If lockout is disabled by a power cycle I don’t see the harm of having it there.
I would love to use the simple mode most of the time, and on lights like the ubiquitous FW-series, physical lockout is not an option. Electronic lockout is needed.
on lights like the ubiquitous FW-series, physical lockout is not an option.
Why not? I do it on mine. Yes I understand that it only disconnects the switch and not the actual power; but it prevents accidental activation, which is the goal yes?
on lights like the ubiquitous FW-series, physical lockout is not an option.
Why not? I do it on mine. Yes I understand that it only disconnects the switch and not the actual power; but it prevents accidental activation, which is the goal yes?
Mine needed nearly a full turn to disconnect the switch signal which wasn’t practical when I actually needed to use it. Considering they have been known to randomly turn on at full power when things go wrong, even that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me either TBH.
Off topic but running it without the metal switch cover was 1000x better for me personally. No lockout needed, switch was recessed and took more force to press (but not so much that rapid clicks or holds were difficult) and felt very satisfying and responsive. Once Lume1 is out I’m definitely getting an FW1A and running it like that.
The FW3A (and presumably other related models) has a lot of variability from one light to the next. One of the things which differs is how it responds to having the front half loosened. On some, it’ll cut power in a quarter turn… while on others, it must be unscrewed completely off. I have examples of both in my collection.
So… yeah, sometimes soft lockout is the only option.
I’ve pondered whether lockout should be on 3 clicks instead of 4, to make it faster to enter/exit. Then I guess battcheck would be on 4 clicks. Not sure if that’s how it should be though, or if the current setup is better. However, it would definitely be one of the more difficult changes to get accustomed to. I know we’re breaking backward compatibility here, but swapping those two seems like it would be particularly annoying for anyone who has lights of both the old and new versions. We’d trip over it constantly.
my FW3A takes about .03 turns of the head to disable the signal path [lockout – or lockin, if the light is on when you do it]
it also depends on the cell dimensions
wle
—
"You never have the wind with you - it's either against you,or you're having a good day." Daniel Behrman, "The Man Who Loved Bicycles". It never gets easy, you just go faster. -Greg Lemond. ,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¸
This definitely sounds like a good idea, hoping that I can flash my D4V2 flashlights with this new Anduril.
I can also vouch for a more subtle candle mode, it’s a bit too violent at times.
It can also be a bit repetitive, but that’s probably a memory limitation.
Although it’s a lot better than many flickering LED candles I’ve seen.
No doubt Anduril is the best flashlight UI made so far, I rarely justify buying a light without it. If so, the light should be pretty special (like Nitecore TUP with the OLED display).
Candle mode could definitely benefit from higher resolution in the brightness ramp… and more frames per second… and some adjustments to the overall algorithm. It also varies from one light to another, since the underlying ramp is different. I try to adjust it to be fairly consistent, but it doesn’t always come out quite right.
About low/med/high/off, that’s possible by using the stepped ramp. Set it to 3 steps. It’ll still have the blinkies and other modes available though…
… so there’s also a simple UI, and it inherits the ramp style (smooth/stepped) of the full UI. It just has safer limits and most of the other modes and functions are blocked. The code for that isn’t published yet though; I’m still working on it.
I wish my Sofirn Q8 would just have Low , Medium , High and Off .
+1
I would also like a very robust simple mode where 1C and 1H dont make any difference. Nothing else, no ramping, no lockout or any click sequence that may make the flashlight behave strange. Simple enough that you understand it after just a few clicks.
An option to set the UI just on/off to a safe but useful level – like good old lights, would be just enough in some instances.
PS: and if it was possible to make the light flicker when you shake it it would be perfect!
For a ‘simple’ mode that is easy for muggles, a lockout mode presents the possibility of accidental lockout. And a muggle might never figure out what went wrong, and assume the light has died.
For a ‘simple’ mode that is easy for muggles, a lockout mode presents the possibility of accidental lockout. And a muggle might never figure out what went wrong, and assume the light has died.
That’s why I’m not sure if lockout should be included in the simple UI.
However, I don’t think they’ll assume it died, because the LED turns on while the button is pressed. It just doesn’t stay on. And if they loosen / tighten the tailcap, it exits back to the regular non-locked “off” mode.
