I have left flashlight industry for years. I remembered that in 2010-2015, DIY lights were hot in China. At that time, branded lights were expensive here thus many enthusiasts prefer diy ones.
I watched some videos these days, found that there are still some DIY lights here, but not very hot.
Definitely interested in the 3x21700/46950 light. Amutorch and Nightwatch are basicslly the companies along with Pionemann and Convoy still making these types of flashlights. I really like thoee, but finding “good” ones isn’t so straightforward since There’s compromises made in getting the price low and performance high. I do remember 2018 when there were more custom lights since budget manufacturers weren’t selling good drivers, good leds or Anduril/good UIs yet. Wurkkos, Sofirn, Convoy, FireflyLite and Hank stepped up and delivered, so the needss for custom went down.
For small ones, sometimes Sofirn and Wurkkos can supply more cost-effective lights. And Convoy also have some nice lights. For 46950/3*21700 lights, only a few small manufacturers launched some, one view is that 46950 battery is not so mature for falshlights thus big brands are still testing. My opinion is that few guys will need the 20000+ lumen lights, it is hard to gain a decent profit to develop a 46950 light. If you are interested, you can DM me, i can share you more details.
On the contrary, for big lights the 46950 is awesome. Way better than three or four 21700. Higher capacity, safer, better under high current draw. Only disadvantage is you can’t charge one 46950 at 45 or 100 watts like some are doing with 21700s. I have several 46950 lights from Amutorch, Ripsshine l, and Lumintop and really like them all.
I like DDH/Dongdonghai. The anodization could perhaps be a bit tougher, and they’re all fairly chunky (in terms of weight), which on the flip side can also be appealing - they feel very “industrial”.
I also like that they innovate, like I noticed they’ve recently updated that T3 “miner’s lamp” - with a built-in fan in the back, and they also had a “fan handle” available for the DDH8 at some point, not to mention double 46950 battery tubes. Plus a motorcycle/bike projector light with a shaped beam built into the lens. The prices are pretty reasonable (ignoring the whole issue of having to use a proxy service because Taobao), and it’s nice there’s still some players out there offering hosts in variety of choices.
Yes, lots of light fans think highly of Dongdonghai’s Flashlight shell in China. For T3, now it is still hard to get the right driver to power the fan.
There are definitely demands in quality DIY parts. Just built myself a D6e with XBY 47mm and SFP55 not long ago, will build another one for my workmate with NBT160.
I didn’t look into it much, but something like BQ25820 can push a lot of power into 1S (they spec up to 20A), and it can reverse boost too. Needs to be paired up with a port controller ofc.
