FF II observation

[Photonian]

[ QUOTE ]
paulr said:
Ehh, the FF is like a British sports car; you buy it for its character and expect that it will have some idiosyncrasies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the idiosyncrasies are extremely minor, the FF II is or will shortly be a classic going for $500 and more on eBay. Moreover, it proves that Canadians can do, at least, one more thing besides trap fur, fish salmon and drink beer eh!

 

[Minjin]

Coach, I think we are wondering what agenda you have since you have authored at least two threads talking negatively about FireFlies when you don't even own one.

I have a FF1 and its the best keychain light in the world. Period. Nothing else is as small yet uses easily swappable sandwiches. There's no point in going down the list of how the light is so great. I doubt it'll be replaced on my keychain for a long time. When the LED or converter becomes out of date, its a sandwich swap away to change that. I personally think the beam is perfection with a low dome so I hope LumiLeds continues the improvement of them.

I'll restate that my light has zero problems. Using the VIP for comparison is silly. You want to take a poll and see what percentage of FF vs VIP users use theirs every day?

Mark

 

[Deleted member 737]

>>Coach, I think we are wondering what agenda you have since you have authored at least two threads talking negatively about FireFlies when you don't even own one.

I agree. Doug put's out a good product. He's always done right by me. He's honest & professional. What more could you want?

I guess the thing I'm wondering: What do you have to gain by starting this thread?

Brian

 

[coachbigdog]

Oh,my goodness! I have NO AGENDA.It's unbelievable how anytime someone expresses a THOUGHT around here,how some people get in such a hissy as if your talking about a family member.IT'S JUST A LIGHT PEOPLE! As I stated in the heading,it was just an OBSERVATION.If you want to reply to this thread any more,you'll just be posting to yourself as I am done with trying to defend myself for nothing."What's my agenda"...unbelievable! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

 

[paulr]

I can understand how the FF could disappoint people who spent $100+ and thought they were getting a consumer product. When I bought mine, I thought of it as a successor to the Arc LS with the 1x123 twisty, and was disappointed when I saw it fall short of the Arc's solidness. I understand the reasons and have had to adjust my expectations accordingly. I think part of the problems stem from the interchangeable sandwiches, which create some mechanical slop. Other lights have potted electronics and there's less to go wrong.

 

[cy]

Paulr, I've never had any contact or heat disapation problem from firefly. It works each and every time. I've run it so hot it put blisters on me. No damage to the light.

Very solid modular design! IMHO aproaches the Arc LS in solidness. I would not hesitate take firefly as my main light for an extended backcountry hiking trip. Arc AAA as backup of course. Before firefly it would have been LSHP.

Most of the problems have been connected to the two stage switch. Those problems belong to dat2zip, not dspeck. I've alway viewed the switch as an add-on. It was never part of larry's original design.

I've also solved the beam pattern problem by tuning a NX-05 optic focal point forward and backwards. until a nice round beam is achieved.

It took a little tweaking (Ok a lot), but the effort was worth it. My two stage switch works each and every time.

Firefly is on me almost 7 X 24 hanging on a ultra neck lanyard.

Now that I've got the aluminum head installed, weight is reduced to 38 grams w/batt. compared to Arc AAA at 20 grams and TNC Key-lux N-cell at 26 grams. (all w/batt)

I love it even more. I sure hope the upcoming li-ion 123 works out well. That will bring firefly up to date. I'm currently running an MM+ R2H. Almost time to upgrade the luxeon. Was lucky enough to snag a TWOH, headed for a sammie soon.

I love keeping firefly up to date as technolgy progress. Compare that to a Mclux PR or Arc LS, which you almost have to destroy unpotting it to upgrade.

 

[Billson]

I think most of the people reading the thread are missing the point coachbigdog is trying to make. I also don't own a firefly but I do own an XM2. I didn't complain about the XM2 because I paid very little for it and I believe in getting what you pay for but if the Firefly does have the problems that coach describes, there are a number of lights you can buy for $140 that are better made and much cheaper so there should be no excuses for an imperfect product. Arc sells imperfect products as seconds and no one should be exempt from this rule whether a big company or a one man operation.

Off hand, I think Doug may have taken on a bigger workload than he is capable of handling which may have resulted in these problems. Look at the UBH thread. A lot of people are unhappy that there is still no product 210 days after pre-payment and this project was started before the Firefly 2 so it was improper, to say the least, to make the Firefly project take precedence over this just because there were considerably more people wanting to buy it.

Just my .02

 

[paulr]

Billson, I don't think you're right that a $140 flashlight can't have problems. If you buy a $100,000 Jaguar, I guarantee you it will spend more time in the shop than a $12,000 Toyota. The same goes if you buy a $5000 Minerva wristwatch instead of a $50 Casio. The FF is a wonderful design but it's made in runs of a few hundred pieces, not 1000's of pieces like the Arcs. Also, lots of them are sold semi-complete, which means the fit between the light and the sandwich is left somewhat up to chance. Making a light reliable mostly means very consistent manufacturing processes, which means large production runs; or else, lots of hand assembly and adjustment, which would make it a $500 light (the auctioned LL123's sold for about that much) instead of a $140 light.

In my semi-complete FF1, there's a tight fit between the sandwich and bezel, and the optic isn't seated properly in the bezel so it's a little loose. Also, the light doesn't work with Energizer brand CR123's because they're a slightly different length than the Yuntongs I'm using now. (The Arc LS 1x123 twisty tailcap may have been discontinued over similar issues). Finally even with the two-level switch removed, the on-off action is a little bit twitchy. Maybe I didn't do such a good assembly job and I need to figure out how to tweak some things, that Doug would tweaked if I'd bought a turnkey FF, but that leaves me tweaking again if I ever swap modules or optics.

Even with these issues, though, it's still a nice, useful light, that I like to carry and to show to people. Maybe I can get Doug or Wayne to take a look at it sometime and see if its minor issues can be dealt with.

 

[Billson]

Paulr,

If the fit between the light and the sandwich is inconsistent, it should be down to the sandwich and not due to the body of the light because the body parts are machined while the sandwiches are made by hand.

Now if the machine shop is unable to make the bodies consistent from batch to batch, then wouldn't that mean the machine shop is incompetent since we go to machine shops specifically for the precision they can provide regardless of the number of pieces and batches we want made whether it is 100 or 100,000 pieces/batches.

If the light is as twitchy as you've described, then maybe there's something wrong with the design. Being modular means that you don't have to need instructions on how to assemble it properly. Using your analogy, you shouldn't have to send your car back to the factory just to have a light bulb changed because it has to be tweaked before it will fit into the socket.

Everyone agrees it's a great concept and design but maybe more research or testing should have been put into it before it was put into production. For example, Mr. Bulk spent months testing and refining the VIP before the light started production and it costs not much more than the firefly so cost can't be the issue here because going by the prices that Mr. Bulk sets for his lights with all the technology, time, logistics challenges, R&D, proto-typing put into it, the products of all other modders suddenly seem very expensive by comparison.

 

[paulr]

If you look at, say, $75 Benchmade pocket knives, you'll see some level of inconsistency too. This is real-world metal stuff that doesn't always behave the same way, not software. You'll see more consistency in either a $25 SAK (higher volume and more manufacturing automation) or a $300 Sebenza (lots of someone's attention lavished on each individual piece during manufacture).

I agree that the sandwich fit issue in my light is probably due to the sandwich, and sometime I may try grinding around the edges of the sandwich (using a nail file didn't make enough difference). I don't know what's causing the problem with the optic. The issue with the battery is caused by some combination of the solder blob positive battery contact, and the machine screw negative contact. Both of those contacts are suboptimal but were done because the low production quantity prevented doing something fancier.

 

[cy]

Paulr, We got to get your firefly working right.

besides the two stage switch issues, the only other real probems I've seen posted were threads are off slightly. Yours is the first post I've seen with contact problems.

I've got 3 fireflys and 6 sammies. All combinations work perfect. I've got several turned down fraens and NX-05, those are very inconsistant in size.

If you've got a set of dial calipers, I would be glad to compare sizes. I bet we can get your firefly working great.

Please PM if you are interested.

 

[sidespill]

Good products only get better when the end user gives feedback to the manufacture. Improvement is a good thing. web page

 

[paulr]

Thanks Cy. I don't have a dial caliper but maybe I'll try another battery of that brand. I do have another thread in Doug's forum about my FF problems. I haven't been worrying about it too much though.

 

[dano]

I'm keeping an eye on this thread. I should have done it earlier, as it's mainly an LED thread...

Let's relax and keep it on topic...

Thanks,
--dan