Ideal EDC flashlight UI?

gswitter said:

It's a shame NiteCore screwed it up by adding the ramping feature.

I'd love to see a simplified D10/D20 that was just a mechanical 2-stage like the McLux III's (or a AA McLux III, but Don's made his opinion pretty clear on that front).

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with the uC, it could be done, I think--even programmable, as long as PWM low is OK (less efficient by miles, but it already uses that, and it's easier to make highly variable in output). I haven't had the joy of using such a torch, but it seems so intuitive that I cannot imagine not loving it (Arc6 and SF L1 are my current premium desires).

McGizmo's piston drive (PD) is the ideal UI, in my opinion, for the following reasons:

1. It allows instant access to two levels of light, via the rear button. This is just like the L1/A2/L2 LOTC in this regard.

2. It also allows activation at the front of the light by twisting the head. Start twisting and you get low constant on (and momentary high via the rear button), twist further and you get high constant on. This is fantastic, as most lights allow you to activate them either from the rear or the front but not both. This allows five different hand grips on the light: overhand, underhand, lens-down index finger activation, cigar grip, and two fingers over, two fingers under thumb activation grip.

3. The two levels of light have two independent electrical paths to the battery. If the kilroy switch breaks, the high beam still works just fine.

4. The conducting path is through the internal piston which can be made from an ideal material, or plated with an ideal material, to ensure the most reliable electrical conduction. This differs notably from the chemkoted interiors of aluminum lights, or where conduction happens through threads.

5. The PD design is eminently water resistant, as two o-rings separate the internals from the environment. No exposed rubber booties to get damaged or punctured or cracked. Which brings me to . . .

6. NO MORE RUBBER! I can't say just how much I appreciate the feel of a metal button over a rubber bootie covering a plastic plunger.

7. Tailstanding/candle mode due to the rear flare/surround. Nice capability.

8. Very rugged and durable. You'd have to break (somehow) the piston's rear internal battery spring to stop the switching, which is highly unlikely. This is in contrast to clickie switches, or the leaf spring design of the A2/L2/L1 LOTC.

9. Feels great. The action on a PD light is by far my favorite feeling UI. It is precise, definite, smooth, reliable, and accurate. You get the wonderful feeling of the silicon o-ring between the piston button you push and the interior of the body, along with the tactical, military, very cool feeling of smooth metal on smooth metal (up near the head). The stop on the fully depressed high position has a nice definite touch-down feel to it, while the release of the piston has a nice satisfying snick of metal on metal.

crocodilo said:

Here's another vote for the L1/A2 switch. No doubt about it. No messing with levels, set-ups, whatever. Low. High.

This is the reason my L1, which has the worst beam in my collection (rings and artifacts), is nontheless so my most used light.

Only way to ever improve on that would be if the beam automatically and instantaneously changed from floody to thrower when going from low to high... (yeah, dream on!)

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It's not a dream! It's McGizmo's LunaSol 20! It has the exact same activation feel as an L1 but you can also activate it at the head (see my post above). Plus, the low is a nice flood from three 3 mm Nichias, and the high is an 80 lumen thrower beam from an Osram Golden Dragon LED. It is the single best EDC light ever made. Awesome. I have an L1, an L2, an A2, and a Ti-PD-S, and the LS20 beats them all and is my EDC light and has been since I got it.

I'm with js. Vote is for the McGizmo PD. Simple to maintain and use.

1. Surefire U2: choose brightness level by twisting a selector ring. Forward clickie in the rear

2. Surefire L1/L2/A2 and my modded C2:D: Press a bit for low, more for high. Or twist a bit for low, twist more for high.
This is similar to the PD on the McGizmo lights.

Sverre

gswitter said:

It's a shame NiteCore screwed it up by adding the ramping feature.

Click to expand...

I don't mind ramping. For me they screwed it up by not providing a good route straight to low. My ideal for a piston light would be something like:

• From off: click to on at remembered brightness.
• From off: press and hold to on at lowest setting, continue to hold to ramp up to full (like a Photon).
• From off: double-click to full.

• From on: click to off.
• From on: press and hold to ramp up or down.
• From on: click then press and hold to dim, then ramp up.
• From on: double-click to full.

The "press and hold from off" should go straight to dim, without flashing at the remembered setting, in order to preserve my night vision and not distract other people. I think it's forgiveable to flash at low before coming on at full, but not vice-versa.

