I have a C8 with this weathered look. I putted it in a bottle and spinned it with a drill at low speed for an hour and a half with rocks
that’s kind of like buying jeans with holes in them. To each his own. I kind of like that look 
Or like buying an AR-15 and then throwing it down the driveway a dozen times and telling people that you’re an ‘operator’ and your shit just gets used a bunch.
I use my stuff, but I don’t want to wig it up, just to impress the ladies.
Chris
The guitar industry calls it “relic-ing” and I often like the results.
These lights look fantastic and I’ll probably do something of a similar effect on a few of my lights to blend in a couple larger dings I’ve made.
Fascinating! 
After the D4v2 came out, I made some from-scratch firmware for it, with a few different interfaces available. The main one is called Anduril, and can work both ways — smooth ramp or stepped levels. Switching between the two is quick and easy, just three clicks while the light is on. So you can have smooth ramping or precise runtimes as needed. It also has compile-time options to enable/disable the blinks at the top/bottom/middle of the ramp. Does that help?
I like the blinks and they don’t bother me, but I’m not as nit-picky as some here.
If anything, TK has saved me valuable seconds standing there with my thumb on the button, wondering if I’m at the top, or bottom of the range. Over the lifespan of this light, the blinks will buy me more time for other things…like women.
For this, I salute you.
Chris
Very useful to know, thank you.
Thanks, it was actually your red S2 that inspired me to add the weathering, and to build my latest project. I’m making a bedside light with a single 219C and a lighted tailcap. Have all the internals ready, just waiting for that red host to arrive
I’ll take some pics of the other lights I’ve done this to later, but i already have an album of my last project here
Can clearly see your more extensive approach gives a more realistic result, than my sandpaper only method.
Gotta give the bottle/tumbling a try :+1:
nice work on the table
this chart is approximate from your data
CuTi w nichia starts out 8% dimmer than the alum w nichia, but after 20 seconds the CuTi is 50% brighter. The CuTi also lasts 50 seconds longer before it dies.
now about those blinks:
They mark the brightest level at which the light can maintain constant regulated brightness (~120 lumens)
The blue line (consistent flat regulated brightness), is just below the blinks.
After hearing all the recommendations to use high charge non protected cells, I bought some Sony VTC6 from imrbatteries.com. Surprisingly, I detect zero lumen gain compared to the Panasonic protected NCR18650Bs that I bought from Gearbest. I swapped them back and forth and charged the VTC6 to full capacity and still no detectable difference in light output. I then tried comparing with my Astrolux S42 and also no difference in detectable brightness. I can’t understand how that can be the case. The NCR18650Bs are supposed to go up to 5A only. Is it possible that it can run at much higher amps than 5A?
Got my Titanium D4 this week. My initial impressions:
Pros
- Beautiful tint with 5D XPL HI
- Excellent beam pattern using the new star
- Much superior grip compared to the aluminum grey and black versions. Titanium tends to be grippier than anodized aluminum and the titanium 18650 battery tube has excellent square knurling on it.
- The light looks gorgeous
- Output is noticeably higher than my other D4s. Even my other 4xXPL HI D4. Guess I lucked out with the emitters.
Cons
- Significantly heavier than the aluminum version.
- On a fresh VTC5A, on turbo using the default temp sensor settings the head gets uncomfortably hot to touch within 10 seconds. Rampdown also begins within 10 seconds and within 20 seconds light output is a fraction of max turbo. This is as expected: The head gets hotter faster, leading to earlier rampdown compared to the aluminum version. Also as expected, the body tube remains cool, unlike the aluminum version. After you turn the light off, the head remains hotter longer than the aluminum version.
Thanks Jon-slider for the very useful comparison graph! I wonder would the cu/ti make the XPL HI last longer also. I love my D4 XPL HI 4000k. The tint is the best I’ve ever seen. Even better than my nichias.
It’s possible that you have a defective D4 or a defective VTC6. Or maybe your eyes isn’t that sensitive to the output difference between the two cells.
Can’t be, I tried it on Astrolux S42 and BLF A6 also and I bought three VTC6.
That’s strange. What did you use to measure the lumen output?
Are you sure those NCR18650B cells are protected? Cell protection that meets the spec of an NCR18650B should trip every time you try to run a D4 on turbo.
The summary datasheet:
https://na.industrial.panasonic.com/sites/default/pidsa/files/ncr18650b.pdf
provides a 2C discharge curve, i.e. 6.4A. You’d certainly be able to get more than that out of the cell, but it wouldn’t be safe to do so, because you’d be overloading it compared to the official specification. If you did that, the cell would get extremely hot and could easily suffer a catastrophic failure.
I just gauged it with my eyes. No equipment used. The NCR18650Bs were purchased from Gearbest so I assume they are genuine protected panasonics. I thought protected cells would protect you from catastrophic failures.
depends which one you got:
https://www.gearbest.com/batteries/pp_186582.html
Specification
Protected: No
https://www.gearbest.com/batteries/pp_187046.html?
Specification
Protected: Yes
try using the ceillingbounce app, or a light meter to measure brightness… our eyes are not that sensitive
My Dec 20th & 24th orders from Neal arrived on Thursday, Jan 25th. Interestingly, he sent me tracking info, but nothing ever appeared on USPS’s tracking (even now). The number is on the box, so I think it was just China Post’s number that isn’t transferred to USPS.
I ordered a cyan D4, a green D1, a grey D1S and a black 18350 tube. At first glance, the cyan looked great, but I see what you mean about the lens ring being a different shade of blue. It’s not that big of a deal for me. I seriously doubt I would have noticed it if I wasn’t looking for color differences. It’s pretty subtle. Everything else matches. However, you are certainly correct that it doesn’t match.
The other colors appear to be correct, but I found it interesting that the green and grey have “gritty” finishes, while the blue is smooth. Personally, I like the smooth a bit better.
Now here is the part that just had me shaking my head… I also bought a BLUE Nitecore TINI and guess what?
… wait for it…
Wrong color. :person_facepalming:
I ordered blue and received red (which actually looks closer to magenta or pink).
Seriously, how can this keep happening to everyone? Why in the world can’t they fulfill orders with the correct color? At the very least, Neal could email us to let us know a color is out of stock and choose from the alternatives. Normally, I’d probably feel awkward requesting an exchange since I’d have to ship all the way back to China and the great hassle involved. But after seeing this keep happening to so many people over and over again, I kind of feel obligated because if people don’t start pushing back a bit then these color errors will always continue.
I emailed Neal and didn’t receive a reply, but I also messaged him on FB (where I received just a vague “Hey” reply 12 hours later). I’m going to see if I can resolve it with him directly first before approaching Paypal.
I’ll definitely get any future Emisar from Mountain Electronics. Mountain was out of Cyan when I wanted to order and I liked that Neal’s were a couple bucks cheaper (at that time), but now I think I’ll just wait for Mountain to re-stock from here on out.
As jon_slider says, it’s better to use measuring equipment. The human eye can miss variations of 10% or even 20% in light output, depending on the circumstances.
As for cell protection, protected cells certainly should protect you from catastrophic failures.
Unfortunately, even the big Chinese resellers like Gearbest sometimes get swindled by scammers who sell them unprotected cells labelled as protected cells. That way, the scammers can pocket the money that should have been spent on protection circuits. It’s basically the next swindle up from selling cells with unfeasibly high capacity ratings.
9000mAh 18650 with 50A protection circuit, anyone?