I’ve just purchased a LH351D SP36 for my friend and in the process of trying it out, I’ve come to realise it’s a closest match to my concept of ‘The Light’ yet. It strikes a perfect balance between throw and flood, the 3×18650 quad reflector format feels just right, it’s not MF01-cumbersome yet it gets great runtimes and good thermal performance.
It’s my opinion that the SP36 should see an update to bring it to the year 2022. There’s already been some progress on the (reverse)charging front, IMO the next steps should be a boost driver, maybe a design update to add some anti-roll features, maybe a lanyard attachment point, and a fresh build of Andúril2.
I’d like them to use an OP reflector instead of the SMO one to improve the beam quality.
Regarding switching the FET+7135 to a boost driver, it would be nice too.
If the MP34xx is used like in the SP33S, with a maximum of 6A at 6V (2S2P), the output will be lower when the cells are full (about 16A in 4P accordinng to zeroair), about –15% luminous flux (~–20~25% with quality cells), output parity would be met around 3.85V (cell’s rest voltage), then just before LVP the flux with the boost version would be as high as 2.4x.
So a bit of trade off with full cells, but overall it would be better in my opinion.
More output would be a bit complicated, I think using a higher power boost converter would be too costly for Sofirn to consider. Using 2 MP34xx channels could be an option, it would be beneficial for the PRO version (SST-40), and of course would allow to use other punchy LEDs like XHP50.3 to their full potential.
