I was wondering about that recently. Since it is meant to be difficult to exit by accident, what if the exit command was changed from 6C to 6H? (from “6 clicks” to “6 clicks and hold the last one”)
It might reduce accidental exits, and would also make it easier to determine whether it’s turning muggle mode on or off.
I’ve also been wondering if “4 clicks to exit lockout” should turn the light on, probably at the memorized level. How often do people unlock the light and not want to turn it on immediately?
I must have entered and exited muggle mode a dozen times trying to configure aux LEDs in the first 10 minutes I had the light. Apparently I suck with any amount of clicks past 5 that require holding at the end
I am in part traumatized by gifting my father a light (lesson learned, right?). I watched over webcam as he opened it and attempted to use it. It was an L6 with "Emisar D4" UI - not sure exactly which version of RampingIOS Richard is using. Anyway, he started clicking, ended up in tactical mode, and got upset. Then he read the instructions, complete with visual quick-guide, with a deep frown. He's eventually come to love it, having never seen anything remotely close to that bright. But I know there's some other BLFers in 95035 so someone could teach him a lesson.
Oh, right, you asked some questions. Yeah, 6H might be better to exit. I find it less plausible a flashlight newb would randomly do the 6H pattern. And yeah, the few times I've used lockout on my FW3A or D4, I've only been unlocking with the intent to turn on.
I generally have a lot of thoughts and feelings about user interfaces, but I try not to share too much. I don't necessarily think I know better than anyone else, and my opinions tend to be outliers.
I’ve said this before, but I will repeat myself. Until your light is reflashed, keep the auxillaries turned on, with different colors for lockout and for ramp/step modes. If you find your light off and the auxillaries are off, you have accidentally gotten into muggle mode. Conversely, if you wanted the light to be in muggle mode, you would immediately know the light was not in muggle mode, when you saw the auxillaries.
Heck, I don't even have muggle mode on my second D4V2 (preproduction F/W) and this is what I'm doing. At first, I thought the aux LEDs were kind of gimmicky (stuff like that isn't usually my thing) but after reading your post about this a few days ago, set mine up for red on low to indicate normal mode and blue on low to indicate lockout. It's kind of nice to just glance at the business end if the light and see what mode it's in.
First, since I already have an assortment of the emisar “D” series lights, more than I want to admit. I can say this.
.
.
.
TK, Thank you for the hard work and dedication to the hobby and advancements that you have brought to the flashlights we now have.
User interfaces now are leaps and bounds better than they were Pre BLF Q8. Most people outside of the hobby do not even know about ramping, multiple clicking to get different features.
.
.
Thank you again. Keep up the good work!
I was waiting to buy this light as soon as Mountain Electronics had them available. I see there is a bug that is being worked out with the software. Thanks to TK and Hank for doing their best to provide a fix to the problem. This will end up being another great light for 2019. Jeff208 = FabienG ? From reading the posts in this thread it seems there is a lot of anger about this light. Most manufacturers do not get involved posting about their products development any more. It is refreshing to see a dialogue about this light and the remedy to fix. Thanks again to all for the conversation !
I received my HQ BLF ProgKey PCBs (link) from OHS PARK today, via overnight shipping, but you only get overnight shipping if you live 15min from the manufacturing plant.
These boards are smaller than they look. Soldering the first four pins on one side required much preparation; you will need to tin the traces on the PCB and the pins. There's not much space between pins, so it takes a steady/patient hand. I had ordered three PCBs, so wasn't worried about any big mistakes. You need lots of flux. Oh, and you need lots of flux.
Soldering the second side was easier, because there's only two pins. But once I finished that, I realized that there was a problem.
The PCB is too thick.
This means that once all pins are soldered flat onto the PCB, the pins (front row and back row) are too wide. One row isn't going to make contact with all pads on the D4V2 driver board.
In order to salvage this, I had to angle the two pins downward on the second side. That's highly unorthodox, but it was my only option. Fortunately, you can bridge the solder to the traces that aren't being used - which helps strengthen the solder joint.
So now, I have a fully functional key-pcb, However . . . .
Honestly, I think that soldering small wires directly onto the six pads on the D4V2 driver board will be easier - if you're only going to be doing this once. Building this key PCB was a lot of trouble.
I'm not sure where the problem occurred - but the thickness of the PCB measures 1.66mm. The key-pcb photo that ToyKeeper posted in the beginning of this thread looks like it should work, but the one I got is too thick. I can see why Hank is looking into sockets for the pins.
I like the idea of changing the Muggle exit sequence to 6H. I would actually like to see it changed to “unscrew tailcap” like with monetary mode. That would eliminate the issue entirely and I don’t think it would slow experienced user down by much.
I love the idea of turning the light on as a result of exiting lockout. You are certainly right that almost everyone wants the light on when leaving lockout.
Since the lights going forward will be shipped with an update to keep muggle mode from turning on by itself, changing access from 6C to 6H seems completely unnecessary to me. Sort of like, the horse got out of the open barn door but we’ve caught it and returned it to the barn and closed the door, so why build a fence around the doorway too?
Funny thing, srvctec, you did the opposite of me. I have blue aux for normal and magenta for lockout (on the theory that red means ‘stopped’). I had normal mode set up with rainbow for the first two days, and then decided rainbow was starting to get on my nerves! Maybe if the changes had been 3x slower it would have been soothing to watch, but after while it just seems too frenetic.
It’s an option in the cart I think, here’s my order:
0.39 x 1.06 inch (9.9 x 26.8 mm) 2 layer board.
Your boards have been shipped. Track here.
Board Top Board Bottom
6 boards at $2.05 per batch of three $4.10 2 oz copper, 0.8mm thickness
Sub total $4.10
Lexel mentioned it but it’s buried inside the thread and not clear in the first post of the Oshpark post.
I had normal mode set up with rainbow for the first two days, and then decided rainbow was 
starting to get on my nerves! Maybe if the changes had been 3x slower it would have been soothing to watch, but after while it just seems too frenetic.