Alrighty then. So this is some drama. Like...what's going on here. Lol. 

ScottRay wrote:

Alrught then. So this is somw drama. Like…what’s going on here. Lol. 

I wonder if a rogue group at Sofirn decided “we’re close enough—time to turn some profit and sell,” then ran with it.

The LT1 mini was getting so close to the finish line… total disrespect to the BLF team for this to happen. Man, after what happened to the FW3A circuitry, then the intermediary circuit changes to the LT1 between V1 and V2 with no heads up… It’s not going to bode well for confidence from the BLF community to do future projects like this. And that would be notable lost opportunities. I think it’s pretty rare you get this kind of direct enthusiast co-development in other product domains.

And here I thought the BLF team did a sneaky one and released the mini before letting everyone know.

I’m so ready to buy one. But I think it’s also wise to wait for official word from Sofirn before parting with my money, don’t want to buy a dud.

Edit: I like discounts, add me to the list please? I was about to get one full price

SIGShooter wrote:

Well this is certainly a surprise to me. I sent Barry a message asking him about this and hopefully he’ll reply back.

Did Barry replied to your message already?

I don’t like to be picky on these situations, but unless something got “lost in translation” regarding the sales dates and conditions, I would say that it would be “nice” if Sofirn explained what is happening, and informed (not to say apologized) to the development team of BLF members involved!!!

Also, for the sake of transparency with costumers, Sofirn should state that the current versions were not tested (in a final version) by the development team, as stated in DBSAR post.

I do not expect much, if any, of an explanation, nor an apology. It would be nice though. Re-assuring even.

They often release very small unofficial batches. The SP33S, HS40, LT1s, HS10, HS20 are all the same, no reviewer can get them until mass production

Guessing they built a few prototypes and decided to sell them to get testing completed quicker. This sucks for the dev team, but I understand at the same time that this project has taken a good while to reach completion.

I’m a bit disappointed in the design tbh, looks too long for a lantern being almost the same length as the LT1. A mini version should have been smaller. The LT1s looks much better.

MascaratumB wrote:

SIGShooter wrote:

Well this is certainly a surprise to me. I sent Barry a message asking him about this and hopefully he’ll reply back.

Did Barry replied to your message already?

I don’t like to be picky on these situations, but unless something got “lost in translation” regarding the sales dates and conditions, I would say that it would be “nice” if Sofirn explained what is happening, and informed (not to say apologized) to the development team of BLF members involved!!!

Also, for the sake of transparency with costumers, Sofirn should state that the current versions were not tested (in a final version) by the development team, as stated in DBSAR post.

Nobody in the development team chat group has not received any info on this release as we know at this time, or have we heard from Barry on that release model in question above.

Funtastic wrote:

They often release very small unofficial batches. The SP33S, HS40, LT1s, HS10, HS20 are all the same, no reviewer can get them until mass production

Guessing they built a few prototypes and decided to sell them to get testing completed quicker. This sucks for the dev team, but I understand at the same time that this project has taken a good while to reach completion.

I’m a bit disappointed in the design tbh, looks too long for a lantern being almost the same length as the LT1. A mini version should have been smaller. The LT1s looks much better.

The length is due to the ability to use the larger 21700 cell. Much of the delays for this has been due to the covid pandemic around the world affecting factories, communications, etc.

I was under the impression that it was going to be a screw on diffuser that you could use it as both a flashlight and lantern. I haven’t revisited this thread in over a year, but I think it was discussed early on.

That would have made it quite unique

Funtastic wrote:

I was under the impression that it was going to be a screw on diffuser that you could use it as both a flashlight and lantern. I haven’t revisited this thread in over a year, but I think it was discussed early on.

That would have made it quite unique

Hopefully sofirn will have some explanation, but this appears to be a very disappointing situation.

Junglerocket147 wrote:

Hopefully sofirn will have some explanation, but this appears to be a very disappointing situation.

I agree indeed.. Seems like a breach of trust happened and Sofirn pushed an untested/unreviewed LT1M into production.

Funtastic wrote:

They often release very small unofficial batches. The SP33S, HS40, LT1s, HS10, HS20 are all the same, no reviewer can get them until mass production. Guessing they built a few prototypes and decided to sell them to get testing completed quicker.

