I agree completely with this. I have four lights with Narsil and wish it would come standard on all future light purchases. I upgraded my Astrolux MF01 with Narsil and it made the light a better, more flexible and useful light so I would absolutely upgrade to this firmware.
I don’t have the ability to flash new firmware, but it’s nice to know it’s an option. I can solder and am pretty comfortable swapping my own. If I had to rely on someone else to do it with shipping back and forth, it might make me pause, but I’d probably go through with it because I’m reminded by how some of my other lights and their UI just bug the heck out of me. I’m spoiled.
Asking if I’d go with a TA (or Lexel or other well-known provider on the forum) I’d definitely and absolutely prefer the “name brand” over a company-supplied driver. I’ve read enough threads to know the snafus that stock drivers have had. I’d prefer knowing that an individual made this and not a nameless/faceless company worker who might not be as invested in doing his or her best to provide a rock-solid piece of equipment that I might rely on.
That said, I don’t think that the majority of flashlight buyers would know or care about the name brand option. I don’t know about numbers that would make these drivers profitable, but I’d guess if making a few dozen for a high-performance light is enough to make a nice profit and not drive you crazy with slaving over your soldering iron for hours on end, then I think it might work.
In fact, I love the idea of having Narsil with open source available for a number of the top performing budget lights (Astrolux, Haikelight and others) and will seek upgraded drivers out in the future. I’d bet a handful of other enthusiasts would too. Not sure how big a handful though. Any idea how many would be worthwhile?
Ok, I just talked with Dale. Dale himself seems to be totally on board with these drivers but the co-owners of HL seem to be the cheap skates.
Overall I think we have come to an agreement. They will make some drivers and test them to make sure they work and then if they check out they will pay me. Not as much as I was hoping for but I honestly believe all that Dale could talk them into.
So things are moving forward with the TA drivers as I figured they would.
Hopefully some of these lights for me to mod will show up this week and I can test a few more drivers and setup to prove to both myself and HL that the drivers are soild. I only have 3 lights on hand to try right now.
You will have 4 more lights from me to mod once Terry replies to my PM and email. I’m hoping he has stock.
I’m also considering buying an MT03 to have you mod later in a separate order. Would be pretty darn sweet to get 22-23k OTF lumens w/ 80CRI in a compact sized flooder
Great, I know Terry takes it easy on Sunday, so I am sure he will get in touch tomorrow.
I will admit, I am glad I decided to offer these modding services, Modding these lights should hopefully help make up for the “discount” HL is getting. lol
wow damn very nice ramp, i must ask, how hot does the body get on highest? it must get scorching hot no ?? I mean my xhp35 doesnt peak no way near those 7500 lumens and on fresh batteries the body gets quite hot on highest, i cant imagine 22k lumens would get……
Hey guys I will begin shipping in a few hours...I still have orders fort 2 for 70.2 versions and no word if you want them shipped to TA or just shipped directly to you.
I must know if you want me to ship them to TA in the next few hours. Once it is shipped if you have not let me know it will be shipped to you and if you wanted anything upgraded by TA including one of his drivers please remember that this sale price for the holiday weekend does NOT include one of TA's drivers. I have to pay the same price for a TA driver that anyone else does I don't get a discount as really there is no room to allow a discount. TA is offering an excellent price for the driver but at this massively discounted price I am offering for the holiday weekend sale I can't possibly include a new driver. You will have to ship in all the way to him and then which would be kind of a waste.
I can easily ship all of those wanting it directly to TA but I need to know prior to Monday.
Please send me a PM on here if you want it shipped to TA.
I still have several MT07S models that I left a a pretty good price... Better than I think you will find elsewhere... This has always been one of my favorite lights.
I think these partners of Dale need to play with the light with your driver; that’s the only way to experience the quality of a premium driver. Surely they can and probably look for cheaper drivers, but no way they will find something as convincing and rewarding as what you’re offering. 33% cheaper? Pfff, it’s just not worth it.
Yeah, the ramp did not show up well on camera, the camera just freaks out with that much light but I am very happy with the final ramp. I just need to try it with stock LED’s to make sure it works the same. Sometimes the different LED’s will need changes to the ramp to work properly.
It can get properly hot. I did a thermal test with the thermal regulation disabled and it got up to around 80c before it started to level off. I am guessing on fresh cells in turbo it would reach 90-100c before stabilizing.
This is why I spent 2 days tweaking the thermal protection settings to make sure that it does not get that high. The thermal protection works good and keeps it to whatever temp you set it at.
In the above video the light just started to get warmer when it was done. It takes about ~90 second for thermal control to kick in in turbo IIRC. The stock LED’s will be longer since they are not as powerful.
TA, if I wanted to swap emitters (I’ve already ordered a new driver), are you saying above that to get +20K lumens the emitters would pull about 50% more draw off the batteries? Or, in other words, it would lower run time by a pretty hefty amount as well? As much as I like the idea of +20K lumens, only having it for 20 seconds or so before battery sag would seem a steep price to pay.
Am I reading that wrong??
First off if you get the P2 pin emitters then it would pull about the same amount of power but give you more lumens for basically “free”.
If you want the 80CRI then there are some tradeoffs. It gets really complicated but it boils down to voltage, current and wattage.
Basically the 80CRI version has a much lower voltage then the P2 emitters, this causes it to pull much more current then the P2 emitter.
But since it has a lower voltage it is more efficient at a given current.
So the final output wattage and lumens-per-watt are not that much worse on the 80cri, it just takes a lot more current to reach that level.
I think it worked out to around a 10% reduction in lumens per watt with the 80cri at these power levels.
Now when it comes to raw power, it will pull more total power in order to get more total lumnes. Although this is why ramping is nice, you don’t have to use max power unless you want it. It is also why the ramp stops at 50% for production.
So with that in mind, my opinion is better to have 20k lumens and not need or use it then to need it and not have it.
Although it is completely up to you, it is not a must by any means. The better tint is the biggest reason to swap LED’s.
