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

I just ordered it from ThorFire via Amazon for $58.24 with free 2-day delivery. I hate waiting for the slow boat to arrive when ordering from China.

Glad to see this thread isn’t going away. The video about meld software was amazing. Not that I understand it. I don’t understand what Narsil is either. That mini Q8 that Everett had is really cool. Who makes that? I can’t follow the GT thread. Too long. I had to be away a few days because of the superbowl and I couldn’t follow any BLF threads.

Thanks SayPat for mentioning the MELD I had completely forgotten, I had read a brief comment some time ago, 2014/15 I think, so went and found his blog following your UTube link, so just wanted to say thank you,

Anyone have the thread on how to update the firmware i think i need a usb stick and some other hardware. I want ToyKeepers lightning mode. :slight_smile:

Narsil is basically a ramping software for lights with e-switches. It also has a second user interface built in for discrete individual brightness levels.

That light in the video is the old Blackshadow Rook. It uses 3 AA or 3 14500 cells. I don’t think it’s sold anymore.

It’s pretty complicated, to me at least.

I’d really like to try it but I am afraid that I’d brick my light.

Same here. I’d rather mail my driver off to someone and get it reflashed.

Also, ToyKeeper has links to reflashing in her signature.

Most likely this question has been asked somewhere in this thread, but as there are 560+ pages, it’s a bit difficult to find the answer.

My question is: Got another BLF Q8, and putting it thru the usual tests to check if it has any issues. I quickly did the voltage check, temperature check and found a problem: the temperature is grossly incorrect (it reports about 15-25 degrees higher than my first BLF Q8).

For instance, a digital thermometer reads 30 deg Celsius right now (room temperature). Both BLF Q8s are rested for at least 10 minutes and cooled down from last turn on. Checked my first BLF Q8, the temperature check blinkout reads 25 deg Celsius (still OK). The second BLF Q8’s temperature check blinkout reads 50 deg Celsius (and the flashlight is not even warm to the touch).

I’m afraid with the grossly incorrect high temperature readout, it may step down much more quickly since it thinks it has a high temperature when being used — is that how it works? Or is the wrong temperature readout mean something else?

If I am not mistaken the flashlight doesn’t use the sensor in default settings.
Default is using a timed stepdown after 120s.

Ok thanks for the explanation. So, the BLF Q8 uses a timer-based stepdown instead of actual thermal sensor (eg. Bistro firmware in BLF X6v2)?

But is there some way of recalibrating or at least resetting the temperature readout to closer to actual temperature (when it’s been OFF for quite some time already). The first one was only about 5 degrees (or say 10 degrees) off. But 20-25 degrees off is alarming if I go by the Q8’s internal temperature blinkout…

~

Just tested the auto step down from Turbo (battery voltage around 4.05v), did a temperature check which blinks out 74 degrees.
Did the same test with those same batteries on my 1st BLF Q8, until Turbo did an auto step-down and immediately did the built-in temperature check, which blinked out 45 degrees.
(I’m presuming the temperatures of both BLF Q8s should have been pretty close when doing the step down from Turbo…)

Look in the manual. You can set it to use the thermal sensor and set a relative step down temperature which doesn’t need a correct temperature reading.

To complete the information, you can also set the timed stepdown (I believe there are 4 options, up to 5 minutes, I can be wrong).
I have my stepdown at 3 minutes and that is about right at roomtemp without airflow.

The issue with the q8 temperature sensors is they are not zero’d in the factory. They are accurate in only a proportional way. In other words, the actual starting temperature may not be correct but if starts a certain point and the light gets 20degrees c higher. That twenty degree increase is correct. If one q8 starts at 25degrees and the other one 35 degrees, if they get 20 degrees warmer then the first will show 45 degrees c and the second will show 55 degrees c. I’m on my phone so it’s hard to be too long winded but hopefully this helps.

The emisar D4, D1, and D1s all have similar issues as far as the temperature sensors not being factory calibrated.

Tom, Toykeeper, I’d like to thank you guys. I went through your files, bought the stuff, and successfully flashed to v1.2. It got rid of my issue.

I looked through your google shares, Tom, but I couldn’t V1.3 beta, otherwise I would have tried it.

(PS: That was my first time working with an Atmel, so I learned something)

Thanks again for your help, you guys.

Just received the Q8 latest batch. Really liking it.couple questions. I checked the version blink and it only blinked once and kept repeating. That means V. 1.0? Also i can never get past police strobe. Is it really that hard to go through the strobes?

There is only one version of the software.

Strobes are not that hard. If your in the second strobe, the alternating rate one, just press and hold the button until it drops back to the first strobe, then quickly cycle up.

Which blinky do you want? The 4th one? Dbl clk, pause, dbl clk then 1, 2, 3 clicks. You should be at 2 second beacon.

I meant firmware v1.0. Guess they dont come flashed with v1.2.Btw i watched your video on the strobes and that helped a lot. Thanks.

Only the GT has NarsilM v1.2

I don’t think anybody has adapted or tested it on the Q8. If they have, then Thorfire is in no rush to change anything.

The Miller was looking into getting the Q8 updated, but he left. I don’t know if anyone from the team is in communication with Thorfire any more.