I agree that the DQG TIny 26650 3rd is an excellent light. I have one and love it.
However, even though it’s the smallest 26650 light available I’d still rate it as much too big for pocket EDC.
Superb upgrade 
It’s a shame there are no really good 18500 batteries. Though as HKJ predicts, they may show up soon.
Nevertheless that head is quite large and I have a feeling that a 24 mm triple would be only slightly less powerful with significantly smaller size. DQG Tiny is ~8% larger, yet it takes 18650.
How are PT16 thermals?
I guess all your smaller ones are larger than what I seek
Though yes, they definitely offer good power to size.
Look what Hank (from intl-outdoor.com) just posted as a teaser:
New 4XP Noctigon MCPCB for quad optic - #208 by Hank_Wang
Indeed amazing light. I started to think whether I need to buy just 1 light or 2 
Considered that quite hard. Especially with a lowly 18350, quad has very little to offer, be it performance or efficiency. It lost to S2+ for me.
Interesting, thank you. I’ll surely wait for it, though I suspect that improved performance over DQG triple won’t beat the size difference for me. I’d love to be wrong though.
Just wait for it, the DQG lights are awesome but always have quality thingies going on, I’m expecting a bit better from intl-outdoor flashlights. The user interface and performance of the D4 is unknown for now, but if it turns out to be good too it will win me over, despite the 5mm length difference.
Today I learned of DQG Tiny 18650’s existence and I’m puzzled. Comparing both converted to 3*XP-L2, DQG has:
Is it possible to mod DQG Tiny to get even smaller size?
==not really
Are there compatible battery tubes that would make it even smaller?
==no, it doesn;t screw together like that… you would have to make it on a lathe or something, then add the polarity-protection if you wanted that
—i personally hate 18350 batteries
Are there other lights that might serve me better?
==manker U11 is decent and cheap, not quite as small as the dqg but has charging built in, possibly better heat dissipation
==the dqg tiny 18650, i have had 2 of them fail, one because of the switch, the 2nd some mystery fading out, then finally just stopped
==the heat dissipation is not very good in it
lowest light levels not really very low, like 65 lumens or 85
==you are not going to get 2000 lumen in something this small, even 1000 is pushing the heat dissipation limits
and battery life, and single-LED capacity, and battery max current draw
wle
What do you mean, there are no really good 18500’s? There’s Panasonic NCR18500A 2040mAH if you want capacity with decent output, or Efest Purple 1000mAH if you want a higher output current. If you’re looking for both in one cell, then I think you’re right. There are none that I know of.
Thanks for the answer. Yesterday night, while searching for DQG Tiny I saw some thread mentioning that it is compatible with S2+ tubes. Thinking about it today, I thought it seemed weird and wanted to ask, but can’t find it. I guess that being tired, I confused something. That was probably another light.
As to the lowest mode - a triple mod will enable picking about any small enough driver, so this is not a problem.
2000 lm:
There are many DD S2+ triples out there and some of them 18350. I guess they easily exceed this output level, though obviously for a short time.
I find it weird, I’ve seen a few high-power mods and the lowest usable DD runtime for a small light (like 18350 S2+ ;)) is 30 seconds. A non-extreme DD triple in DQG Tiny 18650 - I read that in 10 seconds it’s too hot to touch. I wonder why is it so…
Together with a large battery (which sinks some heat too), can it really have 3x lower thermal capacity? Or maybe thermal transfer from the head to the rest of the light is so wrong? Is thermal transfer so good that it’s actually reasonably warm inside, but too hot outside? Or maybe there’s another reason?
Yes, that’s actually what I meant. Panasonic NCR18500A….well, I was too harsh really. If one’s current draw is low enough for this cell to handle - it is a good one.
Efest Purple - I can’t call it good. Aspire 18350 offers both higher current and higher capacity while being much smaller.
I have some of those new Aspire 18350’s on the way, so I will soon know how they compare. To date though, the 18500 Efest is top dog in a light in my own testing.
Don’t they also have a 26350 size “TINY” or is that a different light I’m thinking of?
That is a BTU light
I would consider carry a 18350 light
and having a 18650 tube and battery spare to carry with you
the extra 18650 tube adds very little to the whole weight
18350 light + 2 spares is about equal weight and energy to 18650 light w/out spares. Somewhat higher bulk. If you need less energy, 18350 wins. If more - 18650. For me less is going to happen far more often then more and furthermore I tend to always have a spare (In case I forgot to recharge. Happened once.) so 18350 just seems better.
Carrying 2 tubes doesn’t seem worthwhile.
BTW how about human lathe shortening of DQG Tiny?
Any specific challenges?
OOH… that sounds fun! :partying_face:
Sorry, I don’t know about “challenges” because I don’t have one of those. But I’d like to see you try it! :smiling_imp:
The new Aspire 18350 cell should change a lot of things in small flashlights. With 1200mAh capacity as compared to 650mAh, and with high discharge capability as well, our small lights should see nice gains. I have some on the way to try out. My small Sinner 18350 triples will be quite happy!
The specific challenge to shorten the tube of a DQG Tiny will be tube thickness. It would be best to cut the tube then cut new threads. The human lathe method, where the two cut off components of the tube are re-joined with a slip joint, might not work here due to the thin walls of the tube.
I have a DQG Tiny on the way and I’m digging deeper into this topic.
First, as a summary, I am aware of 3 people converting Tiny to triple:
http://forum.fonarevka.ru/showthread.php?t=31935
Each of them adds information not available in others.
The last one contains the following image of the battery tube:
// Doesn’t show as image on the forum, you have to click, sorry…
Doesn’t look like ome could cut a new thread in the middle of a tube; the thread diameter seems just as large as the outer that of the knurling, if not larger.
Any suggestions?
BTW:
it seems that one could shorten the bezel by 1-2 mm…