that it will not sell well. Maybe I need to put more work in highlighting the benefits of having two side switches, I don't know. Maybe they think the gap in the market for such a special design is way too small to justify additional development work. They might be right about it. If Andúril was capable of utilizing two side switches the situation could be totally different.
Thanks for the info! I have been holding off on getting a WK30 since I really like the looks of the upgraded one with dual switch. But I guess I might as well get the current version since it sounds like this might take a while, if at all. I will 100% buy the new version if it comes out though. Tempted to try swapping in a 2700K LED, but now I’m not so sure if even the factory has had trouble getting everything aligned.
IMHO UV is one of the main selling points of this light. In an ideal world it would have usb-c with battery bank potential, lh351d 2700k for relaxing and reading, and cslpm1 for some more throw, and uv.
And the old/original ones, which I’m fine with. Don’t need deep/photo/whatever red, and I like the 395 with purply spillover vs some horrid greenish spillover from a lot of 365s (until a ZWB2 necessarily fixes it).
