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

There is a possibility that the wrap may get torn while screwing the tube on. It is also not certain that all four batteries are making contact. which means that your run time will suffer and your cells would get mismatched. Do you solder? IIRC test results indicate that the best performance is from flat top cells that have been modified with a solder boob - a small mound of solder on the positive terminal. A quick search of BLF for either “solder boob” or “solder blob” should get plenty of how to’s.
[edit] I just found a nice vid thread Barkuti did using ‘Roses metal’, but the technique is the same regardless.[/edit]

If you can, you should put a drop of solder on the top of each of them. They’ll make better contact that way. As it is, you have no way of knowing whether ALL of the cells are contacting completely all the time. You might end up with unbalanced cells.

EDIT: Lazy-R-us beat me to it! :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for clearing up my memory. I’ll blob them then. Not worth the hassle of returning

You will need a front cover instead of the head to charge the battery. So an option would be a talcap with lanyard hole and a removable front cap with charging-Circuit.
Otherwise you wont get contact to the battery+ side.

There is no denying that it would be simpler to do on the front side, but there is quite a lot of room right down the middle of the tube for a spring loaded connection to the positive end. Enough room that I have printed my Joechina cheat sheet larger than he intended (75mm IIRC) and rolled it up to store in that space.

Having said that, it is an interesting thought that you could have a spare battery tube with tail PCB and cap, loaded with batteries and on charge. When it is time to load a fully charged set of cells, you unscrew the head and this ‘charge cap’ then simply swap them.

I think most of those are designed to dry out. They’re meant to be very liquid when you apply them so they spread everywhere evenly. Then they dry for slightly increased performance. At least that’s what I remember reading a long time ago, back when CPU cooling was more critical.

Thanks for the reminder. Some of the marketing seems a bit less than accurate, so I put up a comment to give a bit more info about it. Kind of disorganized, but hopefully it’ll help.

Marked TK’s comment at Amazon as helpful. Definitely.

(Do we even know the light is anodized, rather than painted?)

!!!

Seen this one? https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Multiple-Operation-Procedure-Flashlight/dp/B0772T2LYK/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1511313700&sr=1-1&keywords=blf+q8

$128.99 and FREE shipping! :wink:

It claims to be in stock, just one. But it may arrive after Christmas. :person_facepalming:

Of course it’s anodized. We’ve all seen the one Tom baked, right? It’s his avatar pic. It has to be anodized to do that.

Is someone spreading FUD about the Q8 being painted?

Here’s my Q8 optic:

You can see that the LEDs are not centred perfectly. Is it OK or is it not?

Only you can answer that. Is the beam acceptable when you use the light?

^ They are not dead-centered, and this amount of error was in the prototypes too and appeared to be too difficult for Thorfire to improve. Since it did not seem to affect the beam at all as far as we could see, we gave this imperfection a go.

So officially, according to the Q8 team, it is ok. But from an OCD point of view it is annoying of course.

In none of the 3 Q8 I’ve currently here the LEDs are better centered, and I don’t care at all. No impact on the beam.

They look "ok" to me, slightly off. What I'd do would be pop out the bezel/lens/o-ring, pop out the driver, loosen up the 3 screws (assuming you got a rev 2), and re-tighten. I usually go with tightening the center one first, then the outer ones. Might help a little with the LED centering. At least by doing this, you can see it happening, so might help how to re-tighten and get the best centering.

I'd only be concerned if the LED centering rings don't appear to be fitting in the reflector holes properly - that's usually easily fixed by loosening and re-tightening.

For what you got, sometimes the LED's aren't perfectly centered from soldering, and if so, that can be corrected, but requires further dismantling - taking out the MCPCB, cleaning it up, and using a torch applying the heat underneath carefully, and reset the LED's positioning by melting the solder and either letting them seat on their own, or give them a little nudge.

Generally I've found rev 2's better centered than rev 1's.

No FUD, and no, I didn’t recall seeing Tom’s baked flashlight, which now that you mention it, I agree proves it’s anodizing.
I’m not paying that close attention given the volume of comments. Glad someone is.
I wondered because I often can’t tell the difference between type 2 anodizing and paint, on flashlights generally; both coatings seem fairly easily chipped.

First Q8 proto, pre logo, etc:

FUD? What is FUD (if it safe to say)?