I think you may be right. I messaged Barry as soon as it showed up on Sofirn’s site and he said that “LT1-mini is in limited production currently”.

DBSAR wrote:

Junglerocket147 wrote:

Hopefully sofirn will have some explanation, but this appears to be a very disappointing situation.

I agree indeed.. Seems like a breach of trust happened and Sofirn pushed an untested/unreviewed LT1M into production.

And then to go 2 days without a response...

Funtastic wrote:

I was under the impression that it was going to be a screw on diffuser that you could use it as both a flashlight and lantern. I haven’t revisited this thread in over a year, but I think it was discussed early on.

That would have made it quite unique

Got onboard because of this very unique function. I was hoping to even jury-rig the screw-on diffuser onto an IF25/A just for kicks.

Currently sold Sofirn LT1-minis doesn’t look like the diffuser screws on, zooming in on the product pic reveals no threading on the diffuser and there hasn’t been any photos taken of the unit with its diffuser off. No reflector/emitter shots also.

But if you check the product description they still have that blurb about it being a lantern/torch combo. Thinking if I should buy one just to report back to the community on what changes Sofirn pushed on this release without the BLF team’s knowledge. Really curious if this even deserves the LT1-mini branding.

I’m going for the OG LT1 soon instead if this Sofirn saga continues on.

Barry said that he was in the hospital and just got out, pulled the listing, and will be sending out units for testing. So apparently it’s just some internal miscommunication within Sofirn.

At this point I see the finish line approaching us

Thanks for the update. I placed an order for one because I assumed it was the final product. Should I be reaching out to Sofirn to cancel?

Hmmmm interesting…… I can picture Barry at his desk with several dozen of these that he is putting together himself to “send out to the develop team”, then getting sick and going in the hospital, only to have someone sneak into his office and say…… hey, what are these things???? Let’s sell em?

Barry & Sofirn has contacted the team and explained the issue. It is back on track!

DBSAR wrote:

Barry & Sofirn has contacted the team and explained the issue. It is back on track!

So do we need to contact Sofirn and cancel the order? or will they delay shipping it until the product has passed prototype testing and is finalised? Thanks

BruisedMonkey wrote:

DBSAR wrote:

Barry & Sofirn has contacted the team and explained the issue. It is back on track!

So do we need to contact Sofirn and cancel the order? or will they delay shipping it until the product has passed prototype testing and is finalised? Thanks

I’d cancel anyway tbh, who wants an untested prototype

Funtastic wrote:

BruisedMonkey wrote:

DBSAR wrote:

Barry & Sofirn has contacted the team and explained the issue. It is back on track!

So do we need to contact Sofirn and cancel the order? or will they delay shipping it until the product has passed prototype testing and is finalised? Thanks

I’d cancel anyway tbh, who wants an untested prototype

What I’m saying is that if they are going to ship prototypes I would cancel but if they instead just delay shipping until after it’s ready then I don’t need to cancel and am happy to wait.

DBSAR wrote:

Barry & Sofirn has contacted the team and explained the issue. It is back on track!

Good to hear! 

I cancelled

BruisedMonkey wrote:

DBSAR wrote:

Barry & Sofirn has contacted the team and explained the issue. It is back on track!

So do we need to contact Sofirn and cancel the order? or will they delay shipping it until the product has passed prototype testing and is finalised? Thanks

cancel for now, we will post updates hopefully soon.

Please add me to the interest list. Love the LT1 and would absolutely love a mini.

Additions to the interest list since post number 1343

Post# / Added / User Name
1347 / 02/21/2022 / bigbuckdj
1348 / 02/21/2022 / Kakapo
1349 / 02/21/2022 / Verodin
1349 / 02/21/2022 / Verodin
1357 / 02/23/2022 / zuluwalker
1380 / 02/27/2022 / blinks

Sofirn has fixed the issue, the link to the pre-sale of the untested prototype has been removed from that topic post. They are sending the design team prototypes for testing & evaluation first so it can be made sure its ready for sale, then once its tested, any bugs are fixed, and all is good, then the production model will be released.

Interested!