Congrats on the grand kid! hope you have a great trip to Hawaii too. 
:+1: When you get back we hope to be past 2000 on the GB list, and have more news from Sofirn & Barry on a production date start.
+1 on the first grandchild congrats & the sleeping arrangements sound great too.
Aloha!! ā¦ 
Add me with 3 more units (Total 4)
Longtime lurker, first time poster. Please sign me up for two units, please.
Iāve been thinking about a lower-cost lantern as well. My goal would be to maintain very high overall quality as well as rich features while improving on price. Quite different from yours which led to quite different tradeoffs. 
My thoughts:
- medium power LEDs should be better than high power
- cheaper in terms of lm/$
- plastic or alu? Iāve spent a lot of time thinking about that and I donāt have a solid answer
- yeah, plastic is much cheaper as long as you have large scale
- plastic weighs less which is a quality improvement
- plastic thermals are very bad
- durability of plastic threading is very bad
- impact resistance? Plastic has it lower, but not terribly. Especially that due to lower weight impact energy is lower.
- overall I have a feeling that some mix of alu and plastic would work best but I canāt suggest anything in particular
- smaller, non-DTP alu MCPCB would be a minor cost saver
- ATTiny1634 would cut a few cents off the price (and other MCUs like ATTiny816 or ATTiny804 could cut a few more but this seem farther from being available)
Soā¦not much improvement really. I keep that thoughts because they may come useful in some future project but thatās just it.
Madtoffel, as to your other suggestionsā¦:
- a simpler driver would indeed cut the cost further though personally I view the quality loss as very high
- adding cells increases cost for those who donāt need them. But indeed may lower it for those who do.
- tamper-proof battery pack would prevent BLFers from upgrading the cells which would have a big impact on runtime. In my view that would be a major quality downgrade. Though in do see the point of locking down cell access so muggles canāt hurt themselves. And I do find it a worthy goal. But it should be implemented in a way that enables advanced users to replace the cells. Soā¦tamper-proof unless you know how to disassemble it.
So it looks like this light could accompany my self built camping lantern already next season?
ā¦ then add me to the interest list for one unit, please!
Great work! 
Same to you, what a fun light! Certainly will be available for next season, Iām hoping for early fall 2019 personally.
Great job on your custom light! :+1:
Update: Barry has sent a final upgraded test unit to evaluate, and from what we seen it will be the green-light for production. As soon as it arrives I will do a video on the changes, adjustments & thoughts, & post here for everyone to see. I am really looking forward to the production LT1 to place my order for the 5 i am on the list for, and may increase that number as i want to gift some of them to family & friends, and have a couple in the house, a couple in the RV, and one in my truck. I will be retiring & giving away most of my bulky, plastic, modded other LED lanterns & replacing them with the LT1s. I also placed an order for 12 of the new 35E 3500mAh cells from 18650Canada for my LT1 lanterns.
Great News on the Lantern getting very close to Production !!!
Iāve been watching this for a while. Great to see itās finally happening!
:+1:
Great News!! Thanks again DBSAR, your efforts to see the LT1 through to production are appreciated, my hats off to you sir.
Not from BLF right? Enjoy your new found freedom!
Mark me down for 2. Thanks
Yay! Canāt wait to get my hands on one. I think itāll pair nicely with my solar battery bank for extended usage
thanks again to all involved, great job.
Please add me for 2 more to the interest list (already down for 1) for a total of 3 for me.
Awesome update DBSAR! Have you guys decided on whether protected vs. unprotected cells are the best option for the LT1 given the discussion you guys had earlier?
Also, any chance of an American version of DBSARās deal popping up anywhere ?
Also, a quick aside thanks to you guys for the earlier comments/advice on my question regarding the Q8 and other lights. Still figuring out how to actually take advantage of all of the features of the the Q8 (ha), but overall very cool light. And clearly not sticking to the whole āone light for nowā effortā¦
Hey guys, loving the progress and getting excited seeing this to be close to production ready!
I just thought about a nice software feature for the lantern. If already discussed, please ignore the rest of the post
Would a āheart-beatā or ābreathingā feature not add value when camping or having the lantern in a room? That way you can easily spot the lantern in the dark if the illuminated button is away from you. Also, it could help you get to the light in the dark, where-as the button will not provide enough light to see. It should be soft enough not to wake you if the light is with you in the tent. Just my 2c
Iād posted a community question about this and the seller claimed itās just a different design with same specs. If the 3 panel one has larger cells, whereas the single fold-over 4 panel has smaller panels, then perhaps that could be the case. But the pattern on the 4-panel makes it looks like a better build.