Fraz Labs Mechanical Flashlights (formerly QTC Non-Battery Crush)

[fulee9999]

technically you can put any conductive material between the pcb and the clamps to achieve this, but yes, as ninja said a small blob of solder works best

 

[kerneldrop]

I'm glad I saw this before sending out a SFT40 and a few 519a.
I wouldn't have guessed it would be needed since a clamp screws down on the positive and negative pads.
I'll check it out this evening

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Can't help wondering if the contact surface of the clamp can be shaped to enhance conductivity (?) Perhaps grinding away material around the intended contact with the pcb? Wild guess of course, haven't seen one in person.

 

[TentativeMeteorite]

I ordered some solder and thermal compound. It was already disassembled so I tested without solder and it didn't work without it. Shipment should be here Saturday and then I'll give soldering for the first time a go! I also received some frosted wide Carclo lenses to swap in and some low amperage cells.

Edit: I went with Panasonic NCR18650BE cells

 

[Berserker26]

Gee I'm not having much luck with mine. I have an unprotected 18350 at 1.35inch's/34mm long and it's almost too short - I'm not seeing any of the low moonlight levels (my regular Emisar D4V2 is miles lower) it just jumps to a much higher mode, have tried 2 pieces of QTC. I ordered a slightly longer protected battery which I thought would help, it arrived but is 1mm too long and doesn't engage at all. I'm going to have to order the one in this thread from Illumen, shipped to Australia is about $40AUD. Don't know if it's a battery issue or what.
Also have weird corona around the beam, see photo's where it's on top then i rotate the light so you can see it's at the bottom. Have reseated the optic but no differece. Have ordered some frosted optics so hope they help. Any ideas?
PS - not complaining, have spoken to Fraz Labs and they are very helpful, just wouldn't mind checking with the hive mind as well

 

[scalpel_ninja]

That is odd… here are photos of my emitter and board in the Tiny Tank 18350. Beam isn't perfectly even, but no obvious lopsided corona. The low is nowhere near moonlight, but I just view the QTC as a simple and crude way of adjusting brightness, nothing like control with more sophisticated hardware or firmware.

Edit: I use unprotected Keeppower 18350s.

 

[fulee9999]

I'm not seeing any of the low moonlight levels

I've tried with mine with both a CR123 primary cell and a RCR123 li-ion and it works perfectly well, I can easily set it to lower output than my tritium fob

have weird corona around the beam

the LED and PCB have to be seated in a very specific way to have an even beam pattern, mine has a fairly uneven beam pattern, you can check it from my post from before here

Fraz Labs Mechanical Flashlights (formerly QTC Non-Battery Crush)

Ha. They did a custom color for me. The desk's dark colors are causing it to look darker than it is... light's a shade more toward rose than pink. And I can do the cube. I set yearly goals for new stuff. 2020 rubik's cube 2021 lockpicking 2022 ???

www.candlepowerforums.com

 

[kerneldrop]

Gee I'm not having much luck with mine. I have an unprotected 18350 at 1.35inch's/34mm long and it's almost too short - I'm not seeing any of the low moonlight levels (my regular Emisar D4V2 is miles lower) it just jumps to a much higher mode, have tried 2 pieces of QTC. I ordered a slightly longer protected battery which I thought would help, it arrived but is 1mm too long and doesn't engage at all. I'm going to have to order the one in this thread from Illumen, shipped to Australia is about $40AUD. Don't know if it's a battery issue or what.
Also have weird corona around the beam, see photo's where it's on top then i rotate the light so you can see it's at the bottom. Have reseated the optic but no differece. Have ordered some frosted optics so hope they help. Any ideas?
PS - not complaining, have spoken to Fraz Labs and they are very helpful, just wouldn't mind checking with the hive mind as well

You can unscrew the tailcap for longer batteries...use split ring pliers.
Your optic and LED are not perfectly centered in the flashlight head. Neither is mine.
The machining and finish have imperfections for sure. It is what it is.
I bought the light because it's bombproof...so I guess it checks the boxes for me.

 

[TentativeMeteorite]

I soldered the MCPCB and now it's working great. The tint is glorious on the dedomed 519a 4500k. The frosted Carclo 10260 I put in makes a big dark spot in the center of the beam, I'm going to try some of the other types I ordered when I open it back up tomorrow. Also, my beam was lopsided and rough like that with the stock emitter. The 519a dedome doesn't have this issue at all so far, so after I sort this dark spot out it'll be amazing.

 

[TentativeMeteorite]

Ok, I couldn't wait. Opened it back up and tested the stock optic which I think is a Carclo 10048 plain tight spot. This has an even worse tightly focused donut. Ended up using the frosted medium Carclo 10108 which works flawlessly with the dedomed 519a. The wide frosted even with DC fix has a pretty bad donut I couldn't accept.

 

[kerneldrop]

SFT40 is a no go in that optic.
It's not usable, even for the roughest user that just wants light.

The beam has a large square right in the middle.

 

[thermal guy]

So is the square in the middle or on the right which one?😁

 

[kerneldrop]

So is the square in the middle or on the right which one?😁

haha. middle right, not middle left.

 

[thermal guy]

Lol ya there definitely more of a real world use light. They don't do well on a shelf 😁

 

[PoliceScannerMan]

My brass QT is a user. Heavy but it's a pleasure to use. Hopefully I drop it soon.

 

[Berserker26]

You can unscrew the tailcap for longer batteries...use split ring pliers.

I don't know if you can on the QT Gold - the bottom is 1 solid piece

 

[Banzai310]

If anyone is looking for one, the Flashlight Fanatics FB group has this for sale:

Fraz Labs QT-L Nugget - 18650
NIB $142 shipped priority in their wooden crate. $125 plus priority shipping to ship that crate.

I'm still holding out for the AA version when it someday comes available, but figured someone here might be interested.

 

[Berserker26]

An update

I received the 10108 Medium Frosted Optic and installed it. So much better. Also what I think was contributing to the issue is the black O Ring in the head - it's sort of juuussst too small. As I screwed in the head any of the O ring that was peeking out I pushed it carefully back in. Now - clean beam. And much better with the frosted optic in my humble opinion. Now just to give the slightly longer battery a go when it arrives.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

A hard user who had the keenness of mind and quickness of spirit snagged a qt 18650 recently. He offered to sell it to me. A many-years dream has been fulfilled at last. The wait was worth it but understand that what other members have reported are accurate regarding the nature of the finished product.

It is a flashlight in a category of its own. The light quality is nice; wondering what emitter is used.

Here, with our nightly users: son's Convoy S2+, wife's Emisar D4 and Zebralight SC64 LE, and yours truly Lumintop FW1A with THE Emisar D1.

 

[kerneldrop]

4000k Samsung 351D