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

As a photographer, I’m sure you know the old saying:

“The best is the one you have with you.”

I keep finding more items to drop into that sentence. :wink:

Miller, it’s come to my attention that there is some confusion about which version of narsil is being used in the Q8. On the first or second post of this thread there are still links to the older versions of narsil that were planned to be used with the Q8, namely narsil version 1.3. Is there any way to update these early posts so that they all reflect that the Q8 is using NarsilM version 1.0?

Thank you

Here's examples of the 3 different switch LED brightness's. left light: right is brighter, middle light: left is brighter, right light: even. Out of 10 Q8's, 2 had uneven brightness. The center light below is the one from feralcomprehension which had the infamous "flicker/then out" problem. Note it's a little less bright than the others, that's because I swapped the resistor to a 16.9K from the stock 15K. After many hours on this, replaced the resistor, touched the iron to the LED pads to re-melt the solder - this works may times to fix poor solder connections. After that, the problem just took longer to happen, but was still there. DEL recommended to pull all the parts off the board,clean them up, and take a look. He noticed a couple of potential issues, but at that point, I already reflowed all the parts back on the board, re-assembled, and was testing. So far now, it's 6 1/2 hours without a flicker. If it survives the night, I'd assume it's good:

Here's a couple more. The original prototype (baked one) had only one LED, so clearly looks unbalanced in room light, looks much better actually in the dark. The one on the right uses the stock 15K resistor with a blue on the left, pink on the right. The pink doesn't show well in the pic for some reason:

Close-up of the blue/pink one. It's not as bright,still using the 15K stock resistor, but I prefer it at this level anyway:

So what does this mean for the flickering/failing problem of the switch LEDs? Well, it seems fixable with no new parts, but sure helps having a hot air rework station, and some soldering skills with the required tools. Also just because this one was fixable this way, doesn't necessarily they all can be fixed the same way, but chances are good I would think. There probably was some fault in the PCB board and/or combined with the production process that resulted in some failure rate, maybe 1%, maybe higher. Having 10 Q8's that worked is actually 2% of the first 500 piece batch.

Here's the view in front of me while typing this post:

Ok, that's totally useless but seemed relative at the moment. Flashlights everywhere...

Couldn’t the Left bright/Right bright scenario simply be the switch board put in the hole in the opposite layout? I don’t know, Just asking…

The Narsil post has a link to the Narsil used.
The pic says 1,3 and yes it is actually NarsilM 1,0
If there is a pic with the key ma ual things in it I gladly change it but I haven’t seen it and all can click on Toms google drive

I think the picture showing v1.3 might be throwing people off. Maybe that image can be replaced with this one.

http://i.imgur.com/msNLgin.png

I don’t understand why do so many people despise long click off….

will try right way
done thanks!

Agro, one can probably find somebody who love a feature and somebody who hates it. It is all personal and there is a Dutch saying that translates to “there is no point in arguing over personal tastes” and that is the same here.
I don’t think it is intuitive and using several different flashlights the long press for off (or IMHO even worse on) is something to remember.
Were I only using 1 flashlight it would not matter at all.
It is just odd that light A uses long press for off, others for strobe and now the Q8 for ramp. I prefer it for ramp, one sees right away what is happening, and release to keep it on a level close to where it started, click hold to return to it So the long press of Narsil does not clash with other long presses.
One of the reasons the MF01 feels cumbersome is that I went to low mode instead of turning it off so many times, it just annoys the heck out of me.
But you see, lots of “I” and “me” in this, it is cool if you love it!

Here's the switch PCB after hot air removing the parts:

The parts - resistor is unmakred but it's 16.9K, LED on left got damaged by me, but still works fine:

Cleaned up backside:

Cleaned up front side:

It's been on all night and still working, so I assume this is a good fix.

It’s not my favorite, but after I got a few lights that did it that way, I got used to it. It does have some advantages, such as switching modes is fast & easy with a single click. But turning off the light with a long click isn’t intuitive or obvious, especially for a non-flashaholic.

If you go the other way (short click off, and long-click to change modes), then changing modes isn’t obvious for non-flashaholics.

It seems like Narsil is attempting a kind of hybrid solution for the modes interface. I’m not sure that’s very intuitive, either.

I don’t know what the “best” interface is, unless we’re talking about a single-mode light.

Because it's long? Getting back to ol' school, a click turns something on, you'd expect a click to turn it off - quite simple.

The UI/UX designers call it symmetry.

bistro-HD ready for trialing on Q8 (Update, present version works for TA SRK board, will update when I have Q8 circuit information)

Symmetry is not a reason I care about in the slightest. Personally I actually just don't like single-function eswitches, and this is why. You can long-press-off a click switch with a short action. Or you can short press a click-switch with a short action. The switch itself is just more functional, and now with OTSM caps, it's capable of about anything an e-switch is too. For me, I want to be able to bump the modes up. I almost never reverse down anyway.

Anyway, for anyone interested, I just re-worked/tested the eswitch build in bistro-HD. No lockout yet. That's next. It might take a little fiddling to coax into HD, but I have a plan to try. It should I think work on the Q8 as is now, unless there are some pins on the Q8 that do something I don't know. It's setup for a standard tripple-channel TA e-switch board. The right build to use is the bistro-eswitch-TA-HD.hex Not yet tried in a real light, so experimental, but it bench tests fine. You want the 1.5 build for now.

With moon mode that will last 40 days, who needs to turn a light off anyway?

[quote=The Miller]

I got my shipping notice on the 29th for both my lights. Anybody on the East Coast US with a shipping timeline report? Has “2 weeks” been the average like most BG stuff? All my new batteries are here and are lonely.

My Q8 (first batch) has been scheduled for delivery tomorrow . Finally :wink:

Yes there seems to be about two weeks between email it is shipped and delivery.
But with the holidays now it is not clear at all, just think “it comes when it comes” :wink:

I’ve already got my first Q8, from the first 500 batch, but I’d like to order an “improved” Q8 from the new run. How can I get one?

So you believe it is just a solder issue? You reused the same parts? Did this pcb have the brighter led on one side, or was it just the flakey led.
Just curious of your final thoughts.

Use your code again to pre order a 2nd. It’s still working.
And like for the 1st one…be patient. :smiley:

Sorry, earlier post had more details. Yes - reused same exact parts. Didn't track the LED to the side, but this board always had one brighter than the other. It's pretty well known at this point that LED to LED variations will result in uneven brightness with them wired in parallel like this. You need one resistor per LED to get more even results.

As far as root cause, I cant say for certain -- may be some issue on the PCB that was dependent on the reflow/solder work, or could have been some contaminant that was somewhat conductive under low heat or movement, etc., or might be the quality of the reflow. Dunno for sure the exact cause, but I'd say it wasn't the parts and don't think it was the wiring or driver side, so in this area of the switch PCB and solder.