Basic stuff like an efficient, current controlled driver, good heatsinking and milspec type III anodizing.
Please—no crenelated bezels!
Bore the battery tube for 18mm wide cells, so that
16340 AND 18350 cells fit.
An extension tube would allow L2M type legoing ability—so it could use
16340&18350 cells in shorty mode, or 18650/2 x 16340 with extension.
Machined slots for 1.5mm tritium vials would be cool…if not a bit much 
That's not a big deal if they offer optional bezels like they do with their current flashlight. I wish that was possible with many more flashlights.
The original ZeroHour was kind of huge, bigger than a Skyray King. A 1x18650 light sounds much easier to carry, and the built-in charging function should make it appeal more to muggles.
The competition is pretty steep at that price range and battery type though… For example the Zebralight SC62 / SC600, which are both very nice. It would take something pretty amazing to beat those.
Alternately, the Convoy S-series of lights are pretty nice, only a fraction of the price, and are nicely moddable so they can be converted from “nice” to “awesome”. Great stock selection, and easy to mod in a wide variety of ways. Standard easily-flashable driver hardware too.
I suppose it depends on what type of uses you’re aiming for though… The above are all EDC-style, fairly easy to carry and useful for general purposes. But throwers can be nice too.
Two throwy budget lights which are particularly good for their class are the XinTD C8 and the Jacob A60. But up in the ZeroHour’s price range you’ve got items like the Nitecore CU6, featuring nice white and UV outputs plus basic r/g/b emitters, or the SRT7 which trades the UV for better white output and a smoothly-variable control ring.
I guess my questions are… What kind of market are you aiming for? And what will distinguish the ZeroHour 1x18650 light from established premium lights like the ZL SC62w or the NiteCore SRT7?
Charging from USB is an interesting feature, but isn’t particularly special. For some (like me), it’s actually a downside since I’d rather have a smaller light instead of carrying charging hardware with me. A decent charger is only about $5, and it’s hard to go through an entire 18650 cell in a day.
Things which would make it interesting to me are: Small body, made from bare titanium or copper or brass or maybe steel, high-CRI daylight tint emitter (for example, the Nichia 219B 92CRI 4500-5000K, or the awesome Cree MT-G2 5000K), very high and very low modes with a good selection between (like, 0.2 to 2000 lumens), either fast PWM (10+kHz) or constant-current output, nice interface (probably an e-switch with a relatively deep set of functions), a battery check mode, flashy bike headlight modes, high efficiency, smooth floody beam for up-close use (perhaps a frosted lens available as a choice), moddable, … I could go on for quite a while (I think I already have).
For some really interesting ideas, talk to tterev3.
Speak for yourself, i can go through 2-3 a day, but your point still stands, having the charging hardware built into the light will not help that problem and just adds weight
A charging port makes waterproofing harder too.
I’d rather just carry extra batteries with me if I might need them.
But… yeah, even using a light a dozen times per day it usually takes me a month to drain an Eneloop. So, an 18650 cell lasts practically forever. Benefits of being photosensitive.
Very true, water, electronics and rust don’t get along with each other
I can’t imagine what being photosensitve must be like, but i do use an average of 1-2 hours of lights a day, today i used 2 hours spread over 3 lights, the (4) AA eneloops and 18650 are currently charging, and i have (3) AAA to charge after the eneloops are done
the AAA are completely drained and were fully charged a couple hours ago, they are in a headlight that i am using more and more and the 1 hour runtime is very insufficient
Yeah… I’m accustomed to pretty long run times, from 4 hours to about 1000. The modes I use most generally get 15 to 150 hours per charge… Like ~7 lumens for ~90 hours on my modded Convoy S7. Or 11 lm for 27 hours on my headlamp.
I’m hoping the new ZeroHour light will have higher efficiency and lower low modes. The ZeroHourXD spec says it’ll do 20 lumens for 165 hours when powered by 3x18650 3400mAh cells (though the front page only claims “24+ hours” for some reason). By comparison, a ZL SC62 runs at 12 lumens for 172 hours on one 18650 cell. That gives the ZHXD an efficiency of roughly half what Zebralight does.
I disagree about the charger. It allows the average user to safely enjoy a lithium powered light. I guess it depends on who it is marketed for. Personally I’d love something like the rrt01 with extension tunes for aa and 18650, but obviously that’s not a budget light
It definitely depends on who it’s marketed to. To all of us, built-in recharging isn’t important because we have a charger already with multiple back-up batteries but to the majority of the population who is used to running primary alkaline batteries dry, this may be an important feature. I recently bought my friend a Fenix UC40UE for that same reason because he’s used to mag-lights and it would be too much of a hassle for him if he had to worry about taking a battery out to charge it let alone not running the battery dry. Thankfully it comes with a protected circuit for that.
I agree with that for the most part, but wireless charging is different. It means I wouldn't mind doing lots of partial charges because there's no worries about wearing out the anodized threads.
Do I have a different understanding of “wireless charging”?
I’m just lost on how you brought up wireless when I thought everyone was talking about built-in USB charging. Is wireless charging for flashlights even invented yet?
How hard can it be. They have been charging my toothbrushes wirelessly for years, why not my light?
There's at least one flashlight with wireless charging. Putting it in a flashlight looks like a simple matter of finding space for a wireless charging receiver.
You’ve got a flashlight that can charge other devices, but it’s quite bulky, heavy and thus less appealing for situations where such a feature would be useful (outdoor trips, camping, …). Not to mention a price comparison to similar FLs, an emergency charger (~$10) and a set of 3-4 Li-Ion cells… ($30-40).
So you intend to make it more appealing by reducing the size to 1x18650 format, thus crippling your main feature, reducing battery capacity to 1/3rd. While charging nearly the same as for your bigger flashlights (Zerohour X, $150).
The ideas brought up in this thread are of course good, mostly improvements on preexisting stuff or specialized niche features without mass appeal; but none of them is good enough to justify your current design.
Hey all!
Just a quick post to let you guys know I am still here and I have been reading everyone’s suggestions and messages. We have a brief project meeting today and I will be sure to go over what has been mentioned so far here.
Love it! Keep them coming…
Thanks,
Aaron
There was a recent thread about using the pins on a controller chip to turn on 7135s in doubling numbers. PWM would only be needed for fractional multiples of 350 or 380 ma.
Individually controlling 7135 chips would help, but it would still have visible PWM when the output level only requires one 7135 chip. Like, say there are 8x7135 chips, and the output levels are 0.2, 2, 12.5, 37.5, and 100%. Fairly reasonable mode spacing. The bottom two levels would need PWM even though the top three levels would be totally solid.
Or, if there were any in-between levels like 33, it’d need PWM alternating 25 and 37.5%… but that’s probably not a big issue.
It would probably be a significant improvement over the usual approach used by cheap drivers, with benefits both in efficiency and visual appearance.