Long time no post here, but I’m a happy lurker. :nerd_face:
To business: I’m looking to build some nice, small, 1*AA/(14500 optional) EDC lights for a few Muggle friends. I intend to use L91 batteries so they won’t have to clean the insides of crud from alkaleaks.
I would love to hear what y’all think about the parts I’ve found so far, and I’m still hoping for a good, bright, 1v - LiIon, 1-mode driver. (Modes bother Muggles, and everyone I know hates blinkies worse than PWM!)
Does anyone have any experience or opinion about these parts?
My only “must-haves” are 1*AA, tiny body, maximum Neutral White light OTF, no modes. Since I won’t be able to push much current anyway, the LED with the brightest NW light at the lowest Vf wins.
NB: I only referenced KD because I found all these parts there, in stock. I despise and disdain “afflinks”, so if these are those, please don’t keep that a secret.
Convoy T2 with the 13mode driver set to single mode? On the Convoy store on AliExpress, the brightly coloured ones come with a choice of LEDs at different CCT, for approx. $17.
Assumes your friends won’t mash the button 20+ times and end up in programming mode.
Doesn’t list the 13 modes? I can’t work out where the listing number is on the AliExpress app, I despise clicking their links as they’re all in German for me (I guess makes a change from the Spanish they were in a few months ago?!)
Sounds like you need to remove some cookies from your browser. Different browsers may handle this in different ways. Do a web search for how to find or edit individual cookies for whatever browser you use.
I have found aliexpress to be a real PITA. Once an ali-e link to their pages in some other language has it been clicked the browser doesn’t want to let go of that it seems. Removing the offending cookies resolves the issue.
Convoy T2/T3 with Nichia 519A and configure it to mode 12 (100% only) or mode 9 with memory off (50, 10, 1%) depending on what default brightness you want to achieve.
I’d also go for around 5000K for muggles since 4000K might be too low for them.
Good one! That will fit with all the S2 clones I’ve built. I <3 those, but no LiIons for Muggles!!
Deffo not a fan of the modes!! I can just see someone weakly pressing the button & flipping off into some stroboscopic nightmare. :disguised_face: Right before they flip me off & throw the flashlight at my head!! :laughing:
All the LEDs I’ve bought to build flashlights are 5000K. I have been trying to find a ~4000K {something} on a PCB I can swap in to one of mine for a comparo.
My usual suspects SOURCES are out of high-bin 4000K mounted LEDs. :cry:
Frankly, if I was concerned about CRI, I’d stick to incan. Monochromatic light sources have to compromise too much. Nice to have, but not ready for prime time … yet.
At this point I’d settle for anything that makes the greens, browns, grays, & yellows in the woods stand out from each other. As brightly and as much as possible, of course.
I kept reading about the Tool AA lights. I finally got one. I like it. I did get the magnetic tail cap and ditched the lighted (power sucking) clicky switch. I use it a a twisty. It does have 3 levels though. I think even rank novices could/would get used to it though. A low level can be real useful.
I use AliExpress on a regular basis. This occasionally happens to me and I just change it. Along the top bar, sometimes below an ad, is the selection for language and currency. It should have a flag next to it. Just reset it to the proper country/currency.
As far as emitters, 4000K is a good choice. Being warmer and richer, it will look so much better than the harsh average they might know from what’s available at Walmart. With most people using their flashlight at night, it should be all good. The only times people seem to complain about warm emitters is in times of supposedly jarring contrast. For instance, going right from peak daylight or harsh fluorescent to an unlit room. Even then, 4000K isn’t that warm. (It’s not like 2700K that can sometimes look “yucky” or “murky” at the tail end of autumn when everything is brown.) It’s closer to the color of bright moonlight and generally offers a good balance for EDC flashlights.
No kidding! I ended up with everything in Arabic and deleting cookies didn't help at all. And it followed me on Firefox, Chrome, and whatever IE is called today. My Android app was in partial Arabic as well so, I could manually switch the currency to USD and the language to English which got things fixed.
