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

[Texas_Ace]

@mrheosuper

@djozz

The pwm-ed FET driver of the Q8 is simple and cheap to build, incredibly robust and hardly produces any heat at the used 20+ amps. With the almost optimal voltage difference between batteries and the used XP-L2 leds it is also rather efficient.

Using a non-PWMed FET driver a la LD2 greatly complicates the design and makes it very expensive.
(try find an affordable FET that can take the enormous heat of limiting the current to 10A )

A fet that can handle that heat is not hard to find
Even with 1V drop on fet, 12A will generate 12W of heat, pretty low, and if we parallel 2 or 3 fet, the heat that each fet must handle is not high, and since the Rds drop, i’m pretty sure heat is not an issue

12W is a TON of heat for an enclosed FET with no way to dissipate that heat. I was desoldering FET’s at a mere ~3-4W of heat dissipation.

Plus a buck driver would be far more efficient, particularly in the low modes.

[mrheosuper]

@Texas_Ace

@mrheosuper

@djozz

The pwm-ed FET driver of the Q8 is simple and cheap to build, incredibly robust and hardly produces any heat at the used 20+ amps. With the almost optimal voltage difference between batteries and the used XP-L2 leds it is also rather efficient.

Using a non-PWMed FET driver a la LD2 greatly complicates the design and makes it very expensive.
(try find an affordable FET that can take the enormous heat of limiting the current to 10A )

A fet that can handle that heat is not hard to find
Even with 1V drop on fet, 12A will generate 12W of heat, pretty low, and if we parallel 2 or 3 fet, the heat that each fet must handle is not high, and since the Rds drop, i’m pretty sure heat is not an issue

12W is a TON of heat for an enclosed FET with no way to dissipate that heat. I was desoldering FET’s at a mere ~3-4W of heat dissipation.

Plus a buck driver would be far more efficient, particularly in the low modes.

Yeah, a few post before i mentioned about using buck driver and 2s2p battery configured, but looklike that all things are fixed so i guess this will be discussed in next version

[mrheosuper]

Btw, example before i use 1V vold drop, it’s too high i guess, so in real life, the heat is about 5w i guess

[lightlight22]

Hey The Miller add 1 more for me for a total of 4 now.

[Fredylee]

Please add me to the list.

[djozz]

Here’s the driver in my proto, if you ask me it is a (well done) hand solder job, the ugly stains seem like innocent flux remains.

[The_Miller]

Yes only change is a new Narsil version so it seems with 5 of 7 protos in

Nice pic Djozz!

[ToyKeeper]

@mrheosuper

we still use 7135 on this big light
Why we dont use a driver constant current fet … I am thinking about using MCU, control the DAC (for example, mcp4921 12bit DAC), go to op-amp, control the fet
No-pwm

Whenever a project is this close to completion, I like to open one of these to celebrate:

Especially if the project is a soup can light.

[RobertB]

I prefer opening one of these. “It’s Done !!!”

[The_Miller]

No no
I think the hardware is done bit that is only 1 of 7 and I have not even opened it up yet.
A new Narsil with bug fixes must be used.
So no not done but very close indeed

[RobertB]

@The Miller

No no
I think the hardware is done bit that is only 1 of 7 and I have not even opened it up yet.
A new Narsil with bug fixes must be used.
So no not done but very close indeed

Allow me to rephrase. Opening one of these, when it’s done. Maybe we could get Miller to ship us a few cases. Been a long road, and everyone is thirsty

[sparkyDK]

I am going to a local store tomorrow to source pouches fitting my “small” lights, and if possible the Q8 too.

Whats the actual physical measurements of the sucker ? i don’t think that’s on page 1

[Tom_E]

5,600 lumens I'd say, probably a good # to use right now.

Ohh - standard SRK size, can't check now.

[The_Miller]

heheh Tom, being asked for lumens soo often.
Let me grab it and give the measurements in a little bit

[The_Miller]

length ~133mm
OD head ~59mm
OD tailcap ~52mm

[sparkyDK]

Sweet THX.
I was guessing 50 - 60 mm diameter and 100 and something mm long. but a guess are not good enough in my world.
Now i can do a much better job at finding a pouch worthy of the Q8

And another one that can hold P 36 / U 21 sized lights that are what i would EDC if i had a pouch stronger than the one that came with my P 36.
But i will be bringing both of those lights with me to the shop ( that sell weak ass overpriced flashlights too )

Maybe i should bring a handful of 26650 and 18650 batteries and see if i could fine a little pouch that could hold a few spare batteries in waterproof boxes.

[starcrazed]

Ok Miller, please put me down for one. Realized I never signed up after my intro post.

[djozz]

Little bits of time gives little bits of information on the proto3:

Being a noob in this user interface, I studied Narsil a bit more with proto3 in hand and came across many very good features, and also some features I had liked to see different, but everyone has different preferences of how things should work.

I also measured output on the full 7135 setting, so 350mA, it is 182 lumen. This is nice efficient: with the batteries almost full at 4.1V that is a system efficieny of 126lm/W, and with the batteries a bit over halfway at 3.6V it is even 140lm/W. This is my most efficient flashlight to date (but not by far).

[Werner]

So I guess the prototype is perfect and the light will be available tomorrow?

[WTF]

@ToyKeeper

Whenever a project is this close to completion, I like to open one of these to celebrate:

Especially if the project is a soup can light.
[/quote]

@ToyKeeper

I hadn’t ever looked at “BLF” in Morse code before. It seems to be one of the easiest patterns possible, almost like 1 2 3… kinda neat.
_ . . .
. _ . .
. . _ .

Continuing the pattern, the next letter would be V … but I don’t know what the V would mean.

.

The V is for vengeful. Is the next letter in the sequence a G?