$93,760 raised out of $5,000
Overview
Platform
Indiegogo
Backers
2
Start date
Dec 15, 2021
Close date
Dec 16, 2021
Concept

Compact LED flashlight with a magnetic charging port, 720 lumens, and 600 meter beam throw.

Story

We are excited to share with you our first EF branded project the EpicForged™ DART Mini Pocket Thrower LED Flashlight, a high-powered, rechargeable flashlight that provides up to 106 hours of light and is reliable enough for law enforcement but designed for everyone looking for a small every day carry flashlight with an exceptionally long beam throw that you just have to see to believe!

A flashlight is one of the most vital pieces of safety equipment that anyone can carry. And be it walking your dog around the block at night, checking a perimeter during a security sweep, or finding your campsite in the dark our compact, portable light will help you see what’s ahead for improved personal safety.

Ultra-Bright Thrower – While some flashlights are bright at short distances and some are dimmer but let you see further, ours gives you the best of both worlds. DART can last up to 106 hours on moonlight and reach up to an incredible 600 meters on maximum when you want to see far into the distance.

Multiple Lighting Modes – This advanced LED flashlight actually features multiple lighting functions to support your personal needs including moonlight, low, medium, high, turbo, strobe, beacon, and SOS.

Magnetic Tailcap – Offering versatile indoor and outdoor use this is more than a standard LED flashlight. It can clip on to your bag, backpack, or pocket or attach it to a metal surface magnetically for hands-free use.

Convenient Magnetic Charging – The EpicForged™ mini pocket flashlight also comes with a magnetic charging port that connects quickly and starts recharging the replaceable lithium-ion battery. The included 18350 battery offers 1100mAh of capacity.

 

Specifications:

  •  Weight: 4.16 oz / 117.93 g
  •  Length: 85 mm / 3.35 in
  •  Head Diameter: 40.64 mm / 1.6 in
  •  Body Diameter: 25.01 mm / 0.985 in
  •  Battery: 1100mAh 18350 lithium-ion (replaceable)
  •  LED: OSRAM Emitter
  •  Lens: PMMA TIR

Total Internal Reflection (TIR): The TIR lens collimates the LED light into efficient, well-controlled light beams that maximize the usable lumens in the target area with an absence of discomfort glare or shadows. The result is a smooth, high quality beam of superior intensity and uniformity, suitable for downlighting and directional lighting applications. (https://www.osram.us/ledengin/products/lenses/i…)

Standard Mode Runtimes:

  •  Maximum: 720 Lumens (89600 cd) 1 hour 10 minutes
  •  High: 230 Lumens (31200 cd) 1 hour 20 minutes
  •  Medium: 100 Lumens (13200 cd) 4 hours
  •  Low: 20 Lumens (3520 cd) 12 hours
  •  Moonlight: 0.5 Lumens 106 hours

Beacon, SOS, Strobe:

  •  SOS: 720 Lumens
  •  Beacon: 720 Lumens
  •  Strobe: 720 Lumens 30 minutes (used for self-defense/emergency situations)

Recharge Time:

  • Approx. 1.5 to 2 hours

*These are estimations based on prototype tests. Subject to change in mass production. On Maximum mode if temperature exceeds 55°C / 131°F it will step down to high power mode.

Not a fan of using the convenient magnetic charging cable? No worries! DART uses a replaceable and removable 18350 lithium-ion battery which means you will be able to remove the battery from the flashlight and recharge it using an independent lithium-ion battery charger if you wanted to. Most lithium-ion battery chargers today will charge a wide range of battery sizes and capacities.

There are many chargers out there but we use the ZEROHOUR ZH1 for single battery charging or a XTAR VC4 (charge up to 4 batteries at once) when we want to have several batteries charged up and ready to go for minimal flashlight down-time. We will have spare batteries and lithium-ion battery charger ADD-ONS available on BackerKit.

DART’s incredible brightness is provided by a OSRAM LED. By using this LED we are able to pack a maximum 720 lumens and 89,600 candela into your pockets.

Moonlight Mode:

From OFF, simply press and hold down to activate moonlight power. A single click after this turns the flashlight OFF.

Standard Modes:

From OFF, click once to turn on to low power. Press and hold down to cycle through the different levels; low > medium > high > back to low. From any of these modes, click once to turn off and store that last mode into mode memory.

Strobe, Beacon, and SOS:

From OFF, triple click to activate the strobe. Great for temporarily blinding a threat (for self-defense) or to annoy your friends, family, and co-workers (what we mainly use it for). From strobe, press and hold down to cycle through the other safety modes; Beacon > SOS > back to strobe. Click once to turn off.

Breathing Indicator:

From OFF, click and hold for 3 seconds and release. LED indicator on button will start to breath. There is nothing particular about this except that it is a cool mood light.

LED Indicator: 

  • Red: Battery is low < 19%, recharge flashlight.
  • Purple: 20% to 49%
  • Blue: 50% – 100%

LOCK-OUT:

Locking out the flashlight when not in use is highly recommended. From OFF, simply click 4 times fast to LOCK-OUT. The light will then blink three times to indicate that it has been LOCKED. To UNLOCK, click 4 times fast again, the light will turn on to indicate it has been unlocked.

For Kickstarter backers only, each EpicForged™ DART is priced $10-$15 lower than the future MSRP price of $59. Each DART flashlight reward will come with a wrist lanyard, a USB magnetic charging cable, rechargeable 18350 lithium-ion battery, user guide, and retail box.

