Q8, PMS SEND TO THOSE WITH ISSUES BLF soda can light

[electricjelly]

Looking good. I subbed to the YouTube channel.
I think its safe to say there will be very few, if any lights that are damaged in shipping.

I kind of want to see some other tourcher tests now. Like having the light on while frozen in a block of ice. I think Simon did a video of a s2 like that.

[raccoon]

@Nord

^ Imbedded: https://youtu.be/i9DGpzg3w_M

Impressive & entertaining video!

[Paul321]

@Nord

It’s always good practice to do drop testing in sandals

Who needs toes anyway?

[SawMaster]

Drop testing? I smell production hiding just around the corner

Finances have been weird here but I might be able to get a second one in a week or two if things keep going as they currently are. And I’m not the strobe fan-boy. I can tolerate them as long as they are so well hidden that I can’t find them unintentionally Liking the aftermarket pouches shown. Liking the “smoke grenade” nomenclature even more because this light is going to ‘smoke’ almost every other stock light :smiling_imp:

So are we still at the original price point ($40+ 10%)? I read some discussion earlier that it might go higher (and I’ve read every post in this thread which is why the “reads” are up). Most of the relevant discussion here has been well worth reading and many of the points brought up have been enlightening- the depth of thought found here on BLF is amazing. The irrelevant discussion has been entertaining as well.

I believe that everything has it’s place, and I believe the Q8 is going to find it’s place alongside the BLF A6, X5, M24, and B158 as a milestone of flashlight design and performance. Just gotta love it!

Phil

[Tom_E]

@ToyKeeper

@Tom E

You guys are kill'n me... Lightning, huh? 2-3 random low flickers than a blinding flash. We are talk'm millisecs here. Think the big flash would be a burst of 2-3, again somewhat random length times, but very quick. Repeats, but with a random pattern to it?

It can be done.

To look good, it probably needs the libc random() instead of my janky pseudo-random generator… and that might not fit in the remaining ~500 bytes. IIRC, the “faulty wiring simulator” used the better part of an attiny13 all by itself. One of the things I did with it was to give it fading aftershocks… pick a random brightness then some short random delays then “aftershock” at half the original brightness, then a quarter, then an eighth… Anyway, I was mostly just listing off the silly things I’d use the tiny85’s space for instead of, you know, anything useful.

Yea, haven't looked at C lib rand() code support in a long time, but thought it was fairly big. Goin from 4GB embedded panel displays @work to 8KB MCU's is a little rough, and 8KB is a huge MCU

[The_Miller]

Haha that smoke remark makes me want a pouch like that

Yes this droptest was a thing on the checklist
Hope we get the prototypes soon, they are good and can be labelled “sample” and a go can be given!

@SawMaster

Drop testing? I smell production hiding just around the corner

Finances have been weird here but I might be able to get a second one in a week or two if things keep going as they currently are. And I’m not the strobe fan-boy. I can tolerate them as long as they are so well hidden that I can’t find them unintentionally Liking the aftermarket pouches shown. Liking the “smoke grenade” nomenclature even more because this light is going to ‘smoke’ almost every other stock light :smiling_imp:

So are we still at the original price point ($40+ 10%)? I read some discussion earlier that it might go higher (and I’ve read every post in this thread which is why the “reads” are up). Most of the relevant discussion here has been well worth reading and many of the points brought up have been enlightening- the depth of thought found here on BLF is amazing. The irrelevant discussion has been entertaining as well.

I believe that everything has it’s place, and I believe the Q8 is going to find it’s place alongside the BLF A6, X5, M24, and B158 as a milestone of flashlight design and performance. Just gotta love it!

Phil

[Lazy-R-us]

@The Miller

@Dimking

How about alarm clock mode? Like, tap-tap-tap (number of flashes) tap-tap-tap (after number of hours)

There are wake up alarms that slowly light up the room, I read it works great and people love it.
Heheh Tom when you move to a MCU with more coding space
Quadruple click and hold -> enter wake up alarm setting -> click number of hours
Light ramps up in 15 minutes
Heheh

Good news we received the droptest video!
Can’t wait to share it, will do it on my YouTube channel is gonna be the first video there.

Am I on everyones ‘ignore’ list?

@Lazy-R-us

…
And to be CLEAR, I’m not suggesting including this in the Q8!

It could be interesting to have a flashlight that could be used as a timed beacon. Wake me up in N hours, or a flashlight tag base camp. Switch to timed beacon mode, light starts blinking, turn light off after N blinks. Light goes out for a few seconds, then blinks back N blinks to double check. After N units of time (hours or half hours probably) the light comes back on. Does it ramp up from min to max or just go straight to a level?

Thoughts?

Very excited to see the drop test, doing it with cells in makes me think they were pretty confident. After the first few drops I was chanting ‘open it, open it!’

The Miller, can you bump me from 2 light to 4 lights please?

[RobertB]

@Nord

It’s always good practice to do drop testing in sandals

Lol, like an idiot, I dropped a brick on my little toe a 6 months ago. Broke my toe.

[Abqjohnny]

anyone else see them switch the packages as he turned his back to the camera?
just kidding

[Tom_E]

About the alarm clock thing, we don't have a RTC (Real Time Clock) or much equivalent, and for the timers we currently use, I think I'm seeing a hefty delta off of what I thought. I think I'll have to run some independent timer tests. We use two methods of timing: a roughly 16 msec interrupt, and a delay loop based on processor time to run a specific sequence of code. I'm suspecting the delay loop method doesn't take into account interrupt servicing, so the delays are longer than I think. Also, the 16 msec interrupt may be off as well (takes longer).

