Thank you! Do you mind if I translate it into German? I'm not sure if joechina is already up to creating something comparable (printable pdf in a nice layout).
I would like a second light as well to give to a friend at work. Please add another light for me.
Neil
The last prototype looks amazing in grey.
Therein lies the problem though Jason, she DID state default was set at 1/150, so any REASONABLY intelligent individual would see that the term default showed 1 out of a possible 150 steps, so how do you idiot proof for all the different idiots? I know my own idiocy can, many times, be quite different from the normal… just saying. Once you start configuring the light it becomes pretty evident.
And with this adjustability it becomes easy to set the momentary in lockout to whatever level suits your fancy. It is also easy to set the stepped mode for however many levels one wants, one or three or whatever. So it can suit the needs of a lot of different appetites.
Stepped mode can’t be configured for one mode. See here but you could probably set the ramp min and max values to the same level and effectively have a 1 mode light.
As to optical sensing….
Oveready Boss / Lux-RC use this feature to accomplish more than programming.
When the light accidentally activates, it’s usually in a confined space (i.e. pocket) and that space reflects a lot of light back towards the head. They sense this light and act upon this knowledge ( I don’t remember how, but I remember they do it wrong 
).
Anyway, it’s the best solution to the problems with accidental activation that I’ve seen.
Now….would it be possible to port it to FW3A?
I don’t think so, you can’t drive a LED and make it sense at the same time. It works on Lux-RC because they have an auxiliary LED that they use as a sensor.
But we have more and more lights which feature aux LEDs as well…
Can we just stick with programming pins + USB for the foreseeable future? We aren’t going to make a Lux-RC clone with $0 budget at a random Chinese factory
And I’m wondering what the people that want it all would be willing to pay ToyKeeper to write it up… so far it’s a VERY meager salary!
Thank you again ToyKeeper for all that you do.
I bet that question puts things in perspective. 
It’s kinda interesting to read about, but in the ’real world’ how many people would even use the features that have been mentioned??
I’m thinking, in the big scheme of things; not very many.
Most of this was addressed about a page ago: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/45538/6228
OTOH, I’ve heard it’s difficult to configure the sensitivity in a way which doesn’t get false positives or false negatives. I’ve heard the reflection sensor has a tendency to either fail to detect reflections from dark surfaces, which are the most likely to start fires… or a tendency to trigger itself when it shouldn’t. It’s neat, but due to the light-absorbing and heat-absorbing properties of black matte materials, the types of surfaces it really needs to respond to are exactly the ones it has difficulty with.
I think that is exactly what the Oveready Boss does.
I’m not sure the default values really fit in a generic manual though, since they are different for each model of flashlight. A lot of options really depend on which light it’s being used on. So I mostly tried to write it in a way which can be copy/pasted into the middle of a printed user manual with only minimal need for editing.
That’s the first report of how it works in practice that I’ve seen. Thank you.
+1
I’m interested. Looks great!
I am in for 1 please! Reading back through I didnt see my name on the list. My wife is gonna throw me out of the house soon, also waiting on a Convoy L6 and an Emisar D1s……. Really debating the D1s since I keep hoping Hank will do a 26650 or 27700 version like with the D4s….
Please don’t repeat your request for 1 light. It makes things confusing. You’ve only just asked, give it at least a week before looking for your name on the list. Thanks.
Maybe not for the graphic, I was thinking mainly of anduril.txt for stock Anduril. I guess this has now been deprecated in favour of anduril-manual.txt?
Sorry about that then! Im rather excited hahaha
I reckon a phone app could work well. Better than using a computer monitor.
A modern smart ’phone has a light / proximity sensor, and a selfie camera, either of which could be used to establish bi-directional comms. with a robust protocol.
Also to have phone ability to back-up several user-configurations for quick re-use according to circumstance. A bit like choosing ringtones.
Or use the rear camera and it’s LED flash as the comms. port.
It might even be possible to re-use a standard half-duplex comms. protocol, and software stack.
