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

Are they marked with a number?

Thanks, im using one of the MTN boards, silicone 18awg wire to leds and 4 30Qs spring bypass and brass screws.

Just over 13 amps to the emmiters.Gets hot PDQ.

Its only a super cheap SRK clone by Securitying

/\ā€¦ No, they are not marked with Batch or serial numbers.

Thank you.

How many people are interested in trying a new Q8 with XPL HI leds?

And how many people are interested in a light smaller than Q8, I mean with 3 * 18650 battery tube, but with the same driver and USB C charging port?

Well, quite a bit :slight_smile:

Iā€™d be more interested in a Triple XP-L HI V3 1A with the 3 Bigger Reflectors and 4 cells. :+1:

Larger rather than smaller. USB charging doesnā€™t add value for me.

Triple XP-L HI V3 1A with the 3 Bigger Reflectors and 4 cells +1

I agree with Sillenā€¦.
ā€¦ā€¦. USB Charging on a light such as this adds nothing of value. :slight_smile:

I donā€™t have any interest in xpl hi or 3 x 18650. Built in charging might be good for people who are new to flashlights.

All I really want is a stock Q8, but in CW. Something which has yet to be offered by Thorfire.

Can you make OP reflectors for Q8 and C8F?

What would be the advantage to that? It doesnā€™t seem to be necessary. Iā€™m confused.

It would make the Q8 suitable for the 3V Luxeon MZ leds (on the 4040 Q8 board): great CRI plus great power with an easy mod, as long as the reflectors are heavy OP to prevent the donut hole!

Not just MZ, but there would be less beam color separation with most other LEDs too - OP reflectors always give smoother, more uniform beam which is important for high CRI builds.

I am very interested in a 3x18650 light and mentioned it in an interest thread a long time ago. The smaller diameter and lighter weight will make it easier and more likely to be picked up and put in my pocket. The 3 cells will allow for very good runtimes and being larger than a single cell light, it should handle heat a bit better. People with smaller hands might prefer it as well.

There have been a few 3x18650 lights released and the Firefly seems to be a success, but it costs quite a bit more than the Q8 does. I donā€™t care about usb charging at all and would prefer to not have it because of waterproofness if the port is covered by a small rubber flap or plug. If its hidden by the threads, I might like it more. It would have to be a solid design and one that would not add too much weight or bulk or cost for it to interest me.

Yeah, sounds good to me. USB charging would be fine if not slow. 3 18650 would fit the hand better than 4.

One thing to consider re: LVP with an e-switch:

Itā€™s possible to get a dpst swtich, so you have one pole that ā€œbootstrapsā€ the MCU by turning on a transistor, and then you have the other that is used purely for click detection. It may even be possible to do this on a spst switch with some electronics trickery. When the MCU detects iā€™s below X volts, it sets the pin holding the transistor to ā€œoffā€ and the whole thing goes totally dark. No power until the button is clicked again.

Hardware wise, it would be best to use a mosfet to minimize quiescent current, and make sure to use very high value resistors for the ā€œonā€ signal to the mosfet. Given the relatively high capacitance of the mosfet gate, you might even be able to get away with putting a capacitor on the line to hold it high, and just give it a periodic pulse to maintain voltage when in sleep, if you desired to keep the MCU running.

Have you measured the power used by the Q8 driver during standby, or after LVP activates?

In stock form, with the button LED off, standby drain is about 0.02 or 0.03 mA. Or after reflashing it with different fuse values, itā€™s even lower. If I recall correctly, it was something like 0.00002 mA. And with four cells, divide all these values by four. This makes the standby power virtually indistinguishable from zero, because itā€™s lower than the cellā€™s self-discharge rate. With the right fuse values and with the button LED off, Iā€™ve found that I can actually take the battery out for a few minutes without making the MCU shut down. And it can still wake up on button press.

Atmel calls this ā€œpicopowerā€. It makes standby mode use such a small amount of power that itā€™s not necessary to design in clever power-disconnect circuits.

Yeah, Iā€™m not suggesting itā€™s necessary, just providing input. I think it might be more relevant given a driver that coulnā€™t use the super-low modes on the MCU or for a non LiIon battery. (AA Emergency light, for example).

Thatā€™s a super neat anecdote on pulling the cells!

BTW, Iā€™ve been studying the FSM code for a potential MCU port, well done on the organization! Iā€™m still picking up C syntax, but overall itā€™s very readable for me.

I wonder if there is a market for protected cells that only have LVP rather than LVP and over-current.

Oh yeah, it slipped my mind that USB is only 10 watt (2A@5v) at most. This would make it very slow if you were charging 3 or 4 batteries.

USB-C might be the better choice. A few flashlights already use this. Itā€™s capable of 60W (3A@20v). So maybe the internal charge rates could be 1A to 1.5A per cell. That would greatly reduce charge time.

One problem I see with built in charging in general is that the Q8 can run on 1, 2, 3 or 4 cells. If the charging circuit delivers 4A@5v (1A for each of the 4 batteries) and you happen to be running only 1 battery in it, all 4A will go to the single cell and lead to disaster.