I would also like a very robust simple mode where 1C and 1H dont make any difference. Nothing else, no ramping, no lockout or any click sequence that may make the flashlight behave strange. Simple enough that you understand it after just a few clicks.
An option to set the UI just on/off to a safe but useful level …
I may try to rework the ramping code a bit to allow for a single-brightness ramp. It might be a bit of a pain to configure, but afterward it should be able to do just on/off without changing brightness.
It’ll probably still have the battery check available though, and maybe lockout… so it’s not quite a 1-function light… but at least sort of similar.
I’ve pondered whether lockout should be on 3 clicks instead of 4, to make it faster to enter/exit. Then I guess battcheck would be on 4 clicks.
I would support that change, despite the potential for confusion. (And I think a lot of us will upgrade most or all of our lights once the new version is out, which will help.)
For reasons I cannot adequately explain, I can do a very fast triple-click every time, but four clicks is either much slower or a lot less consistent. I asked a couple of other people to try it too and they had similar results. Doubles and triples seem to be built into the human nervous system, at least for some people, while anything beyond that requires counting. Does anyone else have a similar experience?
So moving lockout from 4C to 3C would actually make a big difference, at least to some of us.
I realize this is crazy talk, but my ideal version of Anduril would have configuration options to enable or disable access to almost every feature from “simple mode” individually. It would let people create the interface they want to use while eliminating anything that might cause confusion. (Note: I would still limit all configuration options, including these, to the advanced mode.)
Features I would make selectable include:
Moonlight Shortcut
Turbo Shortcut
Ramp vs Step Toggle
Lockout
Momentary Mode
Blinky Group
Strobe Group
It would be even cooler to have control over individual options within the groups, but that is probably going too far.
I have no idea how hard it would be to implement something like that, but it would sure be fun to have.
whether lockout should be on 3 clicks instead of 4…
I would support that change…
… can do a very fast triple-click every time, but four clicks is either much slower or a lot less consistent… Doubles and triples seem to be built into the human nervous system, at least for some people, while anything beyond that requires counting.
I’ve heard from a couple people that they can’t reliably get 4 clicks or anything above. Like, there’s a difficulty with counting the clicks at the same time as actually doing them. That’s part of the reason for removing extra functions, so it’ll be harder to hit the wrong function by accident.
I haven’t really had difficulty with it, but I don’t really count… I treat it more like a musical instrument than like a counter. This makes it fairly easy to count pretty high without really paying attention, as long as the desired end number lines up with a musical phrase or a song. Like, if something needs a count of 96, that’s easy… just play a song in my head which has 96 total beats (usually 3 sets of 4×8 beats), and at the end of the song I’ll have the correct count. Need to count to 400? Same thing… just go through the song 4 times, and then add 2 extra 8-beat measures.
For a flashlight-specific example, there’s the factory reset function on 13H. For that, counting is hard but rhythm is easy. It lines up perfectly with the beginning of a song from DOOM:
Or another easy way to count it is more like 1234 1234 1234 5… or a rhythmic version of the same:
In the config modes, if I need to enter a large number and it doesn’t line up with a song, I’ll usually just break it into groups of 10. Like, a count of 31 is easy since it’s 1 less than a song pattern so I can just stop one note short of the end. But if I wanted 52 or something else that doesn’t line up easily… so I’d count it out in a more traditional way:
I’m not sure what methods other people use though. It seems like actually counting would be difficult, but there are usually easy ways to count short sequences without explicitly thinking the numbers.
Would it be possible to have a “version check” similar to “battery check” ? There seems to be no simple way to determine what version of Anduril is on the flashlight.
Would it be possible to have a “version check” similar to “battery check” ? There seems to be no simple way to determine what version of Anduril is on the flashlight.
A version check function was added in September 2019. It’s not included on the FW3A because Lumintop rejected the firmware updates I sent.
my ideal version of Anduril would have configuration options to enable or disable access to almost every feature from “simple mode” individually
I don’t think that will fit on most attiny85 hosts, but it could be done on chips with more space.
The way it works now is, in a few of the modes (like “off” and “ramp”), it checks for button presses which are supported in simple mode… then if simple mode is enabled, it returns. If simple mode is not active, it then checks for button presses which are only allowed in advanced mode.
