Sofirn Q8 group buy (gb closed, but try PM to Sofirn for discount)

Thanks :slight_smile:

HONDARIDER if you figure it out could you PM me please? I messaged Sofirn store and they said they take PayPal. Just wasn’t very clear on how exactly to do it.

Question out of curiosity for you all that are asking about putting one cell in backwards.

What would that do, or what are you wanting to happen? Brighter light if it doesn’t destroy the light, driver or whatever?

1 - put the item in your cart

2 - click Buy

3 -

4 -

Interested!

It creates a short circuit on the battery. Like taking a wire and going from the positive to the negative. The battery could get super hot and explode. It’s the same as putting a wrench across your car battery terminals. Very, very bad.

In the Q8, the springs usually get hot in less than a second and go soft from the heat ruining the spring.

Always insert the batteries in correctly.

People are accustomed to putting cells in series, because so many devices work that way. So they may accidentally do the same on items where they shouldn’t. It’s not something people do on purpose.

As TK said…… It Is a Mistake when this happens.

DO NOT DO IT ON PURPOSE!!! :wink:

Not on Sodacan-lights.
ALlo, I think the springs are a clear marker for the negative pole - because it’s like this everywhere.

Sure it is clearly marked…… BUT MISTAKES HAPPEN.

That is why they are called mistakes…… they are not done on purpose. :+1:

I remember on the original Q8 thread there were plans to have physical polarity protection around the positive brass ring consisting of two circular slightly raised pieces of plastic. This would prevent the flat negative end of the battery from touching the brass ring. For whatever reason, Thorfire scrapped that idea. Maybe now would be a good time for Sofirn to reconsider adding it. Like an add on accessory for current lights and a factory installed piece on the Q8 v1.5.

Just a thought.

Physical reversing protection is more needed on a battery carrier than with the current Q8 because with the carrier you don’t see the already inserted batteries very well, while in the Q8, before screwing the head on, you have a clear view of the 4 batteries together, a wrongly inserted one is far more obvious.

Plus, most batteries we use have the wrapper bended around the underside, for those, reversing will cause them not making contact with the brass ring. The Q8 is reverse protected for them.

Plus, as a few people experienced, upon reverse insertion, springs will collapse and contact broken before a battery is damaged.

A Q8 is not a light that I will give my sevenyearold to schoolcamp, for the rest IMO it seems to protect its users well enough.

Does adding physical protection actually hurt anything? I don’t think it does.

A Sofirn engineer has already experienced this problem first hand. Scared the crap out of him. Lol.

To keep the discussion clear: this happened to the engineer when filling up a battery carrier, not with the current Q8 design without carrier. And I must admit when filling up the battery carrier of the ROT66 for the first time, it felt weird to put them all 4 in the same direction, so much are we used to series-carriers.

That’s right, we suggested the little white polarity protection discs that other companies use.

I think some protection rings for the Q8 could be machined from plastic or delrin or even 3D printed. The hard part seems to be getting them too stick to the driver. I think that’s why Thorfire decided to not use them. They kept coming unglued.

The prototypes of the Q8 used two raised plastic rings, on both sides of the brass ring, it was indeed kind of a manufacturing head-ache for Thorfire so they asked to not use them in the production Q8 and we were ok with that because most batteries are wrapped around the edge anyway, and ultimately the springs were there as a safety backup.

You got a special ROT66, I only got 3 cells in mine :wink:

I had an oopsie yesterday. Testing the Keeppower 6000 in my D4S then putting the 5200 back in and had it reversed, positive to the tail cap. I almost tightened all the way then when the Aux Leds didn’t come on it triggered my brain and I undid it with heart in throat. All good :slight_smile:

Yes, 3 batteries :slight_smile:

The D4 had not full reverse protection, the driver protects itself but the battery drains at quite some amps (I believe it was 8A). So if noticed immediately it is no problem, but if kept like that you have a big problem. There was talk about this being improved for the D4S but I’m not sure. Easy enough to test with the tailcap off and a clamp meter (don’t have a D4S myself).

I would like two

AZ US

Interested. Amazon US