I know, the people who have been in the scene for longer than me will probably laugh at me giving this title to a post about a FWAA - but since I started being interested in flashlights beyond “I own and use a single 18650 light”, the FW** series had been long discontinued, and to me they were always something special. A type of light I would probably never own, with a somewhat unique, elegant design.
That was until a few days ago when I decided I needed a EDC that is smaller than a S2+ 18350, and I did not find any 14500 light that combined features and design language I felt like having. Then @INeedMoreLumens got me fixed on finding a FWAA somewhere, and eventually, thanks to @manfred I found a German shop that still had some aluminum FWAAs stocked. I called them to ask about shipping (their store system quoted me a ridiculous price) and apart from fixing the shipping cost bug the owner mentioned they might still have a TiCu FWAA somewhere in the warehouse that they only unpacked once for a video - needless to say, I was sold.
Today it showed up, and while it is absolutely gorgeous, there were a few things that did bother me:
- Weird smell of some strange lubricant, mixed with coppery smell
- Copper was tarnishing unequally, probably because the light was only touched a few times, so not all the copper came in contact with skin
- VERY scratchy e-switch
- LEDs. 4000K 219C that for some reason looked way colder than they should, and kinda green.
- Beam. Too floody.
- The driver. Lumintop, pls. FET+1 with wack Anduril and weird configs. Ugh.
Wouldn’t be me if I did not tear the light apart right away. The first point was actually an easy fix - I disassembled the flashlight entirely, and scrubbed all parts with 99.9% isoprop, removing any lubricant. After carefully cleaning the copper part with paper towels and isoprop, I used some very thin “corrosion inhibiting” penetrating oil (similar in properties and smell to Ballistol) on the copper - hoping this should keep it from staining too quickly or badly, and therefore generating the (to me unpleasant) smell of oxidizing copper again.
The LEDs were swapped for dedomed 519A - sadly the only 519A I had 3 of at hand were 5700K. This makes the light a bit colder than I originally had planned for, but hey. Definitely better than the OG LEDs, and a pleasantly neutral beam. I gotta stock up on LEDs again these days. This was the first time I used my Felder SAC305 for LEDs, it worked really well. Since I had no idea how much paste I’d need I applied too much, but the left over paste just flowed out to the sides, forming solder beads, and the LEDs all sit flat and even. I accidentally ripped a pad off the MCPCB (actually, I touched it with the soldering iron and pad and wire got off together), so I scratched off a bit of mask and made a new “pad”.
Fixing the button was a quick job as well - I applied some Krytox 105 on the button, which then was pulled into the gap and resulted in a thin lubricating film along the button-to-tailcap surface. The remaining oil I cleaned off with some isoprop again. Threads and orings were generously lubricated with Krytox 205g0. The Krytox stuff, often used in the custom keyboard scene, is perfluoropolyether oil and PTFE based lubricants that are chemically inert - not attacking or reacting with any plastic, rubber or metal, and not reacting with oxygen either. This results in very long-lived and safe lubricants that are not harming either the flashlight nor humans (most lubricants from this series are even food grade certified). This comes with a price tag to match, but I already have them due to keyboards anyway, so why not use them for flashlights as well.
There is nothing I can do about the driver for now, since I managed to lose my USBASP, and the old Tiny85 can not yet be flashed via UDPI like newer chips. I also do not want to waste too much time on it - I do not intend keeping a FET+1 driver in my EDC light, and will replace it with a proper driver when I find a chance. thefreeman made a very tempting FWAA boost driver, of which I may order a small batch. We will see, I have other, more urgent projects that require (financial) attention for now.
Another point is the (very) floody beam, here compared to a 20° pebbled TIR with a B35AM in a Convoy S2+. Not sure if the image with non-fixed exposure and not exactly matched brightness does any justice, but the FWAA is a lot more floody than the S2+, despite using dedomed 519As - the most throwy high CRI 3535 LEDs I know of.
I am considering dropping in a TS10 lens with a custom MCPCB, or maybe go crazy and try sanding a 20mm Carclo down to 17mm - this would lose a lot of light, but in return I would gain great throw. I have not decided yet.
For now I am happy with the FWAA the way it is - all cleaned, with 519A, and with a Lumintop USB-C 14500 cell, since USB charging is a must on a EDC light for me. I did not manage to accidentally kick in the protections of the cell so far, and once I put a proper DC-DC driver into this light, I will configure it not to load the cell too much anyway.