This could be changed to instead check for simple mode and the specific feature’s simple-mode toggle, on each button press. It would increase the code size though, and require several extra vars stored in eeprom, and a much longer config mode of some sort to let the user set each option.
So it’s doable, but a bit messy and probably won’t fit at the same time as other stuff I’m hoping to add.
I think you should be able to set the max temp by holding the light until it gets too hot, then turning it off, like some other firmwares. I found the temp settings difficult to calibrate for some lights. Also, yea the framerate for candle mode needs to be higher. You might also adjust the range so it doesn’t flicker quite as high when its turned down. At higher brightness this is not as much of an issue.
—
Lumens is the GHz of flashlights
Candela is the FLOPS
I think you should be able to set the max temp by holding the light until it gets too hot, then turning it off, like some other firmwares.
The reason why it uses a numeric entry for the temperature limit is because “hold until hot” didn’t work very well in the past. So I’m not planning to go back to the older method.
However, it has an auto-calibrate thing built into the factory reset function, and it usually works pretty well. It’s quick and easy and sets the limit to 24 C hotter than whatever temperature the light is during the reset.
If I may make a suggestion, I would like some way to set the brightness of the auxiliary and the switch LEDs on my D4V2 Ti. The dimmer option for these is way too bright for nightstand duty but turning them off does not help with locating the light in the dark.
I think you should be able to set the max temp by holding the light until it gets too hot, then turning it off, like some other firmwares. I found the temp settings difficult to calibrate for some lights. Also, yea the framerate for candle mode needs to be higher. You might also adjust the range so it doesn’t flicker quite as high when its turned down. At higher brightness this is not as much of an issue.
‘Hold until hot’ is very hit & miss. Sometimes you specifically want the limit to go up or down slightly, that is very difficult with the ‘hold until hot’ method. On one attempt the limit goes up, on another it goes down, sometimes by far too much. There is a lot of trial and error to achieve the desired result.
To be able to just go in and accurately + or – the limit is so much better.
Please make LITE mode such way that after randomly sequence of clicks and holds made by kid or not flashaholic friend you don’t need to think “aaaa! what he did with my flashlight!!11”
If lockout is disabled by a power cycle I don’t see the harm of having it there.
I would love to use the simple mode most of the time, and on lights like the ubiquitous FW-series, physical lockout is not an option. Electronic lockout is needed.
Why not? I do it on mine. Yes I understand that it only disconnects the switch and not the actual power; but it prevents accidental activation, which is the goal yes?
Mine needed nearly a full turn to disconnect the switch signal which wasn’t practical when I actually needed to use it. Considering they have been known to randomly turn on at full power when things go wrong, even that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me either TBH.
Off topic but running it without the metal switch cover was 1000x better for me personally. No lockout needed, switch was recessed and took more force to press (but not so much that rapid clicks or holds were difficult) and felt very satisfying and responsive. Once Lume1 is out I’m definitely getting an FW1A and running it like that.
Ahhh gotcha. Are you turning the tailcap or the head? I did the head and don’t recall having to turn it that much, but I traded away my FW’s.
The head. Mine is from the first GB and doesn’t have the tailcap retaining ring.
The FW3A (and presumably other related models) has a lot of variability from one light to the next. One of the things which differs is how it responds to having the front half loosened. On some, it’ll cut power in a quarter turn… while on others, it must be unscrewed completely off. I have examples of both in my collection.
So… yeah, sometimes soft lockout is the only option.
I’ve pondered whether lockout should be on 3 clicks instead of 4, to make it faster to enter/exit. Then I guess battcheck would be on 4 clicks. Not sure if that’s how it should be though, or if the current setup is better. However, it would definitely be one of the more difficult changes to get accustomed to. I know we’re breaking backward compatibility here, but swapping those two seems like it would be particularly annoying for anyone who has lights of both the old and new versions. We’d trip over it constantly.
my FW3A takes about .03 turns of the head to disable the signal path [lockout – or lockin, if the light is on when you do it]
it also depends on the cell dimensions
wle
"You never have the wind with you - it's either against you, or you're having a good day."
Daniel Behrman, "The Man Who Loved Bicycles".
It never gets easy, you just go faster. -Greg Lemond.
,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¸
This definitely sounds like a good idea, hoping that I can flash my D4V2 flashlights with this new Anduril.
