I suggest something not really available.
2xAA and 2x14500 side by side edc flashlight.
Rectangular style. Pocket slim.
I can’t search for pictures booty it’s like those old Energizer flashlight
I’d not really want 16340, runtimes are poor due to very low capacity of these batteries.
Somewhat harder to find, but a 16500 would offer better capacity and allow you to run a 14500/AA or CR123/16340 as well if you wanted too.
18500 might be even better (more battery availability), although it would start to get chunky as a light.
How about a headlamp?
One that resembles the D10, but has an efficient boost driver and xhp50.3 HI led.
Make the bezel big enough to fit quad optics for people who want nichia etc.
Switch on side of tube instead of on the end.
Anduril
Only have charging if waterproof. No rubber flap.
Edit: 18650 and under 65g.
18500 is a wonderful battery. Fairly robust capacity and you can easily use various forms of AA in a pinch. The only one I have is a heifer, though, based around FM C bodies.
The big advantage of an aspheric lens and single LED is the good quality of the light field, that is, “sharper” light with consistently sharp shadows and even brightness. With many (if not all) reflector and TIR solutions, the shadows are softer in the center and sharper in the spill, which makes objects less clear (need more light to see more), plus the horrible fried-egg-symptom, which is absent in properly designed aspheric.
Throw is sacrificed, though. Now comes the question, how much of throw is needed?
Could enough throw be accomplished with a more throwy aspheric, that gradually gives more brightness towards the center? But beware of crossing rays which will make chaos shadows again, so the design has to be extremely HQ. Unfortunately, no uniform light any more with this design.
My vote is definitely for single flat field aspheric per single LED, drop the throw.
Now we could think about adding out-of-focus “spill” LEDs around the main center LED, an oversized aspheric with more throwy characteristic, but then the spill would have this “crazy shadows” symptom. A COB ring? Manufacturing, no standard part.
Now with zoomability: A traditional zoomie is an inferior solution and it would mean to reboil the same nasty soup again.
What about an electromagnetic zoom with moving internal lens?
This leads towards projector-type optics, but will render a fantastic light field quality and very little loss of output (4-6%) in all zoom positions, make the head slightly longer and more complex, but would allow massive performance that totally downs any LEP.
Imagine real sustained 2000lm zoomable in a 21700 size maybe 12cm x 3cm square bar without external moving parts except the switch/es (and the USB-C cover).
Or how about two systems, one for clean wide angle and one for throw? This would double the cost for LEDs and lenses, add cost to the driver, restrict to a side-by-side “two eyes” design. Again leaning towards the rectangular flat shape.
Round LED dice. Absolutely a +1.
How about a square beam?
round inside, square outside, totally different
The traditional zoomie is round outside and has the quare beam when zoomed.
That’s what I want and that’s why I carry two separate lights every day. An original fw1a as my primary light for throw out near 300m and a wizard pro for a 120° smooth beam to light up the entire room or entire backyard in one shot. You can turn them both on at moonlight or at turbo. They both take the same flat top battery. Two is one, one is none.
The fw3a garnered a lot of attention. There were many spin-offs from that light also. Maybe a dozen. Probably more than a hundred plus other lights from other companies since that time period. As others have said, there are so many lights available now and so many different preferences. There are very few new lights that make even a tiny ripple in the pond. Good luck hurding the cats for a swimming lesson.
If only we could control the center die separately on a 25 die led.
I would be in also. 16340 preferred, 14500 will be ok also.
I suppose that by spill you mean the beam from the perimeter LEDs, right?
As long as you do it right (there are enough of them, as centered as reasonable and the lens comes close to the LEDs) the beam should be fine.
I don’t understand this idea.
What is projector-type optics?
A 3-lens setup like
but w/out mirror and and with the middle lens in motion?
You can do this kind of stuff.
Some of my old drawings…:
3535 centre LED with 3030 at the perimeter (note that the LED looks like white flat but it is scaled up to 3535)
3535 LED and from left to right:
- 28x Luminus MP1616
- tint mixing
- 1500+ lm of rosy CRI95 light at 5.6A
- 32x Samsung LM101A
- 5000+ lm CRI70
- 3500+ lm CRI90
- not much tint mixing with CRI90 – colour temperatures are from 4000K down (though at CRI80 or less the CCT selection is wider)
- 28x Samsung LM101A
- 20x Samsung LM101A
- 2500 lm of CRI90 at 9A
- likely more amps and lm because Vf is ~3.18V at this current
- of LM101A variants this is my favourite
- 2500 lm of CRI90 at 9A
- 14x Samsung LM101A
- 1700 lm of CRI90 at 6.3A (again likely more than that)
- 12x Samsung LM101A
Note that the 3030 variant may allow controlling different CCTs separately on a 1-layer MCPCB but the rest this would require a 2-layer one. Also note that with many LEDs there is a risk of cascading failure, so fewer is better.
I am modest and I will pick on some suggestions given before.
I would like:
a) a 16340 light, similar to Acebeam TK16, with Anduril (not side switch like the Sofirn SC21)
b) a 16340 or 14500 small push-pull zoomie, with Anduril OR a driver which mixes led4power and DrJones
c) a slim triple 16650 light with a driver which mixes led4power and DrJones options for current, and modes, and all that stuff!
something like this
Frelux 
Scanning through top notch battery datasheets from various brands, I get the idea that 16500 gives almost no advantage over 14500.
14500: 1100mAh +2% –5%, 2.2A constant / 3.2A pulse discharge
16500: 1200mAh +2% –15%, 2.5A constant discharge
18650: 3600mAh > 3350mAh, 8A constant / 10A pulse discharge
21700: 5000mAh > 4850mAh, 9.8A constant discharge
The 16500 would just be thicker and the light will be thicker and heavier than with 14500.
A double 14500 would bring 2200mAh with 4.4A/6.4A current! nice
That is, at full power 30 mins of runtime. It’ll be hard to dissipate that much heat in such a small light, even with acceptable heat buildup, but it’s not impossible.
An average AAlkaleak has about 1000mAh at 1A discharge and about 2000mAh at 100mA discharge, plus it’s not advisable to parallel them, so we have a battery with about 2.4V plateau at 1000mA discharge, or a 2.8V plateau at 100mA discharge. All of these conditions will not heat much more than the batteries themselves. A risk at high current is thermal runaway, producing internal discharge and heat, that leads to pressure relief leak.
The 18650 falls behind the 21700 that has just a little increase in diameter and length, but definitely more power.
PS: Battery data are all collected to the conservative side, more reasonable for actual cells “in the wild” and not lab specimen
PPS: The double 14500 light could theoretically deliver real 2150lm for about 45 minutes.
Don’t think I’ve seen 1100 14500s. Most seem to be 800-900mAh. Generally about the same as a 16340.
L10 has the highest capacity, 1060mAh at 200mA discharge, 3A CDR : HKJ test
H10 has the highest power and still high capacity, 920mAh at 200mA discharge, 10A CDR: HKJ test
There are quite a few good ideas in this thread.
Why are we limited to producing just one BLF light?
Personally I’m in for anything that says BLF on it.
There are quite a few good ideas in this thread.
Why are we limited to producing just one BLF light?
Personally I’m in for anything that says BLF on it.
I like the side by side idea.
21700 or bust. I suppose 14500 or similar size class might be interesting.
I really like the beam of my Jetbeam RRT01, nice and throwy without being extreme.
Another idea I like is a perfectly even, smooth beam with sharp, not ugly edges.
A good absolutely-no-compromises zoomie might be interesting.