Thanks for the tips. Iāve been following the Q8 threads and will do the simple mods and remeasure soon.
Solder, under good contact pressure, to bare aluminium, as with this mod, starts off pretty well for conduction, but longer term maybe less so, as oxidation perhaps creeps in. You could smear a small dab of some vaseline or battery terminal grease, or silicone grease on it first, as you would on the lead posts of a car battery, to keep the air out, and ensure it holds up long-term.
I do the same with crimp connections, being used to using āgrease filled crimpsā in critical aerospace applications.
Got my second Q8. Very similar results (cri, tint, output) compared to the first one, which is good.
Got a small tub of NO-OX-ID from Illumn.com a few years back, recommend here on BLF. Works great! I already used it on these contact surfaces.
Tailboard spring bypass and VTC5A increased the output significantly, over 1000 lumens.
Nice, especially knowing that your lumens are not inflated 
I really need to learn to solder and make spring bypasses. I have to research what type of wire to use.
Thanks Tom E. Do you happen to know what the difference in resistance/current your spring bypasses have vs a āstandardā spring bypass directly to the base of of the springs?
This works very well. I've had a SunWayMan style UltraFire 3 XM-l2 emitter light just sitting around for months now. I still had not decided what I wanted to do with it.
Out of the box with 4 fresh 30q's I got 2500 to 2700 lumen. I just did this spring bypass just to see how much it would help the much cheaper made UltraFire. 3480 lumen after spring mod. Nothing else at all, just bypassed the springs...
Nice....
Stock BLF Q8?
Tail springs bypassed on the Q8.
What is up with those beamshots? The MF01 floods much less then I see here in the garden
MF01 is like 180 degree flood, Q8 has a tighter hotspot, et on the beamshots the MF01 looks like having less flood??
The MF01 will probably be brighter at 180 degress, but Iām not using a fisheye lens which would show that. I would think that the Q8 has brighter spill on less steep angles but cuts off before the MF01.
yes exactly, but in the pics it is the other way around
Could be the sheer lumens blast of the MF01 making the cam uneasy to cope with 
The pics donāt show the spill cutoff point so you canāt compare it. Neither light is overexposing the camera, but the MF01 spill is too dim to be clearly visible on the picture (too high a dynamic range).
well it is funny, take those pics of that (cool) BBQ house.
The MF01 seems to have way less flood and spill then the Q8. in my yard it would looks exactly opposite with the MF01 lighting up all from my feet to center of view, but raching not as far as the Q8.
You see the boards from the terras the pics are taken from, the Q8 lights them much brighter, and they are very close by.
As a matter of fact, the MF01 lights these boards least of all (while it is the light with the most ridiculous flood I own, seems like shining backwards sometimes )
Miller, you think the MF-01 is floody? Check an Olight X7 :partying_face:
Because of the TIRs the MF01 will have a wide beam but still fairly directional, while the X7 with small very shallow reflectors a large percentage of the light goes into its enormous wide spill.
Again, the MF01 has wider spill, itās just dim while the Q8 spill is quite bright and stops abruptly. The boards in the picture are not right in front of you so they are lit by the Q8 spill very well.
It is quite interesting, the wide tube of oda can lights make them tailstand so nice.
But nowadays I so much more prefer the Nitecore R40 despite its cool tint, and being build for throwing, having it stand in the barn while doing some things it does not blind for the deep reflector does not let light escape to the side, still it will be the Q8 with diffuser that gets a nice spot in the barn where I chop wood for its tint is so much nicer