Fair enough on the reflector issue. My personal preference in a light this size is that I would gladly trade a few hundred lumen for extra throw. But I understand it might not be as simple as an emitter swap if you want the best results.
But on the UI, it’s not about how fancy or complex it is. I don’t need or expect the programmable functions offered by Zebralight or Armytek, and all of their shortcuts can be excessive and more cumbersome than it’s worth. I’m actually reasonably impressed with the mode groups offered here. My issue is the simple control mapping.
All e-switches register the same inputs - click, long press, double click, etc. The difference is what they do with those inputs. Do they have “long press” mapped to “change modes” and “single click” to “turn off”, or do they have it the other way around? That is not a difference of complexity, it is just a design choice, and I happen to think the first way is much easier to use. It’s more intuitive to turn off and makes it harder to accidentally register a double click when switching mode groups. When you click to change modes instead of long press, it is too easy to double click. At least here you don’t have to worry about activating strobe I guess. But you are still liable to accidentally activate Turbo.
It’s not a deal breaker, and this otherwise seems like a very nice light, especially at this price. It’s nice to see some competition for Convoy. It’s just the UI is something that I feel could have been made better without adding cost or complexity. It’s like my UTorch UT01 - I carry it every day because I like the tint, brightness, mode spacing, and compact design. But the UI still annoys me because a few simple changes could have made it almost perfect.
Again, excellent light for the price, the UI has just become a bit of a pet peeve for me lately because so many e-switch lights seem to make questionable UI choices.
I think it boils down to utilizing the personnel you have on your staff. A new company wants to build their own product, using their own engineers and inputs. So a lot of the times these engineers will purposely steer clear of other companies known works. They want to be known for what they can do, not how well they can implement other’s works. Many times it’s a pride point, to stand on their own merits and not on someone else’s.
Sofirn is proud of their accomplishments with the 4 mode groups, and I think it’s justly so, as a new company breaking into a complex and comparatively limited world… they’re doing great work. If you think about all the flashlights that are out there, imagine how difficult it is to design something new. They took a legend, the C8, and improved it as a factory offering. From the well done aluminum reflector to the factory spring bypasses, they’re impressing with their efforts.
I think my new ver C8F is a pretty well done light. Sofirn was quick to address All the issues from the first version.
Working on getting the side SW LEDs wired up. Wish Sofirn would have connected them from the factory since they are already there.
Did 20AWG on the MCPCB and driver spring but the gosh darn SW retianing ring is locked up hard. First time my two starter punches in hand method let me down. Guess its time for a good retaining ring pliers.
Supposedly a host will be available soon with MCPCB. No emitters or driver.
Got my switch retaining ring off today, it came loose relatively easy with 5” curved jaw hemostats but then seemed to lock up before it was out, I started it back down then unscrewed it with my fingers and it came right on out. Went back in easily.
I’m still trying to figure out why the switch pcb has emitters and resistors on board if they weren’t going to be enabled? Maybe they are still revising it…
Just dawned on me what you said vw, as a host needing emitters and driver I can imagine Anduril pushing 3 XP-L2’s…. wow! I sliced and diced an XP-L2 in my D1S and it’s doing 2000 lumens, so could 3 be doing 5000? More? Interesting indeed!
I think ZozzV6 got in touch w/ SF in IMA4W review. I did just check SF Ali store and nothing listed yet.
Did you utilize the Side SW LEDs? it has the same SW board as the Q8 with green LEDs installed. I changed mine out to white but my lights still on the bench apart. The SW button is translucent black, looks neat lit up.
I thought the flashlight business was all about copying what works and selling a lot of them. You don’t want to turn folks away with a weird UI that is only weird for the sake of being weird.
They did copy the basic C8 body so they should just make the light easy to use. You will sell more units in the end.
One of those red wires goes to the emitter and is hot all the time (at battery voltage). You just add an extra wire there and then solder the other end to the extra pad on the back of the switch pcb. This is assuming the leds are wired into the switch ground already on the switch PCB.
I have one of the “old” model C8F and I think the XP-L HI emitters gives it a much better beam. I don’t have two C8F’s but here is a comparison between a UniqueFire UF-1408 and a C8F :
UniqueFire UF-1408 XM-L2 (left) C8F XP-L HI (right)
Maybe it’s not a completely fair comparison but I think it illustrates the difference quite well.
The picture below is two identical Q8’s one with XP-L HI and one with XP-L HD
Q8 XP-L HD (left) Q8 XP-L HI (right)
The key is to use the turbo only in bursts and to use the lower levels for longer times. It would be nice to see this light with a 26650 tube. Then you would have a high drain 5,000mah battery.
Very nice specs!