On the subject of ramping, I am coming to believe that continuous variability is a bad thing. It's too hard to judge a consistent setting. I think my ideal would be discrete levels at powers of three. For example:

1. 3 lumens.
2. 9 lumens.
3. 27 lumens.
4. 81 lumens.
5. 243 lumens (or max, eg 130 if that's what the D10 is capable of).

for a 5-level light. (If it can go down to 1 lumen, that's worth another level.) If push-and-hold went to dim then started ramping up after 250ms, and each step took 250ms, the whole sequence would take about a second and a half, but it would still be easy to hit the level you wanted.

JBorneu said:

I LOVE the UI of my Nitecore Defender Infinity.

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I will second that. Simple two level light, with one of the levels programmable.

Brangdon said:

On the subject of ramping, I am coming to believe that continuous variability is a bad thing.

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I don't think it's a bad thing, but I think it's a gimmick of little practical value. Most lights that have a smooth ramping option would lose little by having a finite/smaller number of discrete levels. On some lights, like the Surefire Titan, the smooth ramping seems appropriate - the UI is built around that one feature. But I find the ramping on the Smart PDs and the Proton Pro more of an obstacle, since there's no or selective persistence of the user-set level.

I came to the light... said:

I'm unclear on what you mean by clicking to change the function. Is this a separate button?

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No, single tail cap button. Changing functions would be done with single, double, triple clicks, click presses and combinations thereof. With twisting to modify the selected function.

I do not own many of the popular quality lights but of the lights I do have , I like the UI of the proton pro the best.
This may change after I get some more lights, but for now that one is my fav.

gswitter said:

I don't think it's a bad thing, but I think it's a gimmick of little practical value. Most lights that have a smooth ramping option would lose little by having a finite/smaller number of discrete levels. On some lights, like the Surefire Titan, the smooth ramping seems appropriate - the UI is built around that one feature. But I find the ramping on the Smart PDs and the Proton Pro more of an obstacle, since there's no or selective persistence of the user-set level.

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I think a ramping UI like that, as part of a menu UI, wouldn't be bad at all. User-set 2 or 3 levels, with as many levels to choose from as the torch can offer (especially on the low end).

StarHalo said:

My fave interface on a mass-produced light is by a large margin JetBeam's IBS system. Having three modes that you can set to anything you want means the flashlight adjusts itself to you, not the other way around.

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I have to agree with this. While I quite like my Fenix L2D there is definitely something better about the way I can customise my A, B & C settings on my Jetbeam. In my case I have set A to be a very low power setting to let me see without destroying my night vision, but a light press on the same switch increases the light to quite bright and very useful, then another light press gives me the full power for maximum brightness. I have it set for the way I like it (very low output, no strobe or SOS), others set theirs for how they want them.

I like my Jetbeams UI so much that I now have 2 more Jetbeams on the way!

js:

I haven't owned a PD, so I have to ask - how does the two-level system work? I understand that you have a piston held from a contact in the head by the rear battery spring. But how does that get you two detents? I'm asking about the mechanics so that I can understand how it would feel in operation.

I have a LF5XT, and while I don't get the PD feel, I do appreciate the feel of a metal switch cover over a rubber one.

Also, don't the 2-mode SFs always turn on to the same level? (meaning you would get at least a flash of it before switching)

I read about the lunasol20, and I agree that that is an amazing configuration. Although I can't see myself spending that much any time soon, I still love the concept of a more diffuse low level.

Brangdon said:

I don't mind ramping. For me they screwed it up by not providing a good route straight to low. My ideal for a piston light would be something like:

• From off: click to on at remembered brightness.
• From off: press and hold to on at lowest setting, continue to hold to ramp up to full (like a Photon).
• From off: double-click to full.

• From on: click to off.
• From on: press and hold to ramp up or down.
• From on: click then press and hold to dim, then ramp up.
• From on: double-click to full.

The "press and hold from off" should go straight to dim, without flashing at the remembered setting, in order to preserve my night vision and not distract other people. I think it's forgiveable to flash at low before coming on at full, but not vice-versa.

On the subject of ramping, I am coming to believe that continuous variability is a bad thing. It's too hard to judge a consistent setting. I think my ideal would be discrete levels at powers of three. For example:

1. 3 lumens.
2. 9 lumens.
3. 27 lumens.
4. 81 lumens.
5. 243 lumens (or max, eg 130 if that's what the D10 is capable of).

for a 5-level light. (If it can go down to 1 lumen, that's worth another level.) If push-and-hold went to dim then started ramping up after 250ms, and each step took 250ms, the whole sequence would take about a second and a half, but it would still be easy to hit the level you wanted.

Click to expand...

