Purchased one. Will see if Hank comes thru with the shipping or if something poops out somewhere along the line again for him!
I would like to order one of these, but its WAY too soon for me, need some reviews. Its strange how it came out of nowhere all of a sudden.
I don’t think the final design had TA’s approval! He didn’t even know they finished it! Its like lumintop just got frustrated and hurredly burped it out on their own without TA’s approval. I doubt it will live up to its full performance potential and for those reasons i’m out!
EDIT: if it lives up to lumintops claim of 25k lumens and 469kcd then I will eat my words and order one LOL.
The final design went without approval, but it did not have difficult changes from the prototype either. And this is not a particularly complicated light, the uniqueness is in the optimised thermal path (which was done together with BLF) that was already there in the prototype. Unless they changed things for the worse in the last stretch I have some confidence that it works as planned.
As djozz said, while I (nor any BLF member) has been able to check out the final light yet, the last prototype I did check out was really close, just minor changes left. I am fairly confident that they got those changes correct.
The biggest change and surprise was the change to 21700, not rocket science by any means but that surprised me. Although the only real worry of something they could of screwed up there would be not using tough enough springs but that was already on the list for them to improve before production.
Overall I think waiting for reviews on any light this price is a good idea but I also don’t expect any major issues.
With good 21700 cells, I actually think the advertised numbers could be pretty close. With some tweaks I was already knocking on those numbers with 18650’s.
Yep Molicel P42A will work…good enough for me…
How is it going to support 8* 21700 and 18650? Does anyone has a pic of its interior?
The carrier can expand to fit either cell.
Its a beast
well, just got the tracking number for my light, should arrive next week if all goes well!
Sadly they were not able to add the 21700 cells to the package.
So looks like I am on the hook to get some if I am to see what the real world max performance is. Anyone know of a good deal on 40T cells? I saw some for $5.99, that the best deal around? I know that is cheap for these but dang that adds up quick lol.
I can just use 18650 and swap the cells after a few mins and it should get close to the same thermal output but won’t help with getting peak output numbers. I assume VOB will have some 21700’s to test with though, so could just use his numbers for that. I tend to focus more on the technical side of things, making sure everything is built properly and will survive and last to the best of my ability.
If you really want push max then 30T cells are better but lower runtimes…also the Molicell should be very good if u can find it, Molicel INR21700-P42A 4000mAh - 45A if not 40T are just fine also to use i bet.
Great thanks for the info. I knew about the 30T but figure the difference in output is not worth the difference in runtime according to the discharge graphs I saw.
I had not heard about the Molicel though, I will look into those. Are they really 45A 4000mah?
Molicel is a serious player, right up there with Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Sanyo and LG. The P42A can do 45A, but it gets really hot. Mooch rates it about 30A continuous. They are not really cheaper or easier to get compared to a 40T. About the same. I doubt Neal could get them.
Yeah, did some research after posting and came to basically the same conclusion. Looks like they are the same price from a US supplier though.
I also mentioned it to Neal to see if he gets lucky.
They were on sale awhile back… I got 10 of them at this $4.99 price… and 8 VTC5A’s for $3.99… shipping was decent like $6.00… it pays to be on their mailing list…
I am assuming the 21700 have to be unprotected? What if we use protected button tops?
Yes, unprotected, first the protected cells might not fit but mostly this light can pull over 30A, so I don’t think that would play nice with most protection circuits.
The Molicel P42A was reviewed by Mooch and it actually beats the 40T except at the beginning of the discharge curve. However, I think the later revisions of the 40T might have caught up because the recent 40T I bought almost reached 4200mah in my test despite the earlier versions were 4,000mah. Not sure if I just got lucky.
Interesting, seems I should get some of those over the 40T if I end up ordering some. Maybe the stimulus checks will be sorted out quickly lol.
Though I did test a fully charged 40T to output noticeably higher in the Fireflies E07 compared to fully charged P42A. I’m sure the P42A will output higher along the rest of the discharge curve per Mooch’s test but I have no way to test that myself. If you want to get batteries to test max output, 40T is more suitable and capacity is about the same as the P42A, maybe just a bit lower. That’s why I prefer 40T, which is also the most common high power cell, and is likely the cell used by manufacturers in their runtime/output ratings.