DD 4500K 519a…
I find level 4 is plenty low enough at 0.01 lumens
I’ve not seen this behaviour.
happy for you, I hope you remain blissfully unaware of the dip in the ramp at 10 lumens… Im one of only two people that has noticed. Even highly experienced people have not noticed the dip in the ramp… Im now using stepped mode, set to 24 steps (homage to HDS), to spare myself the stutter in smooth ramp 
Does anyone know what these D3AA power levels (data from post #1) correspond to in lumen levels?:
trying to figure out the output at which the driver becomes 90% efficient… (the 0.1A level)
fwiw, the lowest level on my D3AA is way lower than on my HDS:
Level 4 is low indeed, I don’t have the capacity to measure output, but for me level 7 is striking the balance between dim enough that it won’t affect night vision and bright enough that I can actually see by it well enough when I come to bed after the mrs and my eyes haven’t fully adjusted.
TBH it’s just nice not to get the boost flash that comes with moonlight on my D4k.
agree… I am concerned about preflash from my D3AA at turn on in moonlight, so I used the Misc Config menu (9H from Off, then at the second blink clic 1 time), to set jumpstart level to 1. That did not solve the problem.
this preflash, as well as the dip in the ramp, are also mentioned here:
"Mine does this too along with a flash when turning on when set to the bottom of the ramp. "
there is also a brief video of the dip in the ramp:
Try to add some 1uF cap on leds output
I think Freeman did a great job of finding a good compromise between a light that has a low enough moonlight for those of us that need it and doesn’t take up more board space and add a second blink just to make something that few people even notice slightly less-bad yet not actually eliminating. And if you have a D3AA with FFL351A’s, even 1/150 is quite bright; much higher than with 219b’s or 519a’s.
Does the flash at 10 lumens bug you so bad as to make the light worse for many others just for your comfort?
It actually does have an effect, just not one that shows itself on a channel that has the same brightness at 1/150 as it does at 150/150. Giving the command to set max brightness will mean that any channel you switch to will be at it’s highest level when you switch to it. If I crank my UV to max then swap to the white channel, even at levels below the ceiling (let alone Turbo), it’s bright.
Mode in that table refers to the output current, through all 3 emiters. The lumens will depend on the emitter, but most LED’s will be in the same general ballpark. I will refer to djozz’s data for the 519A, dome-on, as adjusted by thefreeman.
The lowest current tested was 0.5A. While the output curve is not linear, there are two competing effects at lower currents that make me reasonably comfortable simply approximating output at 1/5th of the value at that current as if it were linear:
On that basis, and assuming 90% transmission through the optics, I estimate 98 lumens.
Is there a way to eliminate the preflash in the D3AA?
When I turn on the light at the memorized level of 10 lumens, there is a bright preflash.
I changed the jump start setting to 1, but it made no difference. There is still a bright preflash.
There shouldn’t be any ”bright preflash”
At the lowest level the light may turn on at a slightly higher brightness for a very short time (like a few ms), then it goes dow to very low brightness, nearly off, for something like 10-100ms (it’s longer at the lowest ramp levels)’, then goes to the correct brightness.
This slightly elevated brightness becomes invisible when turning on the light at ramp level 3~5.
Because this is nowhere near ”bright” I’m enclined to believe that your D3AA is deffective.
Also there is no jump start so that option does nothing.
maybe I should just say, “slightly brighter” preflash
thank you very much for the detailed explanation
When I use my D3AA at 10 lumens (level 40/150) and less, in a room with dim lighting, the brief preflash is visible to me.
this is nowhere near ”bright”
When I choose an output of about 45 lumens. the preflash is not visible
I think the preflash must be less bright than 45 lumens, but brighter than 10 lumens
I did find one other report of someone noticing a preflash, at “bottom of ramp”:
“a flash when turning on when set to the bottom of the ramp”
I would like to believe my light is not defective. Maybe Im just noticing really subtle details about the output, that most people are not aware of. (too much white wall hunting… lol)
No, absolutely not, that’s why I’m saying it must be defective.
ok, good to know mine is not normal, thank you 
Mine with 519A’s has bottom ramp set to lvl 4 or 5. Preflash is dimmer than the light on that level.
thank you for confirming
I wrote to Hank, linked to this discussion, requested a replacement head, and offered to pay the postage…
I was sorry to have to do that, but hopefully a new head will arrive and help me enjoy my D3AA even more.
Its a great little light overall, for many reasons. I really like the D3AA beam, with stock optic and DD 4500K, for my indoor use. The D3AA beam is wider and better for me, than the beam from my TS10. I also really Love that the D3AA has NoPWM.
Some uF for me works
Do you mean adding a 1uF cap to the output capacitance (2x22uF on this driver) ? i don’t see how that could have an effect on this.
Reddit user natsac has compiled a really great table of measurements or reasonably substantiated calculated outputs from various sources of maximum lumens and throw for the D3AA.
This seemed like good reference material that should also be linked from this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/1dumcr5/updated_d3aa_emitter_guide/
Some folks may need to open that link on a private/incognito window…
Why, what’s the issue with it?
Nothing, if you stay in the flashlights subreddit.
