I donât see much meaning in a 8P setup for this light. For more runtime itâs easier to carry 4 additional cells separately than their weight and the tubes weight all the time in your hand.
But if the cell configuration can be changed to 2S4P without too much work, I would rather buy this light as a modding host for 6V LEDs for a proper price.
Anyway, for the 4 cell version itâs usually not more than 12000 mAh capacity, and thatâs not too much for USB-charging over night, and the cells wonât be completely empty everytime.
What I have seen how the battery carriers are constructed, with some cutting traces and adding wires you should be able to make them 2S4P. Then a 2S driver can be used that has the same battery connection side as the stock Q8. A more neat solution is designing new contact boards for the battery carriers (and upload on Oshpark for everyone to use ) to get this done.
Sounds good, I wouldnât mind to design the new carrier boards.
I havenât followed the modding discussions for a while, is a MCPCB for XHP 50/70 available meanwhile?
One concern here, if all 8 cells are run down to minimum voltage, then some bright spark decides instead of swapping them all out (since he only has a 4 bay charger), he will charge one carrier load and insert it, wouldnât the resulting current from 4x30Q fully charged to 4x30Q fully discharged be rather like welding? There must be some sort of protection against that built in right?
With the proliferation of 4 bay chargers I suspect that charge imbalance would be quite a common problem. One easy way to encounter this would be to run a ânormalâ test on your cells in a Lii500, and forget that when END is flashing it doesnât mean the cells are fully charged. Do that once on an 8 cell recharge with this setup and you now have one fully charged set and one set at a random voltage, without being aware. Happens easily.
This could happen in any parallel setup, itâs not a specific problem of the light discussed here.
Btw. with a 4P2S setup it would be even worse, since the carrier with the depleted cells gets reversed voltage.
Not only worse, far more common, since the 8 cells will rarely be charged together, or if together, nearly always in different chargers since more people will have two 4 bay chargers than an 8 bay.
How do you reach 20Ah with 4x18650? Max would be about 4x3200mAh - 12.8Ah, nowaday.
Whatever time it takes is much better for most people then having a dedicated Li-ion charger and handling the cells in and out of the light. It makes it straightforward, like charging a phone or a power bank without worrying about whatever cells are inside - and much safer (no chance to put one cell the wrong way).
I can imagine the variant with XPL-HI but why does anyone need a battery extension tube for the Q8?
I did not even know Sofirn was related with Thorfire
Interested in a XPLHi version though, especially if the coupon from Martin is still working.
Did they mention what bin will be used? or is there any choice?
Imma order the battery tube extension I have a use for it. When Iâm at work in my paint booth I use lights and to change batteries I have to come out from under the trailer make sure thereâs no paint that will get on the light. From my paint suit. I usually change batteries but it will be nice to have twice the run time. And when I take my kids to the park at night. I make a circle of lights itâs not lit well. Having twice the run time will be nice. So most people wonât need it but a few people will find it useful. It canât be any heavier then a mt07s but for my use Iâm not carrying the light most of the time. So weight and heat isnât a issue.
From what I have understood from what Sofirn said to me, they share the same factories, and this is how they are offering the DIY parts and the new Q8.
One other thing is they said is the reason they are offering DIY parts is that Thorfire was never willing to do so, and Sofirn saw the need for the DIY community to have these parts.
One other thing though: I have not asked Sofirn yet, but who is going to sell the new Q8? Thorfire or Sofirn?
Hmmm. Sofirn and Thorfire sharing the same factories⌠that seems to make sense.
Iâve noticed that the Thorfire VG10S and the Sofirn SF36/SF36W look extremely similar (I think even their UI are similar).
And the Thorfire TK18 seems to be a hybrid of the UI for Sofirn SP31 and SP32A.
(Thorfire TK18 = tail+side switch, and the UI is low-to-high-to-low â this is similar to the Sofirn SP31.
though the Thorfire TK18 also has a ramping UI, which is similar to the SP32AâŚ)
There are likely other similar flashlights between Thorfire model and Sofirn model that I havenât read about⌠(oops but this is sort of off-topic for this message thread)