solrizeJan 13

Wurkkos releases new Anduril TS26, 21700 powered, USB-C, reverse charging, IPX8, 3400lm, RGB aux leds, $40 US

https://lemmy.ml/post/41623847

Wurkkos releases new Anduril TS26, 21700 powered, USB-C, reverse charging, IPX8, 3400lm, RGB aux leds, $40 US - Lemmy

Matthew Lee of Wurkkos mentioned this to me by email last week and it’s on the site now. I’m glad that Wurkkos is continuing to make Anduril lights since I thought they had given up on them. This seems to be an Anduril version of the existing non-Anduril TS26S. It has a boost driver, flashing pads, and reverse charging which is handy in larger lights like this. Supposedly runs 520 hours in 1 lumen low mode. Come to think of it, that is fairly inefficient, but it’s ok. Also says 135 hours at 15 lumens, which is much better. Claims 2 hour charge time, pretty good for a 5000mah 21700 light. That means charging at 2.5 or maybe 3 amps. Weight and dimensions are in tiny print on page 2 of the pdf manual: 122mm long, 35mm diameter, 175g including battery. It has an interesting swirl pattern machined into the battery tube and it generally looks nice. Launch date mentioned is 1/13 (tomorrow) so right now they aren’t taking orders, but maybe by the time read this they will. I don’t feel likely to order right away since I generally prefer smaller lights, and I just got the TS11 for when I want a thrower. But, this certainly fills a popular niche and it looks like a good implementation.

Show threadD45Jan 18
I confirmed with Matt there will be a 519a version once they fix the issues with vf on moonlight
Show threadsolrize

Do you mean that they changed from the 519a to the current led, because of a difference in Vf instead of just wanting more lumens? Hmm interesting. Are the leds in series like with Hank’s boost drivers if I understand it right?

Tbh it’s probably preferable to do moonlight with the aux leds instead of the main ones.

Jan 18 at 8:15pmWeb
Show threadD45Jan 19
No the TN3535 will still be the first batch of lights released the 519a will be out later I don’t know how the mcpcb is designed sorry
Show threadsolrizeJan 19

I understand that. The original plan was 519a and then they switched to TN3535. So I’m wondering why they switched. My original thought was simply that they wanted more lumens. But because of the mention of Vf, I wondered if there is a Vf difference between TN3535 and 519a, so it was easier to get the boost driver working at low power with the TN3535.

Is moonight done with PWM?

Show threadSammysHPJan 19

Is moonight done with PWM?

It’s a boost driver with PWM input, probably low-pass filtered, but from what I heard it’s rather unstable.

Show threadsolrizeJan 19
Thanks. I’m not sure much is being gained from these boost drivers. FET drivers work just fine with 519a’s. Another good flashlight becomes a victim of lumenitis I guess.
Show threadD45Jan 20
TN3535 is brighter than 519 to our Chinese manufacturers they seem to think more lumens more sales
Show threadsolrizeJan 20
Aha yes, I call that disease lumenitis. It affects US buyers too.
Show threadSammysHPJan 20
Boost drivers have a big advantage: Much higher efficiency, especially on low brightness. There are great examples like drivers designed by thefreeman or loneoceans. Unfortunately Wurkkos’ engineers are still learning.
Show threadsolrizeJan 20

But the TS26 is quite inefficient at the lowest brightness. Maybe the other drivers you mention are better. Is low brightness efficiency even important? If there’s 4V of battery voltage and 2.8V of LED Vf at low brightness, a FET driver loses 1.2/4 = 30% of the power. So instead of 1000 hours of runtime at 4ma you get 700 hours. Does anyone care? The MCU uses a little bit of power but there’s no boost circuit using energy. Are low levels done with PWM? Maybe that helps efficiency a little.

Has Wurkkos done boost drivers before? Any probs? It’s interesting that they’d embark on a new driver design for an Anduril light. I had figured the TS26 was just an Anduril variant of the TS26S that was mostly the same.

Show threadZakJan 22

Power consumption in ultra-low modes is usually mostly something other than the LED and power conversion process. It’s often the MCU, which Anduril tries to minimize with low-power modes when they’re available, but they’re not always available.

An efficient power conversion step (almost always a buck or boost switched-mode power supply) is most helpful in medium-low to medium-high modes where 20% more runtime matters on realistic time scales. A 14500 EDC light that can do 300 lumens for two hours instead of an hour and a half is enough improvement I don’t feel like I need to bring a bigger light in a lot of situations.

It also means less heat and higher sustained output, which is likely a priority for those picking the larger 21700 size.