I can also vouch for a more subtle candle mode, it’s a bit too violent at times.
It can also be a bit repetitive, but that’s probably a memory limitation.
Although it’s a lot better than many flickering LED candles I’ve seen.
No doubt Anduril is the best flashlight UI made so far, I rarely justify buying a light without it. If so, the light should be pretty special (like Nitecore TUP with the OLED display).
It could be called Anduril 2.0
Current lights:
Emisar D4V2 SST-20 4000K, D4V2 Ti SST-20 2700K, D4V2 Ti SST-20 4000K, D4V2 Ti XPL-Hi V3 1A, D4SV2 SST-20 3000K | Noctigon KR1 OSRAM W2, K9.3 XPL-Hi V3 3A + SST-20 2700K | Fireflies PL47G2 XPL HI V3 3A, PL47G2 SST-20 4000K, E07 219B 4500K | Lumintop FW1A SST-20 4000K, Tool AA 2.0 | Nitecore LR12 XP-L HD V6 6500K, TUP XP-L HD V6 6500K | Sofirn C01S SST-20 4000K, SP10S LH351D 5000K, IF25/LT1-M SST-20 2700K + 6500K w/3D printed diffuser, BLF SP36 LH351D 5000K, BLF LT1 | ZebraLight SC700d XHP 70.2 5000K Hi-CRI, SC53Fc XP-L2 4000K | Convoy C8+ SST-40 6500K | Acebeam H30 XHP 70.2 5000K | Manker E14 III LH351D 6500K
Candle mode could definitely benefit from higher resolution in the brightness ramp… and more frames per second… and some adjustments to the overall algorithm. It also varies from one light to another, since the underlying ramp is different. I try to adjust it to be fairly consistent, but it doesn’t always come out quite right.
About low/med/high/off, that’s possible by using the stepped ramp. Set it to 3 steps. It’ll still have the blinkies and other modes available though…
… so there’s also a simple UI, and it inherits the ramp style (smooth/stepped) of the full UI. It just has safer limits and most of the other modes and functions are blocked. The code for that isn’t published yet though; I’m still working on it.
+1
I would also like a very robust simple mode where 1C and 1H dont make any difference. Nothing else, no ramping, no lockout or any click sequence that may make the flashlight behave strange. Simple enough that you understand it after just a few clicks.
An option to set the UI just on/off to a safe but useful level – like good old lights, would be just enough in some instances.
PS: and if it was possible to make the light flicker when you shake it it would be perfect!
…couldn’t you just set it to stepped ramp with 3 steps?
Depends on whether he has the Narsil or Anduril-equipped version.
If Narsil, there’s the discrete mode option but it’s not that great unless someone was really used to it IMO.
For a ‘simple’ mode that is easy for muggles, a lockout mode presents the possibility of accidental lockout. And a muggle might never figure out what went wrong, and assume the light has died.
== We save the planet from darkness ==
That’s why I’m not sure if lockout should be included in the simple UI.
However, I don’t think they’ll assume it died, because the LED turns on while the button is pressed. It just doesn’t stay on. And if they loosen / tighten the tailcap, it exits back to the regular non-locked “off” mode.
I may try to rework the ramping code a bit to allow for a single-brightness ramp. It might be a bit of a pain to configure, but afterward it should be able to do just on/off without changing brightness.
It’ll probably still have the battery check available though, and maybe lockout… so it’s not quite a 1-function light… but at least sort of similar.
I would support that change, despite the potential for confusion. (And I think a lot of us will upgrade most or all of our lights once the new version is out, which will help.)
For reasons I cannot adequately explain, I can do a very fast triple-click every time, but four clicks is either much slower or a lot less consistent. I asked a couple of other people to try it too and they had similar results. Doubles and triples seem to be built into the human nervous system, at least for some people, while anything beyond that requires counting. Does anyone else have a similar experience?
So moving lockout from 4C to 3C would actually make a big difference, at least to some of us.
I realize this is crazy talk, but my ideal version of Anduril would have configuration options to enable or disable access to almost every feature from “simple mode” individually. It would let people create the interface they want to use while eliminating anything that might cause confusion. (Note: I would still limit all configuration options, including these, to the advanced mode.)
