Thinking of designing a new flashlight :)

Hey everyone,

I know there are many brands out there, but i just wanted to create something and feel proud of achieving it.

I was thinking of designing a new flashlight, and I would like if possible to hear everyones suggestion to the perfect light you would like to have.
Things like, size, power, colour, material, battery type, thrower or flood, runtimes, reflector type, number of LED, type of LED, colour of beam, price etc. A list of things you would like to see on a flashlight that would make it perfect, and also realistic.

I will then try and group some ideas that match everyones and see if I can come up with a design. Right now Im only on Research and Development.

And depending of how many ideas, might come with different sizes in the future. But for now I will try and design only one and see what you guys will think.

This is a long time project and won't be easy, so the more people collaborating, the better it will end up. Maybe within a year until the physical thing is made.


Thanks for collaborating.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

many view,but no comments?

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

NO one light covers it all. I have a AAA, and AA, and cr123 that I switch around...sometimes carry all of them!

Then I have several 18650 lights and a multi 18650. What I like in all of them is high quality, simplicity in smaller lights, and sturdy , thicker walled lights. I'll pay more for a great light-like the AA SC52 Zebralight that I carry most.

There are tons of cheap and ok...I'll give it as a gift light. Strive for very high quality...don't get too tricky on the modes...and please..NO strobes!!

Bill W

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

Lighthouse one said:

NO one light covers it all. I have a AAA, and AA, and cr123 that I switch around...sometimes carry all of them!

Then I have several 18650 lights and a multi 18650. What I like in all of them is high quality, simplicity in smaller lights, and sturdy , thicker walled lights. I'll pay more for a great light-like the AA SC52 Zebralight that I carry most.

There are tons of cheap and ok...I'll give it as a gift light. Strive for very high quality...don't get too tricky on the modes...and please..NO strobes!!

Bill W

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Thank you Bill,

so ill definitely look into quality, no matter the price?
Yes i know there is no light that fits all. But i want to see if I can come up with a quality well designed light.
Maybe one that you can plug into computer and define your own outputs and modes you choose is most convenient, so it leaves to the owner to make decisions and i can focus on design aspect.
Should I focus on a EDC that uses AA, AAA or cr123?

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

One area that is woefully underserved is well made AAA-powered lights with a button. Just look at the prices that the LF2XT fetches in the used market. A three-mode AAA clicky with memory and a premium emitter would sell fast around here.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

Z-Tab said:

One area that is woefully underserved is well made AAA-powered lights with a button. Just look at the prices that the LF2XT fetches in the used market. A three-mode AAA clicky with memory and a premium emitter would sell fast around here.

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Would a tail button or a button on body better suited? It must be able to tail stand. But because of its size (AAA), the tail will have small diameter, it might be small for some people finger to work.

ok so also premium emitter.

I want something quality, so it might not sell as mass.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

This is a tall order It would be like trying to figure out the ideal car. Different features mean different things to different people.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

ledmitter_nli said:

This is a tall order It would be like trying to figure out the ideal car. Different features mean different things to different people.

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Yes i know, but i need to start somewhere. And would be awesome to achieve, cant succeed straight away, but can try hard to get there.

The more feed back the better.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

Thrunight and others have asked much the same question, you might search for the threads. But the upshot has always been that no consensus is ever reached because each person has a different idea of what the light should include. In other words, the perfect light should be D Maglite size, yet small enough to EDC. It should be a thrower that's very floody. It should have the ability to be set for one mode only, or for L-M-H, or for 5 modes plus well hidden flashing modes that can all be accessed with one button press (yes, it must do all of these!). It should have a tail switch only and a side switch only. Get the picture? Maybe a swiss army knife with lights that flip out....

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

Rexlion said:

Thrunight and others have asked much the same question, you might search for the threads. But the upshot has always been that no consensus is ever reached because each person has a different idea of what the light should include.

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I will try find.
Yes you are right, but at least i have an idea what to consider, AAA and clicky for now.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

If I were designing a flashlight I would want a angle head 1-2aa powered, with a multi-focus reflector for flood or spot, magnet on tailcap, pocket clip, with a neutral or high cri emitter, battery level indicator of some kind, and programmable ui so you can set it up how you want it, and emitter swap options would be cool cause there allways coming out with something new every year.:thumbsup:

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

firemedic said:

If I were designing a flashlight I would want a angle head 1-2aa powered, with a multi-focus reflector for flood or spot, magnet on tailcap, pocket clip, with a neutral or high cri emitter, battery level indicator of some kind, and programmable ui so you can set it up how you want it, and emitter swap options would be cool cause there allways coming out with something new every year.:thumbsup:

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Awesome Firemedic, appreciate your feedback.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

If I might make a suggestion Bruno: make the light exactly how *you* think will be cool and forget about what other people want.

