I’m kinda waiting for @Hank_Wang to drop slim D1v2 and D1K. Reflector/head to be the same size as battery tube yet having the same emitter options.
Not much but pocketability would be on another level.
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Better yet, tag him directy: @Hank_Wang
Do you maybe know when will be KC1 available?
Thank you.
Without a new buck/boost driver, I feel like this thing won’t be that good. AAA and 10440 already have such limited capacities and to have more linear driver inefficiencies thrown in for good measure is not good for a keychain EDC.
The optic not fitting domed 519A’s under there is also questionable. Is the optic for throw?
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Got mine today, it’s really good. Optic is definitely floody.
Mini-review (also on Reddit):
Got my Emisar KC1 today. Got it with the 519A 5700k dedome. Jlhawaii emailed offering to swap the resistor to one that would reduce the output power; I had the resistor left as it was. Hanklights are hotrods, while lower power 10440 lights are more common.
All the ano is really nice, feels high quality and has a slight sparkle to it. Something (the optic?) does move slightly in the head when shaken, but my Skilhunt E3A does the same thing. With a battery in, the o-ring is slightly exposed at the point where tightning it any further will switch the light on, but this is a twisty light, so it’s going to get worn anyway, and be easy and cheap to replace. Hopefully a second production run makes the head about 1 or 2 mm longer in its overlap to fully cover the o-ring. The body of the light, especially around the head, is thick, and the head has as reasonable an amount of thermal mass as is probably possible in a light this small.
Now to what matters: It’s powerful. Impressively powerful. Its nearest rival that I own is probably the Skilhunt E3A, so I tested the two. There is no LVP in either light, so I didn’t do runtime tests, but if you are considering this light then you already know it’s for a short burst of as much light as possible from something so tiny, not for sustain. All measurements taken in a Texas Ace lumen tube; I did not have an adapter ring small enough so some light will have escaped, so these measurements likely tend slightly lower than realistic, and all are of peak output. Candela measurements were performed at 3m distance.
10440 li-ion:
Emisar KC1: 448lm / 3,501cd peak
Lumintop Frog: 432lm / 3,267cd peak
Skilhunt E3A: 356lm / 2,862cd peak
Lumintop GT Nano Pro: 980lm / 7,146cd peak
Lumintop GT Nano v1: 712lm / 30,033cd peak
Eneloop Pro:
Emisar KC1: 114lm
Skilhunt E3A: 107lm
Eneloop (white label)
Emisar KC1: 115lm / 711cd
Skilhunt E3A: 106lm / 693cd
(I did not bother to test candela with Eneloop Pro because
the results are well within the margin of error showing no
appreciable difference between regular (amateur? :P) and pro
Eneloops and neither lumen tube and luxmeter nor my eyes
could tell any difference between the two)
The KC1 significantly outperforms the E3A even when dedomed. I really want to get a W1 and/or SST20 one now…
There is no difference between eneloops, implying the boost portion of the driver does not draw from an eneloop to its full potential output. The KC1 drops in output slightly faster than the E3A on a 10440, and at about the same speed on an eneloop, and both were at 4.1V when using a 10440 at the end of testing after approximately 30 seconds of runtime. I would definitely recommend not getting the resistor swapped, and going with the high power. I didn’t think a keychain light would be this fun.
This is a Hanklight through and through. I don’t have a lot of use for a keychain light and I’m not going to be EDCing it when I already carry a D4K, but this has the classic Hanklight wow factor, definitely, as much as I would have rather it had anduril, I’m not going to complain, and with a brighter LED than a dedome, this might be a top tier lumens per gram, and for the size it has incredible wow factor.
Beamshots:
vs Skilhunt E3A (left):
More beamshots with comparisons: Emisar KC1 outdoor beamshots (with comparison beamshots) : flashlight
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Is the KC1 a JLHAWAII exclusive or @Hank_Wang will you be releasing them as well? Or has anyone asked?
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Hi, it’s available now.
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What is the performance like with W1? Especially with 10440
Awesome ty
@Hank_Wang I tested 464lm with 10440 without the resistor mod (my tube likely reads a little low). You might want to update the description because a few people thought the 100lm was with 10440.
I wrote a review here: Emisar KC1 (519A 5700k dedome) review | Wolfgirl Reviews
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Post updated with beamshots
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Somehow hadn’t seen this before, I guess I could call it the M44 mini 
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To be honest, I don’t see the point of this lamp (except to have fun with it). At least I wouldn’t know how to use this lamp in everyday life. As it only has one light level and runtime is definitely important in everyday life, using a 10440 would be out of the question, because only with NiMH does the lamp provide a low luminous flux without me having to worry about overheating or a short runtime. In addition, 100 or 450 lm are usually simply too bright, especially at close range or when it is already darker in the surroundings.
Too bad, I’m still looking for a worthy successor to my Thrunite TiS, with at least two modes. I still use the TiS (with 2700 K XP-G2 with duv 0.0006) today. Thanks to the simple design, I can also wear it on my suit if necessary. This is also a requirement where many (keychain) lamps fall away, as they usually look very “martial” or “spacey”, or have unusual formats that are difficult to wear nicely…
Edit: This light has no Low-voltage protection? This is not good. SInce the voltage of NiMH and Li-Ion differs significantly it wouldn’t be too hard to have a LVP for Li-Ion (2.7 V or above) and 1.0 V (for NiMH) integrated… so you also had to make sure that the battery won’t be discharged too low? This is a dealbreaker, because in everyday life you don’t have much time to think about battery.
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koef3
Do Olight i3E or Skilhunt E3A have low voltage protection when used with 10440?
I don’t know, I’ve never used these lights.
But from a technical point of view, this should not be too complicated, because when using the lithium battery, a cut-off should take effect at 2.7 V at the latest, while a NiMH cannot technically get into these ranges at all, the range is perhaps 0.9-1.5 V (cut-off at 1 V or so). So there is more than 1 V “dead space” in the range of max. NiMH voltage and minimum Li-Ion voltage, where the driver does not have to work or simply goes into a shutdown and does not work. Since the voltage measurement runs via a microcontroller anyway (which is probably not installed in the KC1, I think due to missing space), this can be programmed in.
Olight i3E or Skilhunt E3A are very popular flashlights that don’t have LVP when using 10440, so KC1 is not out of the ordinary in that sense.
The E3A doesn’t support 10440.
Officially not, but it does work with them
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About dual fuel low voltage protection, if Hank makes any Anduril lights with AA+14500 or AAA+10440 support, I have support already built in to the firmware. It has two different LVP “dead zone” ranges… 0 to 0.9V, and 2.0 to 2.9V. Both are treated as “empty battery”. The code allows normal operation on AA style cells at 0.9V to 2V, and it accepts li-ion cells at 2.9V to 5V… with rgb battery status indication in both cases.
I also have AVR DD working now (in a dev branch), and I hope for it to become the standard MCU for torches for a while. It works really well, and the avr32dd20 comes in a nice small 3x3mm package with 32 KiB of ROM and 20 pins… which is enough to easily handle the needs of a wide range of torches. Plus, some cool stuff is built in, like a DAC and two voltage dividers, which frees up more room for other components on the driver circuit. Like, instead of a regulated driver needing a voltage regulator for input, a voltage divider for battery measurement, and a lowpass filter for output, those can all be removed.
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So, it can be easily implemented in upcoming lights - if the manufacturer wants this. The possibilities are there, and they aren’t too expensive… it’s just a matter of wanting this.
Maybe we will get a “KC2” or “KC1 V2” as successor with same size but usable modes and good runtime at low currents. Just dreaming…