At the end of the campaign we will be using BackerKit to manage rewards. You will be able to confirm your pledge reward, purchase additional DART flashlights, other Dapper Design products (ADD-ONS), provide us your shipping address so we know where to send your package, and pay shipping fees.

If you are new to BackerKit, you can learn more about it here. We will be providing additional instructions on how to use BackerKit at the end of the campaign.

USA BACKERS

For USA backers the default base shipping fee to be collected is going to be $8.00 for USPS First Class Mail (7 to 10 business days). If you want to upgrade, the following ADD-ONS will be available on BackerKit after the campaign:

USPS Priority Mail (3 to 5 Business Days) +$2.00

UPS Ground (5 to 10 business days) +$2.00

FedEx Ground (5 to 10 business days) +$7.00

*If you are in California, you will most likely enjoy 1-3 day shipping regardless of the shipping option you choose because we ship out of California.

INTERNATIONAL BACKERS

For international backers the default base shipping fee we will collect regardless of destination will be $15.00. For the countries listed below, we will ship using USPS ePacket. As of November 2021 ePacket is ONLY available to these countries (in alphabetical order):

  • Australia
  • Belgium
  • Canada
  • Croatia
  • Denmark
  • Estonia
  • France
  • Germany
  • Gibraltar
  • Hong Kong
  • Ireland
  • Israel
  • Japan
  • Korea, Republic of
  • Lithuania
  • Luxembourg
  • Malaysia
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Singapore
  • Sweden
  • United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The USPS ePacket method (7 to 14 business days to Canada; 21 to 90 business days everywhere else) is very reliable but can take a very long time to arrive depending on where you’re at. If you need it faster and guaranteed you can select the FedEx Priority Mail (7 to 10 Business Days; Guaranteed Service) ADD-ON for $20.00.

HIGH-RISK COUNTRIES

In our experience after shipping thousands of packages from previous campaigns, there are some countries where packages are at higher risk of getting lost or stolen because they are not part of the ePacket network. These countries are (in alphabetical order):

Austria, Brazil, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, and United Arab Emirates

If your country is high-risk or is not on ANY of the lists above, we HIGHLY recommend that you consider upgrading by purchasing the FedEx Priority Mail (7 to 10 Business Days; Guaranteed Service) ADD-ON. If you do not upgrade, we will still ship out your order and provide a tracking number but please understand that if your package ends up being lost or stolen (as in your tracking number stops showing movement online for more than 90 days), we will not be able to offer a refund or reship you another package; your pledge would be considered a donation to our company. Please consider purchasing the FedEx Priority Mail ADD-ON or pledge at your own risk.

Import Duties & Taxes

Backers will be fully responsible for paying local Tax and import duties when applicable. You will not always be required to pay duties or import tax, but it is important that you make yourself aware of the duties that apply in your country in case you are charged. Please check with your local government and/or customs agent regarding any potential import taxes and duties.

To produce DART, we worked for several months on sketches and drawings before deciding on a final design. Once we locked in the design we reached out to one of our manufacturing partners to discuss converting our designs into CAD.

CAD to Prototype

With CAD files in hand we are able to finalize a contract with our flashlight manufacturing partner to produce the actual functional prototype used in this campaign page. We are confident in the quality of their work as they have had prior experience in producing thrower flashlights for some of the most popular brands today.

USB-C to Magnetic Charging

Initially we went with a USB Type-C charging port but wanted a new feature to stand out from other similar flashlights on the market, that is when we introduced a very convenient, magnetic charging port. Furthermore, we were considered sticking with a built-in ternary battery like our previous ION flashlight project but remembered our backers preferred replaceable batteries. The DART runs on an 18350 lithium-ion rechargeable battery.

Bringing an idea from scratch to reality was not an easy task. We have been blessed to have had the extra funding from previous projects to design and produce the prototypes used in this campaign. Now we need your support to meet the 2,000 DART minimum order quantity. With all campaigns, there may be unforeseen circumstances (e.g. COVID-19 pandemic) which may delay delivery. However, we made an early investment in the raw materials before launching the campaign. We have an ETA of the first batch of Indiegogo DART flashlights to begin shipping to backers in the month of April 2022. 

Current Events/News:

Supply Chain Disruptions Are Affecting Kickstarter Projects – Here’s What to Know:

https://www.kickstarter.com/articles/global-sup…

We are a husband and wife duo with a passion for all things posh and dapper. We work under Dapper Design to create purposeful products that are very useful, lightweight, simple, and minimalistic. Aaron has played a leadership role in over 20 successfully funded and fulfilled Kickstarter projects. Yoshimi has many years of experience in finance, insurance, and underwriting. Dapper Design is inspired by larger companies such as Surefire, Gerber, and Benchmade.

Please visit our online store to see a full line of products: www.dapperdesign.com

@DapperDesignEDC: https://instagram.com/DapperDesignEDC

@EpicForged: https://instagram.com/EpicForged

EpicForged™ is a Dapper Design, LLC pending trademark. Your pledge today not only helps us bring this flashlight project to reality, but it also helps us with our goal to offer our full line of everyday carry products on other online sales channels after Kickstarter (e.g. Amazon, Etsy, etc.). The new trademark allows us to do this as an officially registered name brand with the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office). We thank you for your support!

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