Features I would make selectable include:
Moonlight Shortcut
Turbo Shortcut
Ramp vs Step Toggle
Lockout
Momentary Mode
Blinky Group
Strobe Group
It would be even cooler to have control over individual options within the groups, but that is probably going too far.
I have no idea how hard it would be to implement something like that, but it would sure be fun to have.
I’ve heard from a couple people that they can’t reliably get 4 clicks or anything above. Like, there’s a difficulty with counting the clicks at the same time as actually doing them. That’s part of the reason for removing extra functions, so it’ll be harder to hit the wrong function by accident.
I haven’t really had difficulty with it, but I don’t really count… I treat it more like a musical instrument than like a counter. This makes it fairly easy to count pretty high without really paying attention, as long as the desired end number lines up with a musical phrase or a song. Like, if something needs a count of 96, that’s easy… just play a song in my head which has 96 total beats (usually 3 sets of 4×8 beats), and at the end of the song I’ll have the correct count. Need to count to 400? Same thing… just go through the song 4 times, and then add 2 extra 8-beat measures.
For a flashlight-specific example, there’s the factory reset function on 13H. For that, counting is hard but rhythm is easy. It lines up perfectly with the beginning of a song from DOOM:
Or another easy way to count it is more like 1234 1234 1234 5… or a rhythmic version of the same:
In the config modes, if I need to enter a large number and it doesn’t line up with a song, I’ll usually just break it into groups of 10. Like, a count of 31 is easy since it’s 1 less than a song pattern so I can just stop one note short of the end. But if I wanted 52 or something else that doesn’t line up easily… so I’d count it out in a more traditional way:
I’m not sure what methods other people use though. It seems like actually counting would be difficult, but there are usually easy ways to count short sequences without explicitly thinking the numbers.
I love the idea of using music to achieve higher click options. I’ll have to experiment with that!
Would it be possible to have a “version check” similar to “battery check” ? There seems to be no simple way to determine what version of Anduril is on the flashlight.
My reviews:
Thorfire C8s , Thorfire VG-10 , Sipik SK68 , Duracell 350 , Big L@rry , Mystery AAA
A version check function was added in September 2019. It’s not included on the FW3A because Lumintop rejected the firmware updates I sent.
You probably have something from mid-2019.
I don’t think that will fit on most attiny85 hosts, but it could be done on chips with more space.
The way it works now is, in a few of the modes (like “off” and “ramp”), it checks for button presses which are supported in simple mode… then if simple mode is enabled, it returns. If simple mode is not active, it then checks for button presses which are only allowed in advanced mode.
This could be changed to instead check for simple mode and the specific feature’s simple-mode toggle, on each button press. It would increase the code size though, and require several extra vars stored in eeprom, and a much longer config mode of some sort to let the user set each option.
So it’s doable, but a bit messy and probably won’t fit at the same time as other stuff I’m hoping to add.
I think you should be able to set the max temp by holding the light until it gets too hot, then turning it off, like some other firmwares. I found the temp settings difficult to calibrate for some lights. Also, yea the framerate for candle mode needs to be higher. You might also adjust the range so it doesn’t flicker quite as high when its turned down. At higher brightness this is not as much of an issue.
Lumens is the GHz of flashlights
Candela is the FLOPS
The reason why it uses a numeric entry for the temperature limit is because “hold until hot” didn’t work very well in the past. So I’m not planning to go back to the older method.
However, it has an auto-calibrate thing built into the factory reset function, and it usually works pretty well. It’s quick and easy and sets the limit to 24 C hotter than whatever temperature the light is during the reset.
If I may make a suggestion, I would like some way to set the brightness of the auxiliary and the switch LEDs on my D4V2 Ti. The dimmer option for these is way too bright for nightstand duty but turning them off does not help with locating the light in the dark.
‘Hold until hot’ is very hit & miss. Sometimes you specifically want the limit to go up or down slightly, that is very difficult with the ‘hold until hot’ method. On one attempt the limit goes up, on another it goes down, sometimes by far too much. There is a lot of trial and error to achieve the desired result.
To be able to just go in and accurately + or – the limit is so much better.
Please make LITE mode such way that after randomly sequence of clicks and holds made by kid or not flashaholic friend you don’t need to think “aaaa! what he did with my flashlight!!11”
Haven't read up on all the ideas, but here is 1 of mine.
The Eneloop 2005-2021 info thread
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