It’s an early Q8, and suffers from the intermittent switch LED issue. I swapped them to pink LEDs when the light arrived, but they don’t want to cooperate for a photo.
I placed a small dot of red Sharpie in the center of the reflector to keep track of which Q8 had the Samsung emitters. Specifically, they’re SPHWHTL3DA0GF4RTS6 emitters.
Price is $75$68 $60 shipped in the USA, PayPal only.
Some early Q8s have an issue in which the LEDs behind the switch sometimes don’t illuminate. This issue was supposedly resolved with a redesigned circuit that uses individual resistors for the LEDs.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a way to measure output.
All three of my first-batch Q8s have intermittent switch LEDs. Sometimes they flicker, sometimes they don’t light at all, and sometimes they work fine.
I have worked with similar resistor values and all kinds of LEDs with my switch boards
Build quite a lot of them
Intermittend or not lit up LEDs had only 2 issues
cold solder joint or bad reflow the tin not bonding to resistor
Or
Short to ground so no voltage on LED
Wow! A very nice light! I hope your sale goes well. Let me know when you are ready to sell a Q8 with 4x “White Flat” emitters and all the other mods you’ve done to this one (Foybezel, spring bypasses, etc.)
It was much more complicated than you seem to think.
Firstly the original design (single resistor feeding two LEDs in parallel), was respectable, and already used in other Thorfire torches, except that a different make of LEDs were used in production compared with the prototypes, which turned out to have early burn-in failures or Vf shifts, meaning one LED would begin to hog the majority of the current. This could develop within a few hours of operation.
We also supected that the original batch of PCBs had a manufacturing defect in the plating of the vias, which could lead to open-circuits developing, sometimes intermittently. This was very frustrating because of many mixed reports from people thinking that they had fixed theirs by touching up the solder, only for it to re-appear again.
Remember, these problems developed over time. They all worked when first delivered, but then in hours, or days, or weeks, weird stuff began to be reported and there turned out to be more than one mechanism happening, and a lot of people convinced themselves that they knew what was going on, and how to fix it, when really they had just jumped to a conclusion based on their one experience.
Applying Occam’s razor, there was no credible other explanation. Ideally we would have had some faulty PCBs microsectioned and examined and learned lessons, but time was of the essence and regardless, we were confident how to correct it with the redesign.
This was all fixed with a “belt and braces” re-design using two resistors (one per LED), new PCBs being made (properly), the dodgy batch of LEDs being junked and the original part used in the prototypes being sourced, and replacement PCBs being sent to those who requested them.
The Miller did an amazing job turning this all around, whilst also having to deal with the other workmanship problems of the first batch torches. All was corrected in time for the second batch production.
And all this angst was because of a “bonus feature” that Thorefire added. The original design didn’t even have a lighted switch. Then we got complaints that it was too bright, the wrong colour, shouldn’t stay on continuously, (RTFM, you can turn it all off in 4 clicks) was draining the cells (maybe in ten years), etc.
I’d have been tempted to just say, well we never promised you a lighted switch, so let’s just not fit the LEDs and go back to plan A.
If you want a new switch PCB, I think Sofirn sells them as a spare part, along with some other useful Q8 pieces.