A modern smartphone can display HD video at 30p or 60p, maybe even faster, and has a dedicated graphics processor to keep it flowing smoothly. It might even be possible to use an LCD display at much higher data rates by strobing the LCD backlight rather than modulating the LCD itself.
I don’t see much point in using this to change complete firmwares, which would also need a bootloader to be integrated with the protocol, and permanently resident (taking up space), but as a way of making configuration changes it would be nice. The app. also being an interactive manual to the UI, rather than the crib sheets that are increasingly necessary as complexity grows.
Just using a few tick-boxes to begin with.
A complete re-configuration, even a re-write of the ramping table to fine-tune it for different emitter options, or change thermal management control loop parameters to suit ongoing development or user preference, could surely be done in a reasonable time, seconds, or a few minutes. And perhaps monetized with micro-payments.
It could be a real money-spinner for whoever develops it, defines the protocols, controls the encryption keys, or rolling code, and sells the app.
As well as an interesting new skill to develop with other marketplaces that I haven’t even thought of yet. Internet of things sort of stuff, but without the security worries. Just wave your ’phone, or a “smart torch” over a (very inexpensive) terminal containing not much more than an LED and a small MCU, no NFC, no WiFi, no Bluetooth parts to pay for or to configure, or software stacks to license. Shield the light (or IR) from interception, even just by holding a hand over. Phone to ’phone, or torch to phone, or terminal, like a 1D or 2D barcode or QR reader but so much cheaper to implement.
A full 2D barcode conveys only 4kbytes of information. I reckon, even if that was all needed, even that could be transferred reasonably swiftly. The 1D ones are trivial.
Door locks, hotel room entry, ID badges with swipe or RFID stuff, keyless car entry and mobilisation, supermarket sales, chip and PIN, boarding passes, all potentially replaceable with either a dirt-cheap key-ring sized device, or just an app. The USP being the low cost of the terminal, compared with what we have now.
For firmware updates, let’s first see whether the various disparate pogo pin connectors gain any traction in the field. Even amongst those who regularly re-flash, whom I suspect are actually a very small minority here. Most using pre-compiled binaries and fuse maps. A very few trying out their own ideas.
Some study material:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-space_optical_communication
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA
I worked on a free space optical network around the science site of my university as a student. Back then we didn’t have affordable LEDs or laser diodes or PIN photodiodes. We were modulating filament bulbs, using ex-army phototubes as detectors, and cheap Russian binoculars (one eyepiece for transmit, one for receive, full duplex), and got it working over a km at 300 Baud ISTR. Fun, and we learned a lot about many aspects of Applied Physics.
It would be so much easier these days. A scrap DVD or BluRay burner for the laser and photodiode and lenses, Arduino or RasPi, some minimal extra hardware, cheap binoculars or just magnifying glasses, ingenuity and basic knowledge of optics, physics, electronic hardware design and software. I.e a great little student project, that might still have some relevance and useful application.
Also handy for stimulating the optic nerve, and reading back the results, if a smartphone app. isn’t good enough.
Consider that Ronja can run 10 Mbit/s Ethernet over much more than a km just using a pair of cheap magnifying glasses as optics, and it is entirely open-source. And quite old, over ten years, and LEDs now are far better.
Imagine the possibilities with our sophisticated bits and pieces nowadays.
Surely there is something there that can be re-used ?
http://ronja.twibright.com/about.php
Or instead start with proven robust simplex 1D barcode protocols. At the end of the day they are just read by scanning, i.e looking out for some blinking light reflected back into the scanner, which as we all know is very robust, mature technology, and tolerant of all sorts of difficulties that do not stop them working admirably.
It’s all available, open-sourced, e.g https://sourceforge.net/projects/zint/
As are the 1D, 2D and QR code scanners, using phone cameras with static images rather than hardware scanning.
Just blink them into the torch, from the ’phone, having first “scanned” and interpreted them in the phone app, using it’s camera. Even send them to the ’phone as an MMS