Cheers David
FIXED SWITCH LED!
Turns out it is the resistor. After swapping to another smd led i had from a battery back circuit board (getting polarity right on those things is a pain in the arse), it was still flickering. I re-applied heat to the resistor and noticed that when the iron jumped the resistor (touched both sides) both switch leds came on really bright. So i stacked another smd resistor on top of the original and BAM! Solid light. Measured current draw 6.6mA so you do the math on what the equivalent resistance is, I’m too tired and can go to sleep happy that we found a fix.
Your welcome 
How do you disassemble the switch? I got the 2 screws out from the driver board but then the wires are fairly short to really see anything else. I’m hoping someone can do a detailed breakdown of the flashlight for modding. I’d like to swap out the green LEDs for something different. Perhaps pink and blue?
THANKS
Thanks for the update amplificus. Nice detective work.
Once you can get past that first blinky, into the 2ND or higher, you press and hold to go back a level and can then click to go forward again if you wish. See my video. I think it’s Narsil Part 2.
So it wasn’t a bad solder of the resistor, it was the resistor itself? Maybe 15k is too high a resistance?
6.6mA is a big drain. I get 0.40 mA at 8 volts for my lights.
The Q8 runs at half that voltage and draws 0.14mA.
So if the Q8 resistor is 15k, then maybe reduce it to 12k or 8k might be enough to keep it working and still keep the drain low.
It’s quite possible the 15k resistor is dropping the voltage too low for the smd leds to light up.
Or Thorfire might be able to switch to LEDs that run at a lower voltage and keep the 15k resistor. This should reduce brightness as well.
I got a small assortment of leds from DBCustom. I’ve got a bright green and a weak green. TF are definitely using a bright green. Maybe a switch to a weak green would work better?
We don’t need a switch light that is so bright. Do we?
You don’t need to do anything with the driver. You undo the ring holding the switch and can access it all from the outside.
When you undo the ring and take the rubber cover off you see this.
You can use tweezers or a hook tool to pull it further out if you need to.
I’m thinking that the tolerance of the resistor might be too large, and the LED’s are not reaching the Vf needed to function reliably. I made sure to melt the solder on the resistor before, and it didn’t fix it. I will try and find a better solution in the spare parts i have.
Thanks for the confirmation. Those do seem like Hulk style leds. So tiny, yet so bright!
Sorry I don´t get it - so it´s a production fault and ALL lights already shipped are generally affected because the wrong resistor was used in production? So those people receiving working lights can expect the switch led/circuit to fail sooner or later? Or am I “safe” if my light works properly during the let´s say first few hours of use?
the ramping is great maybe the greatest in any flashlight i ever had
but the blinkies the opposite strobe is ok bkie flasher also ok police strobe also ok but the beacons are slow blinkers not real lacation beacons liek on a nitecore and the acessability is very hard to get to where you want to be its hit and miss for me
Rec’d mine today, AND I LOVE IT!!! This is the most fun I have had with a life in years! It is really easy to accidentally tell the green led to stay off, but only because of operator error. I can’t wait for the second light to show up! Thank you The Miller and Tom and the entire design team-this is a jewel of a light! Pictures coming soon…
well it is impossible and unwise for me to state things about “ALL” lights.
So you can’t expect that 
we do know for sure that 4 of the arrived Q8 lights have an issue with the lighted switch and the rest of them do not.
We do know that the not working switch light do not affect the use of the Q8
And now more information on the issue is being reported this gives Thorfires engineers more to work with.
So just enjoy your Q8 and if the issue presents itself, let us know here. All videos and pictures are helpful and much appreciated
Your jumping to a few wrong conclusions here. First of all, it may not be the wrong resistor. You see, the switch leds and the resistor have to work together. The leds are typically only made to run between a certain voltage range. Let’s sat 2.2v and 3.4v just for example. So we use a resistor to drop the voltage down from 4.2v to somewhere below 3.4v. What is most likely happened is TF sourced in some new leds and their specs may have been different. If you recall, some people have two different brightness leds. Since they are wired in parallel (getting the same voltage) that means the 2 leds are not the same.
One might be made to work from 2.2v to 3.4v and the other from 2.4 volt to 3.6v. The early leds might have been the 2.2-3.4 leds and the 15k resistor worked fine by dropping voltage down to 2.3v.
Then when you mix in this other led, it can’t run below 2.4v so it turns off when feed 2.3v.
This is just an example, but I hope it makes sense.
We don’t know if all Q8 switch lights will go out or be fine because we don’t know which leds were used. It’s still too early for definitive answers. Let’s be patient and let the Miller sort this out.
If this were the case, it would explain the flickering and eventual failing of the led as the cell voltages drop, but also it would happen first on high output levels, then recover as the load drops on lower levels and the voltage picks up. The problem would disappear when the cells were recharged again, and could be diagnosed properly by running the light on a bench power supply and measuring across the led.
Anyone tried that yet, even recharged their cells to see what happens at 4+V?
Priority mail me too.Q8 arrived in Athens yesterday,so I get it tomorrow,took the post office notice.
The problem with this is the leds are not directly connected to the batteries. They get their output voltage from a leg on the MCU. Now I don’t know too much about MCU’s, but that adds a level of complication. It might be a steady output voltage that is right at that point where a led starts having trouble. I’m just guessing here. Let’s let Miller and TF figure this out.
No offense but I did NOT state any conclusions at all, I was simply asking questions to better understand the problem.
Did not receive my lights yet but I´m concerned about this and to be honest my anticipation to receive the lights has dropped significantly since those issues came up… my understanding of electronics is low and I will not be able to solder anything and repair any defective lights myself.
K.
Don’t stress mate, 4 defects out of that many orders is a TINY percentage and if there are problems they will probably just send you out another one after the problem is rectified.
Continue to be excited much like myself