DBSAR I am sure you are on the list already.
Yeah a major overhaul on the fins that adds costs and starts the process of getting the outside to look as we want again does not seem a good idea.
I hope people wanting a pouch and have a srk know of a fitting one !)
[quote=MRsDNF]
I have just finished building a quad SRK up to test Tom E’s driver and find out what sort of spread the XPL emitters would give in this light.
I’ll start with the driver. Wow. What doesn’t this driver do. I’m probably the last person to ask to test a driver like this as I get lost in my driveway let alone try to get my head around the workings of this driver. I’ve been playing with it outside in the shed, the driver hooked up to an led and my power supply and got so lost.
I eventually had everything together to assemble the SRK when I dropped the lens and yes it shattered, me as well.
The light is now operational after waiting nearly three weeks for a lens. I started with this light. The XPL leds sit on 16mm Noctigons which themselves sit on a 5mm plate. The depth of the head was machined to suit the above stack. 20AWG wires channel the current to the leds from the Narsil driver which has the latest firmware. The stock springs in the tailcap were given a bypass with 18AWG wire.
Back to the programming. I was still lost and had all sorts of modes working but had no idea how I got there. Yes I did have the instructions in front of me.
I took the instructions inside along with the light to a warmer part of the world than outside and sat down in front of the TV in my comfy chair (no pun intended 
) and the instructions clearly laid out in front of me.
No luck. There was just to much going on with flashes and my poor brain not deciphering the flashes they were seeing.
Looking up I could see the light flashes reflecting on the tv screen (the tv was off). H’mm, starting again I watched the reflection of the flashes on the tv and it all of a sudden made sense. For some reason my fuzzy brain could decipher what the eyes were seeing on the tv screen, yes today the tv was a real idiot box.
The difference being was that I could clearly see the light and count accurately the flashes to work out where I was, working with the instructions.
awesome light steeve
and the comfy chair heh
I wonder if there related, this comfychair that is? I hope he’s ok as he hasn’t been around for awhile.
^ I agree with this. The light is just too powerful for its size to be able to run constantly on high. In my opinion, proper thermal regulation in the driver is the only way to prevent overheating in a small, high power light that is available to the masses.
I think this is a good idea. It would have to be a separate accessory for cost reasons, but I think Thorfire could make a good one and sell quite a few
I've got some nice mil pouches that fit SRK's well. Posted bout them wayy back. The Molle 2 clip pouch works well, even one for grenades fit -- hhmm... 
Add one more for me, please
I am not thinking in terms of surface area but in terms of air flow. Air is a terrible heat conductor unless it flows. Alternatively, we could eliminate the fins, but I think they look silly with an obviously wrong shape.
Yes air that cannot move insulates
Hence glass/stone wool for insulating houses.
Yet the shape of any fin means air will start moving and thus even square fins are to be preferred over no fins.
One highly special light with an unique finning structure is very nice to see. Yet most flashlights have the square finning and if other more expensive to make finning would make a real difference I kind of think brands like Olight or Nitecore would use them since they not only have the R&D to test it, a few extra bucks would be no problem for their customers.
I’d be ok with a longer light for added heat absorption/dissipation.
OP updated with
Here goes new info on the version 5 of the driver we aim for.
Now isn’t this a thing of beauty?
After a lot of busy PMs Pilotdog68 has created V5 of the driverboard.
Special thanks to DEL for the help and scoping!
Reason for changing:
Version 5.1 board:
Oshpark link:
https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/uK4XziVN
OK the manual clearly states:
Then, for the most part we rely on liquid cooling.
As soon as the temperature of the housing rises above the hand temperature blood will take away heat.
OK we get this is not enough to keep it cool on turbo.
But is there any 4000+ lumens tube flashlight that can be run on highest mode without getting warm/hot?
The new Olight R50 seeker reaches 50C in just under two minutes and feels too hot to handle, the S70 and L6 need about 6 minutes to reach that temperature now (it is summer hereand warm)
We simply can’t make an extremely long and heavy tube of fins so it can run unattended on turbo till the cells are drained.
And well, if no other portable flashlight manufacturer does it on normal high powered production lights geared at the normal consumer, I don see why we would in a special light geared at modders and people who know about flashlights.
The L6 can run with no heat issues on high at approx. 1300 lumens. If you can beat that output with no heat issues then you are doing well!
Check this post of Tom
Setting it lower at 1300lumens means even less heat and power consumption.
kiraba - no one thinks a few more fins, or a few more cm's of surface area will solve the problems of dispersing 60W of heat - adequately for a full discharge time, which would be about 1 hour with turbo timeout disabled. Would it help? Would it allow the light to run safely at 25% power for 4 hours? Where's the cutoff? What's the definition of "safe"?
We already have a turbo timeout feature. Is it enough? We could add temp monitoring using the internal temp sensor - is it accurate enough to be practical?
I would say we go as far as we can go with finning without adding cost or sacrificing anything significant (size, esthetics, etc.). But my vote at this point is for no more changes and end of these discussions - we need to get/keep the ball rolling, we need a true prototype/sample from the manufacturer.
We can't do any heat tests til we get a prototype and I can tweak the turbo timeout, and possibly do some testing on temp monitoring/adjustments.
2.6mm wide fins, 2.6mm wide gap. Square cut. 4747 lumens triple running from a 32650 TrustFire. It’ll run til the cell is dead. I’ve run it on Turbo on 12 minute walks to the road taking the trash out, it get’s pretty warm but won’t burn the fingers.
Diameter is 48.5mm, the only deeper fins are at the emitter shelf area, 16.5mm in overall length with 3 fins, 4 gaps. Large copper heat sink threaded in that is made light engine style with the emitters mounted on top and driver in a driver bay at the bottom. Works really well.
You can’t say that more/deeper fins and more mass won’t work, because it does. The TrustFire TR-J20 has a plethora of cooling fins but the lower ones don’t tie in to where the heat is coming from. By machining a large aluminum heat sink to take the heat down to those lower fins the light is capable of dispersing the heat from 268 watts of power.
I made a similar heat sink and a finned extension tube for Richard and he pulled 34,000 lumens from the big TR-J20. Fins and mass, that’s what it’s about.
Realistically speaking, the Q8 won’t be able to disperse the full power available for a lengthy amount of time. A longer finned section with deeper fins would help, but wouldn’t solve the compact nature of this light.
What a beautiful light Dale
Do I understand correctly that it has 1 big cell and this a nice thick walled tube?
It does run longer then 12 mins (or how long does it take to get the cell down?)
…AND it’s Titanium - not good for thermal dissipation.
Yeah Dale adding almost 3cm with fins would certainly help
Also using 1 cell and thus having a very thick (finned) tube would again certainly help.
Yet it would become a completely different light 