In the latest Narsil version, I introduced yet another interrupt handler for AtoD conversion (when the AtoD completes) for both temperature and battery voltage readings, code contributed by DEL, so this might be the cause, or part of the cause. With some of the slower blinks (like battery voltage or temp reading), the blink sequence is definitely slower compared to the old version, though the delays are coded the same.

Drop Test - I would love to see some close up pics of the light, and yes, taken apart, check those cells, etc. Need to examine:

• glass lens - any damage?
• batteries survive without nicks, dents, etc.
• bezel - should be ok because of SS, but any other damage around it
• tail - I'd expect some dents or something there. The tailcaps are pretty thin metal, certainly a weak point of the design.
• springs - still in tact, functional
• driver/contact ring area - if any damage

[The_Miller]

@Lazy-R-us

Am I on everyones ‘ignore’ list?

Very excited to see the drop test, doing it with cells in makes me think they were pretty confident. After the first few drops I was chanting ‘open it, open it!’

The Miller, can you bump me from 2 light to 4 lights please?

NO NO, just that Dimking was not the first to talk about it and easier to get to quote made me quote that.

Yeah I as totally surprised they turn it on after unpacking.

Yes will update list soon!

[raccoon]

@Abqjohnny

anyone else see them switch the packages as he turned his back to the camera?
just kidding

I was thinking the same thing...

It would have been nice to see the package throughout the entire video.

[JasonWW]

There’s practically no padding in that box. Surely it would break or dent if dropped on a non-padded and carpeted floor, right?

[JasonWW]

@DB Custom

Anyone noticed the “reads” count lately?

With “ONLY” 6355 posts, there are 458,913 reads! WOW!

It’s the same 1000 people constantly coming back to this thread. LOL

[Texas_Ace]

@JasonWW

There’s practically no padding in that box. Surely it would break or dent if dropped on a non-padded and carpeted floor, right?

I doubt it, breaking is not really an issue, scratches are a bigger one but I doubt that will be an problem.

That carpet looks like the thin outdoor style commercial carpet, hardly padded at all. I think the test is more then good enough.

[RobertB]

@Texas_Ace

@JasonWW

There’s practically no padding in that box. Surely it would break or dent if dropped on a non-padded and carpeted floor, right?

I doubt it, breaking is not really an issue, scratches are a bigger one but I doubt that will be an problem.

That carpet looks like the thin outdoor style commercial carpet, hardly padded at all. I think the test is more then good enough.

Agree, plus without batteries installed, the flashlight will be lighter weight anyway.

[Lazy-R-us]

@JasonWW

There’s practically no padding in that box. Surely it would break or dent if dropped on a non-padded and carpeted floor, right?

The box clearly had some damage to it.

Look at the feet of the chair in the background, it does not have casters or large feet, and there is no obvious crater around them. Which leads me to believe that, while there may be carpet on the floor, there is probably no padding under it. Never underestimate the ability of a shipping company to damage a box, but it looks like Thorfire is trying.

[JasonWW]

I’m confused. What was the point of doing a drop test? Was it to test the packaging or the light? I assumed the packaging.

My assumption of the test was that it would be dropped from 1 meter onto a concrete floor. This would test the box and padding quite well.

If it’s going to be shipped in an unpadded, small card board box, then why do a drop test?

Is the cardboard box also going to be in a padded envelope? If so, then that’s how the drop test should be done. In the box with the padded envelope on a concrete floor.

Am I right here or missing something? :question:

[Texas_Ace]

The test is to show that the light itself will survive shipping, which they have proven quite nicely. And with the worst possible circumstances too boot.

There is a concrete floor under that thin layer of carpet.

Who cares if the box is damaged, I use the light not the box. Although I do assume that a bubble mailer will be used during shipping but that only improves things. No reason to test it like that, I prefer this test, the worst case scenario and it still passed.

[J-Dub74]

Oh my gosh I cringed every time it hit the floor! I wanted someone to stop him! LOL

I apologize to all for not posting more feedback on the Q8 protoype. Life has gone a bit wonky and I haven’t had much time for testing but I will post more soon and try to get a few decent beamshots.

I don’t see any possible way this light will fall short of being a huge success. It’s just very well executed all around from build quality to Narsil topped off with insane lumen numbers. I was out on my front porch playing with the Q8 prototype with my 11 year old son the other night. You can’t make this stuff up…

Wow dad it’s like the L6 mixed with a super power flooder!

My wife thinks it’s hilarious that my 9 and 11 year old kids know flashlight terminology that is just gibberish to her.

Makes a father proud to hear his son say

You know dad, I think I might want to be a flashlight geek when I grow up too.

The one thing I will say is some of you are going to be tuning back the step-down timer. At 3 minutes being handheld on a night that was somewhere between 45 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit it was getting uncomfortable to hold when it hit the 3 minute step-down. Touching it at the head I didn’t want to keep my finger on it for more than a second. It wasn’t at the point that it would cause burns but I’ll probably tune that back a bit before the next round of testing.

Tom PLEASE give us lightning! That sounds WAAAY too fun. :+1: