milkyspit
Flashlight Enthusiast
This is a short story about a long build with (hopefully) a happy ending! 
A looooooong time ago, sometime late last summer to be exact, CPFer 'D MacAlpine' requested a Project-M build specially suited both to his specific needs (as a police duty light, if memory serves) and his budget. His requirements were to put lots of light on the target, with some throw but also quite a bit of bright sidespill... and to achieve a reasonably compact size as well as decent runtime... and compatibility with rechargeables... and MULTI-BRIGHTNESS capability so the same light could be used in the car, or while completing paperwork, or for other close tasks... and a tough, weatherproof housing... without going crazy on the cost. Initially it looked like SureFire-based builds were out of the question due to cost concerns, so Don suggested the host be a Wolf Eyes light... seemed like a decent idea, so he had the light shipped directly to me.
What ensued was a perfect storm of component unavailability, size issues, vendor miscommunications, and all manner of other annoyances that brought the build to its knees! Until now. :naughty:
Short digression on WHY this one took so long to take form. First hurdle was the multi-brightness circuit, which at the time I was hoping to develop based on a commonly-available enthusiast board. All looked good, but a hardware glitch kept the underlying circuitry from ever stabilizing enough to support customization for Project-M purposes. As the end of the tunnel perpetually looked to be just ahead, Don directed me to wait for it... and wait... and wait some more... and still, the end of the tunnel never appeared.
Somewhere in all the waiting, Cree mania hit, then Seoul mania, then the Cree-vs-Seoul question, all of which made the emitters for the build come into question. The light was originally to be an M180! That's changed somewhat, as we'll see below.
Finally Don and I spoke via phone, and agreed that the build ought to take a different form, so with new marching orders in hand, off I went.
Then I realized the Wolf Eyes host wouldn't actually fit what we'd decided to do.
Then for a change, some good news! Thanks to a joint project with Leef (all will be revealed soon), I came upon a different multi-brightness board, one with a completely different ancestry and based on a proprietary board I'd had made for my Milky Candle MC2 project. Meanwhile, Don had settled on a specific LeefBody that suited his needs and a rechargeable configuration he decided to adopt.
Now as I'm far from infallible, any and all the above details could be completely jumbled! But that's the story as I know it to be, and I'm sticking with it.
What is Don's new light?
[size=+1]The Alpinator (a.k.a. X550.4)[/size]
The Alpinator is hereby named in honor of D MacAlpine and the extreme patience he showed in sticking with me! Hopefully it's the answer to his needs. In Project-M terms this one is an X550.4. Some might recognize by the naming convention that the light is spec'd to deliver max output of 550 lumens continuous... as for the '.4' tacked on, that refers to the FOUR brightness levels the light supports, all digitally regulated. There's high (550 lumens), medium (183 lumens?), low (30 lumens?), and ultralow (5 lumens?), all driven off a pair of 18500 LiON rechargeables, with estimated runtimes of 80 minutes, 4 hours, 27 hours, and 160+ hours, respectively. In a pinch the light should also be capable of running on 3x123 primaries with nearly the same runtimes. There's reverse polarity protection. There's a new design of McR16 reflectors that McGizmo graciously took from my own conceptual request and turned into reality (THANKS MCGIZMO!). :bow: Then just for giggles, there's a new version of the ever-present Milkyspit white tape which oddly enough, isn't white in this case!
The body is a LeefBody C-C 3x123 hard anodized natural, with a LeefDapter M-C at the head end and a LeefClicky round, scalloped, hard anodized black at the tail end. IMHO it's a surprisingly good-looking combo for the flat-bezel KL2 head.
The business end delivers the first-ever Project-M 4-emitter KL2 head! Those nifty new McGizmo reflectors fit in the slightly bored-out head nicely, despite a marginal bit of sidespill lost to the retaining ring itself. This particular iteration of the McR16 reflector is designed for Seoul SSCP4 emitters to deliver improved throw over previous McR16's while still providing a relatively gradual fade from hotspot to sidespill, which has come to characterize all the Project-M KL2 heads to date.
This light seems to be a good and versatile performer, too. It's certainly no beauty queen! But it does the job and that's hopefully what counts above all else. A quick comparison against some well-known lights, not necessarily because they're similar, but rather because many will be familiar with them... distance is perhaps 20-25 feet...
Top Left: Baseline (no lighting other than ambient)
Top Right: SureFire A2 incandescent
Bottom Left: SureFire L5
Bottom Right: ALPINATOR X550.4 at max output
In terms of the software, the light activates at the brightness last-used. From there, each level change goes to the next-brighter level in circular fashion, low to medium, medium to high, high to low, then repeat. Ultralow isn't in the main operating loop but is always available with two taps on the tailswitch... the idea here being that in most cases ultralow would get in the way, and yet, it needs to be accessible without jumping through too many hoops.
I knew getting a computer science degree would come in handy!
IMHO all the above didn't turn out too badly in a 19cm package head to tail. Hope Don likes it! :sweat:
Thanks all for reading, hope it wasn't overly boring!
A looooooong time ago, sometime late last summer to be exact, CPFer 'D MacAlpine' requested a Project-M build specially suited both to his specific needs (as a police duty light, if memory serves) and his budget. His requirements were to put lots of light on the target, with some throw but also quite a bit of bright sidespill... and to achieve a reasonably compact size as well as decent runtime... and compatibility with rechargeables... and MULTI-BRIGHTNESS capability so the same light could be used in the car, or while completing paperwork, or for other close tasks... and a tough, weatherproof housing... without going crazy on the cost. Initially it looked like SureFire-based builds were out of the question due to cost concerns, so Don suggested the host be a Wolf Eyes light... seemed like a decent idea, so he had the light shipped directly to me.
What ensued was a perfect storm of component unavailability, size issues, vendor miscommunications, and all manner of other annoyances that brought the build to its knees! Until now. :naughty:
Short digression on WHY this one took so long to take form. First hurdle was the multi-brightness circuit, which at the time I was hoping to develop based on a commonly-available enthusiast board. All looked good, but a hardware glitch kept the underlying circuitry from ever stabilizing enough to support customization for Project-M purposes. As the end of the tunnel perpetually looked to be just ahead, Don directed me to wait for it... and wait... and wait some more... and still, the end of the tunnel never appeared.
Somewhere in all the waiting, Cree mania hit, then Seoul mania, then the Cree-vs-Seoul question, all of which made the emitters for the build come into question. The light was originally to be an M180! That's changed somewhat, as we'll see below.
Finally Don and I spoke via phone, and agreed that the build ought to take a different form, so with new marching orders in hand, off I went.
Then I realized the Wolf Eyes host wouldn't actually fit what we'd decided to do.
Then for a change, some good news! Thanks to a joint project with Leef (all will be revealed soon), I came upon a different multi-brightness board, one with a completely different ancestry and based on a proprietary board I'd had made for my Milky Candle MC2 project. Meanwhile, Don had settled on a specific LeefBody that suited his needs and a rechargeable configuration he decided to adopt.
Now as I'm far from infallible, any and all the above details could be completely jumbled! But that's the story as I know it to be, and I'm sticking with it.
What is Don's new light?
[size=+1]The Alpinator (a.k.a. X550.4)[/size]
The Alpinator is hereby named in honor of D MacAlpine and the extreme patience he showed in sticking with me! Hopefully it's the answer to his needs. In Project-M terms this one is an X550.4. Some might recognize by the naming convention that the light is spec'd to deliver max output of 550 lumens continuous... as for the '.4' tacked on, that refers to the FOUR brightness levels the light supports, all digitally regulated. There's high (550 lumens), medium (183 lumens?), low (30 lumens?), and ultralow (5 lumens?), all driven off a pair of 18500 LiON rechargeables, with estimated runtimes of 80 minutes, 4 hours, 27 hours, and 160+ hours, respectively. In a pinch the light should also be capable of running on 3x123 primaries with nearly the same runtimes. There's reverse polarity protection. There's a new design of McR16 reflectors that McGizmo graciously took from my own conceptual request and turned into reality (THANKS MCGIZMO!). :bow: Then just for giggles, there's a new version of the ever-present Milkyspit white tape which oddly enough, isn't white in this case!
The body is a LeefBody C-C 3x123 hard anodized natural, with a LeefDapter M-C at the head end and a LeefClicky round, scalloped, hard anodized black at the tail end. IMHO it's a surprisingly good-looking combo for the flat-bezel KL2 head.
The business end delivers the first-ever Project-M 4-emitter KL2 head! Those nifty new McGizmo reflectors fit in the slightly bored-out head nicely, despite a marginal bit of sidespill lost to the retaining ring itself. This particular iteration of the McR16 reflector is designed for Seoul SSCP4 emitters to deliver improved throw over previous McR16's while still providing a relatively gradual fade from hotspot to sidespill, which has come to characterize all the Project-M KL2 heads to date.
This light seems to be a good and versatile performer, too. It's certainly no beauty queen! But it does the job and that's hopefully what counts above all else. A quick comparison against some well-known lights, not necessarily because they're similar, but rather because many will be familiar with them... distance is perhaps 20-25 feet...
Top Left: Baseline (no lighting other than ambient)
Top Right: SureFire A2 incandescent
Bottom Left: SureFire L5
Bottom Right: ALPINATOR X550.4 at max output
In terms of the software, the light activates at the brightness last-used. From there, each level change goes to the next-brighter level in circular fashion, low to medium, medium to high, high to low, then repeat. Ultralow isn't in the main operating loop but is always available with two taps on the tailswitch... the idea here being that in most cases ultralow would get in the way, and yet, it needs to be accessible without jumping through too many hoops.
I knew getting a computer science degree would come in handy!
IMHO all the above didn't turn out too badly in a 19cm package head to tail. Hope Don likes it! :sweat:
Thanks all for reading, hope it wasn't overly boring!
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