ThruNite tried this exact experiment about a month ago. 9 pages of feedback later, well, you can read all about why Greta closed the thread.

It's a cool idea in theory but in practice it's not feasible. My suggestion would be to provide some very simple options (led choice, output level, material) and leave it at that. You'll get much more useful feedback.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

it never works, more than one board tried it, none got it going anywhere. all eneded up with a person asking the question basicly saying "f..k it" and do how he wanted without any advisors, cuz you'll get thousands of advices and all will be basicly useless. only you know your capabuility abd limitations manufacturing wise.

are you building 1 or 2 lights for yourself, or you want to set up a factory and mass produce them? idk why but i think the first part is correct, so just do what you want according to your abulities.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

Bruno28 said:

Would a tail button or a button on body better suited? It must be able to tail stand. But because of its size (AAA), the tail will have small diameter, it might be small for some people finger to work.

ok so also premium emitter.

I want something quality, so it might not sell as mass.

Click to expand...

It might be a tough design challenge to get a button onto the body of a AAA light. I haven't noticed any broad preference for a body button over a tail button, though it is important that there are no accidental activation issues. I think looking to make it tail stand is a great impulse and will definitely make the light more appealing.

Good luck! I definitely agree with the other posters who are saying that you should make the light that you want to use yourself. "Design by committee" is synonymous with corporate failure for a reason.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

Hi Bruno,

Many good suggestions already.

Perhaps a little similar to the previous ones but here's my take....

Its going to be helpful if you narrow down at least a few key criteria:

Purpose, what is the main use (or use-case).
Size (somewhere between tiny and huge).
The purpose & size will determine many things like battery compatibility, heat dissipation, emitter/optics , UI, etc.

Once you have a purpose & size in mind, you can start to narrow down the remaining choices and then poll to determine the most practical of the remaining features.

As there most likely will be challenges and bottlenecks along the way, it makes sense to first decide what kind of light you'd want to own regardless of whether anybody is going to buy it or not.
If you aim to only make what "appears" popular, (like those who may want to chase sales/profits) then it may not necessarily match what you are most passionate about and once it becomes a chore or work, may be hard to see through to the end.
You did mention that satisfaction was your primary motivation so think about what would satisfy you, first and foremost.
Then with a more defined direction, perhaps ask for feedback.

Wishing you success with whatever you decide to build :thumbsup:

Tgwnn

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

As noted, lots of good suggestions above. General advice (not specific to flashlights) is build something you want to build that people will pay an appropriate amount of money to buy. Some of the custom builders around here include TGWNN, AHorton, Darksucks/Prometheus (whose username I can't dredge from memory), and I'm sure you can glean good information from their various contributions to the boards.

If you want my opinion, I think there's a vacuum left by the discontinuation of the Solarforce L2i. (That said, Solarforce probably isn't run by idiots, and they probably discontinued it for a reason, so my advice might be rubbish.) If I was building it, I'd make it 3-AAA and 18650 capable to capture both the hobbyist and "gift to grandma from a hobbyist" market. NW, no blinks, 3 modes, no memory, always on in high mode, 1.5A draw.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

Great things rarely come from committees, but the do come from someone who is passionate about a project, and pushes through with his or her dream. To many threads like this just turn into a cluster of different ideas, that can't co-exist in one light.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

Just having a quick read through the thread - i"d like to add my two cents. Quality for me is the biggest thing.
If it says it's going to do something I want it to do it for the life of the product. This also includes build quality.

That being said - there are lots of ways of brainstorming designs and testing them.

I'm highly proficient in Solidworks and run a commission service. If you require any idea visualization i can make that happen, with things like stress tests, thermal conductivity and data that would really help in the designing process.

Re: Thinking of deigning a new flashlight

D2000 said:

Just having a quick read through the thread - i"d like to add my two cents. Quality for me is the biggest thing.
If it says it's going to do something I want it to do it for the life of the product. This also includes build quality.

That being said - there are lots of ways of brainstorming designs and testing them.

I'm highly proficient in Solidworks and run a commission service. If you require any idea visualization i can make that happen, with things like stress tests, thermal conductivity and data that would really help in the designing process.

Click to expand...

Nice! You are in sydney too!
I use solidworks too, not that good at it. But ill play around and see how it goes. Might get some help when i actually start something. Thanks