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Showing 1 of 21 conversations about:
richfiles
275
Mar 15, 2018
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I've now already bought three of these Lumintop Tool lights for myself, and another one as a gift, and recommended it to a buddy who has himself bought one for himself, and I think gifted at least one as well... I'll definitely buy more, if I see what I like in the future.
I just wanted to share that I would be VERY INTERESTED in buying ANOTHER Tool AA if it were ever released in the Blue Titanium option (Like this one: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-blue-titanium-aaa-flashlight ). I almost bought that Blue Titanium Tool AAA, but decided I REALLY wanted an AA model instead instead. I chose to wait, and gamble on the hope that it happens. In the meantime, i'm settling with he Blue Aluminum Tool AA. I will likely gift it to a family member if I ever have the opportunity to get the Blue Titanium Tool AA. Given that the Tool AA is a physically larger light, I would imagine the light weight and increased durability of Titanium would particularly shine for the AA Tool, even above the AAA Tool, and the Blue Titanium, is quite frankly, awesome looking! I'd buy that in a heartbeat.
Definitely want to see a Nichia LED offered though. I've fallen in love with the warm color of my Brass Tool AAA, and the AA could make up for the decrease in brightness with the beefier AA driven LED.
Something else I'd like to see, if it's possible, would be for future models to detect if a 14500 is installed. I like that the 14500 offers a brighter peak brightness, but I'd like even more, if installing a 14500 would add an additional mode, to allow the selection of 8, 25, (95 or 110), and 550 lumens. I like the idea of retaining the lower brightness options, besides the minimum, to allow the battery to run longer, while being still reasonably bright enough for varying illumination tasks. With an alkaline or NiMH, the LED control would disable the 550 Lumen output, and only have three options. I would presume such a feature would be easy to add by way of voltage detection, but it would, of course, require an entirely new controller. If we're doing a new controller though, I think there ought to be a way to jump to full brightness, maybe by holding the power button down. Maybe even add strobing, by holding the button, and tapping once it's on. I'd definitely buy that though!
My argument for having the 14500 add an additional light mode, rather than shifting all the modes brighter, is simple. going from 8-25 Lumens is a small gap, but that's enough to make the difference between seeing enough to not trip over things, to actually seeing what you're doing. A jump all the way to 95 is rather big, and feels like it could wash out your vision in some situations. It also DRASTICALLY reduces your overall runtime on any mode except for the "nightlight" mode. On a AA Alkaline, It says I can expect Low / Medium / High to last 36h 25m / 11h 00m / 1h 45m, but going with the 14500, brightness is increased across the board, and the runtimes are 28h 30m / 4h 00m / 0h 45m... That's a SIGNIFICANT reduction in overall battery life across the board, just to get that peak brightness of 550 Lumens as an option! Of course, the lowest mode gets bumped up by one Lumen, but it's battery life reduction is not significant. The medium mode is bumped from 25 to 95 Lumens, however! That's huge! The other differences are negligible, but that change is painful. It takes away a good low level working brightness with good battery life and replaces it with a power hungry mode that's getting fairly close to the brightness level of the high mode of the Tool AAA. That's a sacrifice I do not like, but it seems a necessary one, if you want the option of peak brightness. That's why I say future controllers should switch to four modes when a 14500 is used.
I say, for future brightness controller options... Consider detecting the battery voltage. If over a rated voltage (if it detects the higher voltage generated by a 14500 cell, say over 2.7 volts), then make it a four mode light... 8 / 25 / (95 or 110) / 550, but if the battery is below 2.7 volts, then only offer the three 7 / 25 / 110 modes.
That would retain the long battery life and more comfortable lower medium brightness levels offered by the 25 Lumen output, but still offer a middle ground (95-110 Lumens) between the 25 and 550 Lumen options, when using a 14500 cell.