New Flashlight Wiki

I have been learning a lot about flashlights over the last couple of years. As a way of keeping all of the information straight, I wrote a lot of articles for CandlePowerForum’s Wiki. Their Wiki was pretty sad, but it became a really good resource that I could refer to. I don’t know if that many people were using it, but it was helpful to me at least.

But the problem with the CPF Wiki was that it was under constant spam attacks. The administrator there took some steps to stop the spam but last week almost all of their pages were vandalized. I reported this to the admin and the user that had damaged the pages was blocked, but the vandalism was not undone. I certainly didn’t want to fix all of those pages. I have offered to help administer the wiki in the past, but the administrator does not want any help. Also some pages are locked and the ability to upload images, which could be really helpful, has been turned off.

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Microcontroller Programming

A driver for a flashlight is a circuit board with electronic components on it. The purpose is to take power from the battery, then modify that power level using the electronics, and send the output to the LED of the flashlight. For instance, to get a strobe the driver will turn the power to the LED on and off. A Low mode can be created by turning the light on and off faster than the human eye can detect. By decreasing the amount of time the LED pulses on, the light appears to get dimmer and dimmer. This is done using a microcontroller, which is just a chip that is soldered to the driver. One chip that seems to be used pretty often is the Atmel Tiny13. Some drivers have 5 modes (Low, Med, High, Strobe, SOS) and some have only 3. The only difference is in how the microcontroller works.

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Review: Mr.Lite BLF AA-4YE

Mr.Lite BLF AA-Y4E

Summary:

Battery: AA/14500
Switch: Reverse clicky
Modes: 4
LED Type: Cree XR-E Q5
Lens: Collimator (plastic)
Tailstands: Yes
Price Paid: $16.99
From: Manafont
Date Ordered: 25 Oct 2010

Pros:

  • Well made
  • Smooth threads
  • Very good throw
  • No flashy modes
  • Nice holster and lanyard

Cons:

  • Needed some repairs to work
  • No mode memory
  • Two low modes are too close together
  • Without lanyard it will roll

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