Hi all, this is my first post here in BLF,
Recently returned to the hobby after a few years of being away from it. One of the lights i have had since 2021 is the FWAA. Never really liked mine, it’s XP-G3 emitters in that optic just produced a wall of blue low CRI light, so it sat mostly unused.
Now since i returned to the hobby i really fell in love with the design and form factor of the FWAA, so i decided to give it a sort of modern overhaul. First i updated the firmware. It’s an attiny85 light so some features are missing even with the latest build sadly. The ancient build of anduril 2 that was on here initially reported it being the FW3A-219 firmware, which would imply that part of the ramp was completely useless, given the fact that this driver is FET+1 not FET+7+1 and that it’s wired so that the FET is on the 7x7135 pin.
So i decided that rather than flashing the newest fw3a-219 firmware on it, i will try to make my own target that’s better suited for this driver. This target (along with some other changes like 2.7v LVP) are available on my fork of Anduril (GitHub - real-liiva/anduril: Anduril 2 Flashlight Firmware and FSM UI Toolkit · GitHub). It’s mainly a sort of copy paste mash of the fw3a and emisar D4 targets though, if i ever am to reflash this thing again i would want to maybe add a blink to the ramp when going out of 1x7135 range into the fet PWM range.
With the software side done i decided it’s time to tackle the emitter issue. I settled on the rather unorthodox choice of the HT35 from Kaidomain (which is very much an emitter geared towards throwers) purely because of how floody the tiny triple optic in this thing is. Reflowed those on without issue and i don’t regret it at all. High CRI, nice tint and a beam profile comparable to my D3AA with NTG35. On turbo output is around the same as the D3AA too, despite the thickest point of the FWAA being barely wider than the thinnest point of the D3AA, but of course it heats up in seconds.
This thing is now ridiculously bright for it’s size and is currently i think my craziest size to output ratio light, and all of that while being high CRI and with a nice tint. The flashlight hobby sure has gone far since 2022 when i left.