I really like your ideas :). I was hoping the smartPD system would be more like this when it came out. But I'd like to suggest a few changes.

from off:
click to on @ remembered level
hold for momentary @ max
click-hold to ramp up from min, pausing 1 sec @ min

from on:
click to off
hold for momentary @ max
click-hold to ramp, alternating directions

I really like the momentary max feature of the LF5XT. And I added the 1 second pause in case you want min.

For a flashlight this complicated, I think you should be able to set whether it prefers min, max, or pauses. Ideally there would be an internal switch, but you could also do something like 3xC+PH, then cycle through options, like a liteflux.

I agree that it is better not to have a continuously variable circuit, but because of the difference in efficiency. At least one manufacturer has already made this move - the Spartanian II has something like 10 current regulated levels. However, the timing seems a bit fast - I'd suggest something more like 400ms.

Any UI where I have to make a conscious effort to change the brightness (single taps are too prone to accidental activation) and the light always comes on at the level I want (so memory or twist positioning) is a good UI. After that anything goes.

I'd also prefer discrete levels over 'infinite ramping' purely on the basis that I'd know what kind of runtimes to expect.

I don't have a favourite UI so I won't vote, but anything that boasts these features is a success in my book

I came to the light... said:

js:

I haven't owned a PD, so I have to ask - how does the two-level system work? I understand that you have a piston held from a contact in the head by the rear battery spring. But how does that get you two detents? I'm asking about the mechanics so that I can understand how it would feel in operation.

I have a LF5XT, and while I don't get the PD feel, I do appreciate the feel of a metal switch cover over a rubber one.

Also, don't the 2-mode SFs always turn on to the same level? (meaning you would get at least a flash of it before switching)

I read about the lunasol20, and I agree that that is an amazing configuration. Although I can't see myself spending that much any time soon, I still love the concept of a more diffuse low level.

Click to expand...

Got it. Let me see if I can explain the setup and action feel of the light! For starters, here is a cross sectional diagram of the PD light:



It is shown here with the head screwed fully down. I can tell this because the high level contact ring, shown in yellow, is touching the battery piston, shown in tan. The same situation (at the head end of things) would occur if someone pushed the battery piston towards the head of the light, further recessing it from the back end plane of the light, but as shown here, the battery piston tail is mating with the inside back of the battery sleeve (or what I would call simply the light body.)

Now, imagine unscrewing the head a bit (or letting off on the piston a bit if it had been depressed). The yellow high level contact ring would no longer be in contact with the top of the battery piston. Thus the high level would turn off. However, notice that green line in the diagram, labeled low contact spring "killroy"? That is the contact for the low level of the light, and that would still be touching the top of the battery piston, thus the low level is still on. Turn the head out further, or release the piston further (if it had been held forward), and the low level will turn off.

So . . . the feel of it from off is like so: if you're pushing on the piston, you feel a nice resistance at first, but after a short amount of travel determined by how far out you decide to unscrew the head, the low level turns on when the killroy touches down. Next, as you continue to push, there is a very small increase in resistance (but not much), and the high level turns on at a definite stop in the piston throw. This is when the high contact ring touches down on the top of the battery piston. So there is a high "detent", but no low.

If you turn the head to activate then after a certain angular distance (I like mine at about a 1/3 of a turn or slightly less, to as little as 1/4 turn), the low level turns on. Continue turning another 1/3 to 1/4 turn, and the high level turns on and you are at a hard stop, unable to turn the head down significantly more.

So note that, yes, when the high level is on, the low level is on as well. You can't activate just the high, and the low will be on all by itself for at least a fraction of a second before you get high+low. Also, note that just like the A2/L2/L1, you can turn the head down til you have constant on low, and depress the piston anytime for momentary high. You can not, however, lock out either level. No matter how far out you turn the head (as long as is it stays on) you can push the piston that much further forward and activate low, then low+high.

As for the feel, it is smooth all the way until the high contact ring mates with the piston top. There are no detents or other tactile indications that you have activated low. High is obvious, tactilly, but low is not.

So, I hope that answers your questions. Let me know if it doesn't or if you have other questions!

sorry for the late reply js.

Wow, thanks for the thorough explanation. That more than answers my questions :). For some reason, the concept that completely escaped me was the possibility of a spring for the low level...

Switch lockout doesn't seem like much of a problem. If it is turned on, it will probably be only for a fraction of a second, while if a light was clicked on it would stay on for a long time.

I didn't know that Surefire had a switch like that. I thought the new two-level switch (E1B etc) worked by switching if you turned it off then on quickly.