jerv

More often now that I have lights that don’t suck like the one on my phone, or the Streamlights that my old shop issued. I do a fair bit of inspection work that requires more and better light than the overhead lights, find myself looking in dark corners all the time, own cats that like getting into weird places, and investigate odd noises from the back yard.

I usually EDC two lights; one that’s more convenient and one that’s more powerful. They’re different enough in other ways to justify the dual-wielding.

The issue with protected cells is that they don’t make allowances for going into momentary load territory that the cell can handle safely. I have no qualms pulling 20A from a 30Q for a moment, but a lot of 18650 protection would clamp down at the 15A CDR. I’m fairly sure that I’m not alone a willingness to give up a few hundred mAh from my 18650s to get 18500’s wearing funny hats **if ** we could get the amps an unprotected cell allows while getting protection from actual shorts.

Sadly, 21700’s would be a problem. While 14430 and 18500 are (somewhat) standard sizes that can easily be shimmed to 14500/18650 size, there’s no slightly-shorter 21mm cell. Most 21700’s are made into battery packs that have that protection as part of the pack, so there’s no need for such protection on the cell. And I don’t think there’s enough flashlight enthusiasts and vapers to create a new standard.

For me, DWIM means “bidirectional ramping mode” since I have yet to find a stepped-mode UI that has the spacing to get me the amount of like I need in a wide variety of situations, and few that allow me to dim a light without cycling through the higher modes first or power-cycling the light. Zebra’s G5 is actually the furthest from DWIM since it has only 3 steps each with 2 sub-levels, and I never know what combination of presses and holds I need to get something that is closest to what I want/need. And G6/G7 are hard to program to choose up to 6 out of the 12 possible (often no-optimal) levels.

Part of why I fell down the rabbit hole is that I found that flashlights can do so much more than LMH. And it’s easier to set Anduril to a 3-level stepped-mode operation than to get most non-Anduril lights to DWIM status.

Press for on, hold to cycle modes, double press for turbo.

A lot of lights have that UI. Anduril merely adds a few optional options to that. Many UI’s that people regard as “simpler” than Anduril are pretty much just Anduril Simple UI with 10H removed.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people fail to realize that.

We always remember the past as being better than it was. They haven’t really gotten worse; if anything, they’ve improved. They’ve had to in order to remain relevant.

Everybody needs a TS10.

If you want low enough lumens with high enough CRI for wound examinations, it’s a nice addition to your collection. It can bet lower than your M150, or it can get obnoxiously high, and it ha a smooth ramp in between the two to get any level in between. Ramping UI’s rawk. As one who both works optometry and has been sent into medical distress by medical personnel using shit lights for pupil exams, I can attest to the value of a TS10’s ramping UI. If you ever encounter a patient who is on the spectrum, epileptic, or has other medical issues triggered by photosensitivity, you’ll find the TS10 potentially better than the Weltool M6 I recommended to my boss, an OD who knows more about eyes (37 years in practice) than about flashlights. He doesn’t do SAR though, so he doesn’t need twice the lumens an M150 is capable of, but it’s also the only light my CRI-baby arse would consider a rival to the Nichia 519a and 219b. If you think the Nichia M150 is nice, you’ll also like the TS10.

The only light I have that can compete with it for beauty or CRI/R9 is an Emisar D2 with a 4500k Nichia 219b. And that light has a UV channel for other uses. Not as powerful, but since I use UV as part of my job, a bit more useful. And still plenty powerful for close work; simply not good for throw or sheer power the way my TS10 is.

Everybody needs a TS10.

It may not be The Perfect Light, but it comes a lot closer than many other lights. Do you want great CRI and R9? The CPS2323 is solidly 9080. Do you want lumens? The TS10 has more than enough for any practical use. Do you want small? It’s the size of a button-top 21700 cell; you could shove it inside most 21700 lights and screw down the tailcap securely.

IMO, the only thing that could make it more perfect is a 4500K 219b emitter swap.

I’d gladly trade the simple UI for a DWIM UI. If there were a blatant sign that I crossed the line between " thermally unsustainable" and “I can do this until I am about to swan-dive into LVP territory” then sure. As it stands, I think slightly better mode spacing is required.

That said, I think Skilhunt gets it less-wrong that the fanatically-worshipped Zebra UI. At least Skilhunt/ESKTE/Skeet puts their thermally-unsustainable modes in Turbo by default.

After having gone through a few natural disasters that the AA-worshippers think utterly vindicate their fanaticism to he utter and total superiority of AA-compatibility, I have to say that I am unimpressed by anything that combines the downsides of alkaleaks (low lumens and low wH) with the biggest weakness of Li-ion (needs to be charged instead of replaced).

I appreciate that some, like Acebeam and Skilhunt, go for sustained lumens over startup peak lumens, and am a fan of boost drivers in general, but I think that the backlash to hotrod lights is a bit extreme. I’ve used TS10’s to keep my home nicely lit during prolonged power outages. Yeah, it has a reputation as a hot rod since its a 14500 light that can do 1400 lumens, but at lower levels that do not involve the FET, it can hold enough lumens to do what it needs to do for many hours despite being a 14500 light with a driver that isn’t a boost/buck driver and cannot take the first battery to sell out when TSHTF.

One nice thing about Anduril is that it can do the no-FET-needed levels that prolong battery life when you just need a little light, and despite the fear-mongering, it doesn’t actually operate any differently from many other lights that copy it’s Simple UI mode and merely omit 10H and the (easily ignored) options it unlocks. How do you think I get my TS10’s to hold “don’t walk into wall or trip over the cat” light levels for 8+ hours despite the low mAh of 14500 cells? I have options between M1 and M2 that Skilhunt’s and Zebra’s UI lack.

IMO, all lights need a ramping mode that allows for achieving a a nice balancing point between output and runtime. And I have yet to see a stepped-mode-only UI hit that balance with their mode spacing.

And now we know why the military uses so much green light…