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

Thanks for the quick reply. Can I ask how many amps you’re pushing through? Did you run into any problems with the battery holders? I’m afraid they would melt or something. I have been using Excellway® CH2 Quick Wire Connector Terminal Block Spring Connector to connect my opus to a LeadAcid battery but they can’t handle the power. They start to melt when I chrge 4 cells at 1A each.

Well the B6 I use maxes out at 5A but it worked fine when I use it with my DPS5015 at 15A as well. Although I did wire up the holders with 16AWG wire between the banks and don’t try to charge a single ecll with more then ~2A. So since the load is spread out over all the cells and the 16AWG can handle the power easy, I can charge them basically as fast as I want.

Although I would not try to push more ten 2-3A max to a single cell, I bet the metal tabs could start becoming an issue at that point. I generally stick to .5-!A per cell for charge rates, I just swap out cells with fresh ones and charge them slowly but I have hundreds of cells to swap around so I am rarely in a rush.

Charge rates are supposedly best at .6C, so it would be cell dependent for max rates. For example, if you’re charging a 2600mAh cell then max recommended charge rate would be 1560 mA, if a 3400mAh cell then 2040 mA and the larger 26650’s with 5000mAh capacity should be safe with a recommended 3000mA rate. Should be obvious that a 1A rate will be good for most 18650’s even if on the slow side. Slow is better than fast, over the life of the cell. Does anyone count the 500 charge cycles? Probably not. I’ve had all my cells in lights, charged and ready to go, for years. With some of the output testing I’ve done it’s probably safe to say I’ve worked some cells fairly hard. Only just now, after over 4 years, am I beginning to see some of my early 18650’s dying off. (Literally, I’ve lost 3 cells out of some 300.)

Yeah I would not charge them beyond 1.5A anyway, I find 0.75A is fast enough for me.
Thanks for the info. I just ordered the holders and I found them even cheaper @banggood.

FWIW... I use Anderson PowerPoles in all my RC stuff (including connecting 6000mAh 4s batteries to the cars, up to 100A of burst current) and have never had an issue.

Also, I'll second (third?) the upvote of Vibra-tite; have used it on everything from guns to MX motorcycles and really like it. There are few things inclined to eject hardware faster than big-bore single-cylinder offroad bikes, and Vibra-tite put those issues to bed. It's a great product. It may appear expensive, but I think I've just opened my third little bottle in maybe 12 years?

Thx for the tip, but for my setup I wil be using xt60 plugs. Maybe I’ll check into those power poles for my opus

That’s interesting. I think that my VC4 charges almost exactly to 4.2v.

OTOH, I also bought the Lii-202 because I had read people saying that it undercharges. I like “undercharging” so that I can get longer life out of my batteries too. Mine normally charges to about 4.17v. Pretty perfect but only 2 cells at a time.

Most of these chargers use 5% components, so thus they would have a 1% tolerance at best, so it makes sense that not all of them would charge the same. Most of them say they charge to 4.2v =/-1%. So that means they could charge as high as 4.242v or as low as 4.158v while still being in tolerance.

Going to smaller then 1% components vastly increases the cost and is rare to see nor really needed. A good calibration can have them very consistent and accurate even with 1% components. Most of them are not properly calibrated though due to costs.

Off topic (of chargers that is... ), just started a new thread on NarsilM here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/45888

Nice Tom!
Hope lots of people start playing with it in other lights then the Q8 :slight_smile:

Off-topic again from the charger discussion: camping with proto3

Here’s another beamshot of the prototype, control and beamshot not the same camera settings but it is both about what you see in reality. Nearest tree at 10 meter, campfire at 20 meter, tree in hotspot 40 meter, birch tree to the right of hotspot tree 60 meter, little building 70 meter.

We were not allowed a large fire because lf the drought and remarkably proto3 with a yellow plastic cup on top became the center of the group instead of the fire (the evenings were really warm so the fire was not needed for warmth), the next evening it was an orange+pink cup.(I’m not in the pictures :innocent: )


I do not know the drive current while serving as camping light (I chose a pleasurable setting in ramping mode) but after two nights with at least 10 hours of use, the 30Q’s were still at 4.05V.

Nice pics Djozz
That cup and brightness setting off the Q8 on that last pic gives it a fire-like look, sweet!

Nice djozz. :slight_smile:

This thread has over 8000 posts. Its hard to stay up to date with this flashlight.
Please do not post hundreds of posts with discussions of batteries, chargers and so on. That would make it easier to follow this topic.

How about hot peppers?

I know there was talk about a lightning mode but what about a campfire mode? :wink:

So, a medium low level with an orange and pink cup and one Ghost Pepper made for a nice campfire setting with scary stories, how great is that! Epic light, and it’s only got a few pieces out there yet!

Oh for a flickering or lightning mode when you need one…

The real important things call for a topic title change and a link to the post from where it is talked about. Now it is waiting and I’d rather see a little of topic then having to say “we don’t know when it is done, waiting for input” :wink:
And I saw the charging with a non standard bought charger already has lead to a different topic so that is cool right.

4.05V after two nights? Not bad… Sounds like the batteries won’t die easily. The Q8 is like Bruce Willis in Die Hard.

Kumbaya, mister flooder.

That’s definitely begging for a candle flicker mode.

A campfire/candle flicker mode would certainly be fun to have for the Q8 but I’m pretty sure that at least in our camping group that would be considered so over the top fake that it would not be used seriously. :party: