New: Noctigon Meteor M43 ; in production New color added: Tan

LED Flashlights – General Info
479

Inferion say…. at first I see Inferion talking down to ToyKeeper, what a joke! ToyKeeper is far from an amateur and is the most likely candidate I know of to improve the UI of the Meteor. Or Apple or pretty much anything as far as I can see. Brilliant code writer.

Then Inferion say… shake the flashlight to remove the optics. Yeah, right, ok. I said, in the video, that one leg is glued. You saw me beat it hard into my hand, what you didn’t see was between the 2 video’s I put the bezel on with no lens and used Kinetic energy on the table to no good result. (For those that might not know, Kinetic energy is the force of a moving object that makes it keep moving when it’s host is suddenly stopped. This is how a bullet is disassembled. I’ve done that many times, from .38 Special to .454 Casull to .50 BMG.)

Hank confirmed that one leg is glued to the mcpcb. Shaking the light is a silly vain attempt and not the least bit likely to work.

3 strikes and you’re out Inferion, any more bright ideas?

Coming across rude, I know, and I do apologize for that, but insulting a brilliant mind with comments about amateur attempts is not exactly polite in and of itself. And I have to go on record here to say I do not like the UI of the Meteor. It’s overly complicated, not intuitive and downright difficult to use in real world scenario’s. If ToyKeeper can fix this, I’ll send her mine to do so. As far as I’m concerned, the UI is this lights Achilles Heel. I simply love the design and build quality as well as the concept of making a small compact light do big things. That success is applauded in a standing ovation.

Since I don’t have my own Meteor as yet I am not sure about it’s usage. I can say though that as much as I love the light itself, the UI will be likely to keep it on the shelf collecting dust. If it pans out that way, I am not above tearing it apart and stripping the driver, modifying the light myself to do what I want it to do. I know I’m the amateur Inferion is referring to, and I wouldn’t mess with the boost driver at all. I’d be more prone to take an iron to it and remove all the components to piggyback in a BLF FET driver, one with TK’s firmware on it. With the upcoming Nichia 219C on board, THEN I’d be a happy camper. :wink:

I will try to learn the complicated UI, because I like what Hank has done here. There are features that I really do like a lot, the RGB button indicating charge level being one of those. All that blinky stuff is not for me. My memory issues do not allow me to keep up with really complicated geometry’s, mostly a medical issue that is not likely to be improving as I head toward 60 yrs old. But I will try. I really do appreciate the lengths gone to on this light, and apologize for stepping on toes with my opinionated self. But hey, it is what it is. I can only call em like I see em.

(having any mode called Tactical on a light that blinks at every turn is kind of dangerous, no? Every touch of the button brings identification to your location, Tactical strobe being difficult enough to find as to make it easy to get shot. Seems odd to me, hope I can remember to reach for a different light when I hear something go bump in the night.)

All said, still very much looking forward to my own white/black combination M43. I’ll find a way to make it work for me, one way or another. :wink:

Done

480

sorry, i dont know about what - first sample on Fonarevka was not glued.

If you mean button blinks - it can be disabled.

So, as i know, Hank & Co are still open for changes in FW!
And yes, Inferion works with tiny monster flashlights already very long time, maybe it is worth to give a try for this unusual UI, which was developed for years for so kind of flashlights? As i know, UI1 designed mostly by Hank, and UI3 is original Inferion FW.

481

Every press of the button causes the emitters to flash. If you’re clicking 6 times to lock it out, you get 6 quick flashes. If you’re pressing 6 times to unlock it, again 6 flashes. If you’re changing group level and pressing 11 times, you guessed, 11 flashes from the emitters.

Every click of the button produces a flash of light.

The worst thing for me is that it’s not linear in function One click turns it on Moon/Low. How do you go to Medium from there? Turn it off, then click it twice. No, wait, that’s high. Medium has to be backed into from Moon/Low?

“Ramping” is a term used in the manual, but this is not traditional, only moving through the 7 possible modes.

I have ToyKeepers ramping firmware in some of my larger more powerful lights (and a few small ones as well) and there are 64 places feasible to stop at. Moon to Turbo takes 2 seconds. And it reverses at will. I guess I’m spoiled and stuck in my ways.

I’ll have to wait now to play with my own Meteor, the sample is on it’s way to next-in-line.

482

You are wrong. 7 possible modes is step rumping. If you want continuous ramping, please, hold button for 2 seconds at the end positions of ramping (turbo or moon) and youll get ramping without steps.

I use this UI for a long time and as for me it’s excellent for the powerful light like the Meteor. Of course for a 10W EDC flashlight you need much simpler UI. But when you have 70+W flashlight the UI3 is very useful.

483

That escalated kinda quickly…

484

Thx for the videos DBCstm.

485

Ditto. I really enjoyed them :)

486

Had the light in hand yesterday and holding down the button for ramping showed 7 distinct steps… moon, low, low med, high med, low high, high high, and turbo. Not sure what you’re referring to using but this was the Noctigon Meteor M43.

When someone shows me how to get this particular light to ramp in a smooth linear fashion I’ll admit to being wrong. As of this moment, that’s simply not the case WITH THIS LIGHT!

Sure thing guys. I think some others are going to be doing more exhaustive video on the light, just wanted to get a quick feel for it out there.

Edit: For the record, I held the button down and ran it up through the steps, back down, back up and back down again. Much more than a couple of seconds. Steps is all I ever saw.

487

Sigh… :weary: what wrong with simple 5 modes? moon-low-mid-high and turbo? can they just build a nice light with simple modes? this is probably one of the reason I haven’t pull my trigger on this light even though I want to buy it since the first time I saw it. :~

488

Your question is simply redundant. Can't you buy another flashlight that suits your needs?

489

Very strange issue, on other Meteors it doesn’t flashes after second click. I hope, next reviewer can make video with this bug.
And sorry for my early topic about glued optics!

Sorry what i speak for Inferion… So:
Because with project is commercial, sorce code is closed, Inferion is not allowed to share code / PCB / and use this UI in another flashlights. But usually Inferion opens source code - this is already done for previos version of Indigo Driver (so, maybe it can be good start point for customised Meteor FW).
ToyKeeper can ask Hank to share current source code with him, why not? Why Infenion believes, what customizing of this code may be dangerous? Because level of many customisers is unsufficiant for this kind of driver. Sorry, at fonarevka we don’t know what can ToyKeeper do, we are really sorry if we have hurted ToyKeeper and DBCstm feelings. Of course, you can try and make more advanced UI, all what you need - HVSP programmer

490

LOL… I have enough flashlights that suit my need… I just want THIS light to suit my “need” :stuck_out_tongue:

491

You are welcome: http://youtu.be/0Y88gnxSr4M

492


Then UI2 should suit you. Unless you are afraid that you have direct access to modes the same way like Zebralight. I guess anyone more familiar with Zebralight would not feel so needy for less.
UI1 is simpler than any UI possible, not sure what is so scary, you basically have 3 modes as the manual says, you can ignore anything else.

493

Appreciate the honest response. I apologize if I over reacted a bit. Maybe my coffee was too strong this morning. :wink:

This light obviously had an intense amount of work put into it. I’d say it’s head and shoulders above the competition, but it only comes up to their knees on the shelf. :slight_smile:

Probably most of my problem with it is in me myself, not the light. I can be a bit stubborn and set in my ways sometimes. Yes, I know, it’s true. I’m ornery.

Hank will be sending mine shortly and I’ll try to do a more elaborate review. I wanted to get this sample on out there to others in line since I ordered one so quickly myself. There are already quite a few very nice pictures in circulation, so I didn’t do that. And this not being my light, I didn’t work very hard taking it apart. lol I’ll be more thorough in looking at my own though. And in the meantime, I’ll try to memorize the manual better.

494

Don’t own any Zebra lights… I’m thinking something simple to use,somewhere along the line of BLF FET drivers
Can’t get any easier than simple moonlight-low-mid-high- and turbo… no need for extra fancy clicking here and there :~

495

Hikelite, can you tell me how to simply bump the mode from say Low to Med in the instance that low is insufficient? Do you Have to turn it off, then back on in Med? I was finding that not very intuitive, having to access a mode level directly instead of linearly.

For example, I have been using ToyKeepers A6 firmware almost exclusively of late. With this firmware I turn on my X6 with a firm click of the tail clicky and it’s in moon mode. A bump steps it up to the next level, a soft press and hold (about 1/2 second) backs it up into the previous level. So doing that from off gets you straight to Turbo with a click and a press. Or if say I think I’ll need level 4 to do the job at hand and I click it on then bump 3 times to level 4 and that’s too bright, that soft press/hold backs it down to 3 no problem. Easy to access virtually any level while in use without turning it off or cycling through all the modes to get there. I could easily have it with memory but I choose no memory so it always starts in moon. Yes, I have to cycle through levels to get to the higher end, but is that so much different than having to double or triple click the Meteor to get to High then double click again to shift to High 1 or 2?

It’s just new to me, and I’m an old dog, so the learning curve is steeper for me than some. :wink:

496

Dale I can't tell you that of course. I know you can use UI2 and cycle if that is what you wish.

Personally I am a 2-3 mode person so playing in the UI1 with only Low-Turbo and by double click I also have Moon, is excellent to me, no complications of cycling and remembering what was the last used mode. When I will get mine I will try to make a video showing just that (if others don't do it faster), of course I don't care to memorize in mind only that I need to use, basically 3 things: press, 1 click, double click.

497

Why do you turn the light off for change mode (I hope you use UI3?)? You must use fast and long click to increase mode number and doubleclick for decrease mode number. And you can program any light outpur for every mode as you want. Or you use another UI, not UI3?

498

I was finding UI3 the best suited to me, I just didn’t keep it long enough to figure out how it all works.

I figured my own is coming so I shouldn’t tie up the sample any longer than necessary, it’s on the way to next in line even now. Speed is of the essence. :wink: