PoliceScannerMan
Flashaholic
I received a new light from Milky, the Gossamer. I dont know everything about it, but I am learning. I will share with you folks what I know.
What is it?
The Gossamer started out as a stock KL4 Surefire head. Milky took it into his lab and gutted it of its outdated power hungry 5W emitter and its stock electronics. He replaced the emitter with a Cree MCE, bin code KWF. He replaced the electronics with his acorn 1.3 driver, Califon firmware. The 1.3 means it is driven at 1.3A on full power. BTW on 2 IMR's on high you get about 625 lumens for 25 minutes then a 10 minute gradual fall.
The beauty in this light is the low mode. The drawback to most MCE/P7 lights is low mode is always too damn bright. Not with this one. Ultralow is 2 lumens! Thats right ultra low is 1/4 as bright as a Arc AAA. It also has a 5 day runtime, and that is conservative.
I discarded the stock body and tailcap and put the head on a clipped and flared Aleph 2 cell body I had laying around. To top it off, I put a shrouded Aleph tailcap on in that houses a McClicky switch.
Milky reccomends to run this light on 2 x IMR R123's. 3 Primaries will also work to, for you anti-rechargable guys.
OK, how does it work?
Milky's board is just sweet. There are 3 different modes, and 2 drives.
By two drives, I mean regular and mizer. To switch these drives tap the TC 40ish (Doesnt have to be exact, hows he do that?) times. (It takes 10 seconds)
Mizer mode reduces current to the emitter by 6 times! But our eyes only see half the difference. Holy runtime batman! Ultra low stays the same, with its 5 day runtime on 2 IMR's.
OK, onto the modes. Each mode has 4 brightness levels, strobe is counted as a level. To get from mode to mode you need to tap the tailcap 20ish times. The three modes are tactical, theatre, and memory.
To get from level to level just click the TC in succession within .5 seconds or so.
Reference
Tap= pressing TC without clicking
Click= Clicking the TC
Tactical Mode
Light comes on in high mode everytime from off, which I already mentioned, is 625 lumens. The next level is a 625 lumen strobe, which is the perfect Mhz IMO. So from off you would tap then click on to latch to strobe. Then next level is low then ultra low.
Theatre mode
Light always comes on in ultra low mode. Everytime. I keep it on this mode. If you wanted to go to high, you would tap tap tap click. I cant tell you enough how much I love the ultra low.
Memory mode
It remembers your last mode used, would be great for camping. tap tap tap then click whatever level you want to leave it on.
Thats pretty much it, Milky said there is beacon mode and locator flash also, but I havent figured it out yet.
I love this light the beams is nice and floody, and on high it has enough throw to get by on. It lights up my bat house 200 feet off my porch with no problem.
Onto the pics!
What is it?
The Gossamer started out as a stock KL4 Surefire head. Milky took it into his lab and gutted it of its outdated power hungry 5W emitter and its stock electronics. He replaced the emitter with a Cree MCE, bin code KWF. He replaced the electronics with his acorn 1.3 driver, Califon firmware. The 1.3 means it is driven at 1.3A on full power. BTW on 2 IMR's on high you get about 625 lumens for 25 minutes then a 10 minute gradual fall.
The beauty in this light is the low mode. The drawback to most MCE/P7 lights is low mode is always too damn bright. Not with this one. Ultralow is 2 lumens! Thats right ultra low is 1/4 as bright as a Arc AAA. It also has a 5 day runtime, and that is conservative.
I discarded the stock body and tailcap and put the head on a clipped and flared Aleph 2 cell body I had laying around. To top it off, I put a shrouded Aleph tailcap on in that houses a McClicky switch.
Milky reccomends to run this light on 2 x IMR R123's. 3 Primaries will also work to, for you anti-rechargable guys.
OK, how does it work?
Milky's board is just sweet. There are 3 different modes, and 2 drives.
By two drives, I mean regular and mizer. To switch these drives tap the TC 40ish (Doesnt have to be exact, hows he do that?) times. (It takes 10 seconds)
Mizer mode reduces current to the emitter by 6 times! But our eyes only see half the difference. Holy runtime batman! Ultra low stays the same, with its 5 day runtime on 2 IMR's.
OK, onto the modes. Each mode has 4 brightness levels, strobe is counted as a level. To get from mode to mode you need to tap the tailcap 20ish times. The three modes are tactical, theatre, and memory.
To get from level to level just click the TC in succession within .5 seconds or so.
Reference
Tap= pressing TC without clicking
Click= Clicking the TC
Tactical Mode
Light comes on in high mode everytime from off, which I already mentioned, is 625 lumens. The next level is a 625 lumen strobe, which is the perfect Mhz IMO. So from off you would tap then click on to latch to strobe. Then next level is low then ultra low.
Theatre mode
Light always comes on in ultra low mode. Everytime. I keep it on this mode. If you wanted to go to high, you would tap tap tap click. I cant tell you enough how much I love the ultra low.
Memory mode
It remembers your last mode used, would be great for camping. tap tap tap then click whatever level you want to leave it on.
Thats pretty much it, Milky said there is beacon mode and locator flash also, but I havent figured it out yet.
I love this light the beams is nice and floody, and on high it has enough throw to get by on. It lights up my bat house 200 feet off my porch with no problem.
Onto the pics!
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