With all of the battery options and the moonlight mode, I thought that this was supposed to be the household’s emergency light.
What kind of emergency light is so vulnerable, that as your wife goes to get it and put in the batteries in the dark, it is killed, because the batteries went in backwards?
…and then zombies come and kill you because you have no light to shine on them and scare them away :D!
I don’t understand why manufacturers don’t just build drivers in such a way that no matter how the cells go in, the light works flawlessly! Is that so hard?
The reason, as I understand, is that rectifiers cause voltage loss
My electronics knowledge is limited. Back in the good old days I used to mod CB radios and do minor repairs like replace the protection diodes when they hooked up their radio backwards so I could have some beer money. 
Can’t the driver circuit at least have something like that so all we need to do is replace a surface mount diode and have a working light again?
djozz has nailed it - "The reason, as I understand, is that rectifiers cause voltage loss"
My electronics knowledge is very limited compared to some in here but as far as I can see, we all want uber-output lights running single cells. Using a diode for reverse polarity protection will knock at least 0.3V off the input voltage feeding the driver.
As far as being able to drop batteries in either way - not sure how you could do this other than via the battery carrier design. Some lights already do this - Sunwayman D40A for example. But the SD10 is designed to take a regular D or 32650 so it becomes an electronic challenge rather than a mechanical one. - Back to more voltage drop.
With a "nominal" 3.7V cell feeding emitters with Vf about the same (give or take a bit) the light will fall out of regulation much sooner unless fitted with a more expensive buck-boost driver.
I think electronic reverse-polarity protection is more common on multi-cell (series) lights because there is more voltage overhead to begin with. Otherwise, most manufacturers opt for mechanical protection which requires button-top cells.
Not sure how any of these observations apply to the SD10 in particular, since I'm assuming it must have some kind of buck-boost driver anyway.
You caught that the light is made to take a regular “D” cell, yet you are worried that a 0.3V loss at the input to the driver would be a problem? :weary:
The 0.3v will cut down the run time on all the modes and likely cut the max brightness on the higher modes. On one D cell it might cut the run time by half.
If you’re running a ~1000 lumen light on a single alkaline “D” cell, you’re probably not looking to get much run time anyway. But, how could 0.3V cut the run time in half? I don’t get it.
Also, if the driver is boosting the voltage, how could a 0.3V decrease on input have a significant effect on max brightness?
I'm sorry I made it tiring for you David. I was responding to what you actually posted. As in "I don't know why manufacturers......."
My comments were made about "manufacturers" and the reasons why they don't use diodes to protected against reverse polarity. It is quite possible that others wonder about this too, just as I did when I was a little newer to this hobby.
I also stated in my final paragraph that I wasn't sure of how relevant my comments were to the Lumintop SD10 specifically given that it must use some kind of buck/boost driver.
Hopefully others more qualified than you and I can clarify.
The cell starts out at 1.5v, the light will function down to 0.8v, but if the diode drops 0.3 volt then when the battery is at 1.1v it stops working. Also because it’s a boost driver it’s going to try and draw the same amount of power no mater what voltage it sees so with the diode in place and a fresh cell it will draw more current which will drain the battery faster. The half is a guess, because discharge curves aren’t straight lines, and driver efficiency isn’t going to be constant across the input voltage levels.
The stock SD10 runs 60 days on one D cell on low, more than 3 days on medium, that is a nice feature in case of an extended power outage.
As for dropping the max brightness, I’ve got the first BLF SD10, and on a D cell the top mode is the same as the next one down, and they both seem to drop with cell voltage. There is only so much power you can pull out of an alkaline.
Interesting Joat. A couple of quick questions:
1. Have you tried it on a NiMH D cell (I know, they are not common). Alkalines typically sag under load more than NiMH. Perhaps a 3AA parallel battery carrier with some eneloops?
2. Did you measure the two outputs you are comparing or was it more of a "by eye" comparison?
It’s just by eye, which is why the qualifier on dropping with cell voltage. I have a lux meter now I might do some measurements with a new cell and one that is mostly dead.
Are there any updates ? 
sorry for the no news. Lumintop was making the drawing. I will post it once I get the copy.
The 3D model is finished, but sorry they don't allow me to release it in public.
Copied from OP:
1.DTP MCPCB. Check.
2.More output driver. Check.
3.XPL HI? or even XHP50? XML2 (Coz it's more a floody light)
4.Bigger body to fit 4*Eneloop AA well. Check.
5.Button LED with notification of power. Check.Dual button.
6. NO THREAD GLUE. Check.
7.Two holes on tail, if only 1 hole, the strip will make it unbalanced while tailstanding. Holes in middle of the body.
More update coming........and the long waiting.
Nice update.
Can’t wait for the final notice
Nice!
It seems some real progress was achieved here !
Missed the first one.Count me in for one.
How much will these go for?