TK's Emisar D4V2 review

[ToyKeeper]

The thread has gotten a bit busy, so apologies in advance for a long multi-reply. I’ll probably post a couple of these while I’m catching up…

@Adhara

A potentially dangerous product that should therefore be thoroughly tested with an appropriate test harness?

Yes, and all the tests passed. But the test plan didn’t include testing muggle mode’s “off” state for more than 5 minutes on a half-empty cell. That has been added to the plan though.

@Adhara

I simply don’t trust them, and certainly would not put them in the hands of a child, “muggle mode” or not.

It’s probably not a great idea to give any device with removable li-ion batteries to a child. When the battery is taken out, it can cause severe burns in a fraction of a second. I know this, unfortunately, from first-hand experience…

Due to the type of power source used, it is somewhat similar to handing a child a box of matches. It doesn’t really matter much if the box is taped shut; it’s not safe regardless of whether the tape is there.

@Lux-Perpetua

this flaw might have significantly pushed the development and availability of a DIY flash kit

That’s definitely a good side to all this. I’ve been trying for like a year to get manufacturers to use standardized firmware flashing pads, and trying to get someone to make the adapters commercially available. The driver side of things has seen good progress, but until now, the adapters were still limited to only what people can build at home.

@zax

I’ve been puttering around a bit and have found at least one vendor that sells pogo-pin arrays. What is the pitch on the contacts in the D4V2?

Full details about the universal 4x2 adapter are here: [Oshpark] HQ ProgKey - Universal Driver Programming Key

@Nev

I hope it fits the D18

It does not fit the D18, because the D18 doesn’t have any reflashing pads. It requires unsoldering the LED wires and pulling the driver halfway out, to allow a SOIC8 clip to be used.

However, it should work on D4v2 and any future Emisar lights… and it may also work on products from Fireflies, Mateminco, the BLF Lantern, and maybe others. This depends on whether Emisar’s adapter makes the wires remappable, and whether it is physically compatible with Lexel’s pinouts. But those details are not yet known.

@bquinlan

I am certain there will be one or more sets of step-by-step instructions explaining exactly what to do. (And if there aren’t I will help write one.)

I’m planning to make a photo-based guide, but it would be helpful to have more than just that. In particular, I don’t really know the best ways to do flashing in Windows and MacOS.

@Lux-Perpetua

Toykeeper does not get any profit for this time consuming work.

Not quite. As of a couple months ago, I get some compensation via Patreon. And I don’t do Emisar’s hardware enablement for free. So it’s not zero. But it’s a long way from a normal software development wage. Basically, I do about 90% to 95% of this stuff for free, and get paid for the other 5% to 10%.

@zax

Do you think that releasing the source code could have possibly caught the bug in muggle mode before production?

In this case, no. The issue only happened on brand new hardware no one else had access to yet. Also, although the many-eyeballs factor of free software is often a huge benefit, it’s very uncommon for anyone to do anyone else’s hardware enablement QA work. When making software drivers for new hardware, nobody except the manufacturer is going to do any testing on that.

There is the additional complication that Emisar wants to keep everything private until products are released, because of cloning issues. The main consequence of publishing early would likely not be a reduction of bugs, but a reduction of purchases… since other companies might copy the design and get to market first. So publishing early wasn’t really an option.

@pagey1973

I’ll wait and see what happens, but i paid with paypal so i’m covered.

Paypal is nice for buyers that way. However, please try to resolve things some other way first. Paypal can be pretty harsh to sellers, so filing disputes is kind of a “nuclear option” to use only after trying everything else.

@berfles

I am having issues figuring out how to mimic the tactical mode from the D4 though, I liked setting it to that when I go for walks because it’s just an instant turbo mode any time I press the button.

To do that, simply ramp up to the highest level before going into momentary mode. It uses the last-ramped level. Or it can also use strobe modes, if you access one of those right before momentary mode.

Depending on how bright you want it, you may also need to raise the ramp ceiling first, which only needs to be done once. In the ramp config mode, simply click once when configuring the ceiling level, to raise it as high as it can go.

• Turn the light on.
• Click 4 times to get to ramp config mode.
• Wait a few seconds to skip the first menu option (floor level).
• At the second prompt, click one time.
• Wait until it falls out of the menu and goes back to regular mode.

After this, the ramp should go all the way up. Then simply ramp up to the top before entering momentary mode.

@Mark M

In the end ToyKeeper is a person who is capable of making mistakes…

I try really hard not to be though…

I would pull out an avatar pic and make a joke, but in the context of this discussion it’s probably best not to. So I’ll just say this: People complaining don’t bother me. Even the occasional people making threats don’t bother me. What bothers me about all this is not catching the bug in the first place, not living up to my own standards… even if they’re impossible standards.