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

For those of you who’ve mastered the spaghetti diagram of the UI, a plea

Could you set out some of the useful series-of-clicks combinations?

For example, as noted above:

doubleclick, doubleclick, click — police strobe
doubleclick, doubleclick, doubleclick — bike “stutter” strobe

Factory Reset:

Ramping mode, From OFF or ON : 3x click > 2x click > 2x click > press and hold 1-2 seconds will blink 4 times to confirm reset.

Edit: same thing starting from ON in ramping mode.

I’ve been watching my tracking and found that one of my two that were ordered a few minutes apart was to be delivered today, and the second Thursday. Mailman came and went, rechecked tracking and now both to be delivered Thursday. AUUUUG. So I took a chance, got the tracking number and went to the post office. I am now playing with my Q8!

ANNND almost immediately managed to put it in discreet mode rather than ramping. And now I can’t figure out how to factory reset. I think I’ve managed to set the moon mode so low the LED’s don’t come on also. Can we get a Factory Reset from discreet mode combo posted please?

Finish is great. Indicator seems to be fine. Feels solid and dense. Really love the light, still getting used to the UI.

Thanks to everyone on the team.

Factory Reset when in MODES not RAMPING mode.

From OFF : Click + Click and hold for 3 seconds > 2x click > 2x click > press and hold 1-2 seconds will blink 4 times to confirm reset.

Edit: Not exactly sure what you mean by discreet mode, but if not in ramping mode then that should be it above.

Using these instructions , I haven’t tried reseting from MODES, Just from RAMPIN as posted earlier.

Edit 2: Put switch to MODES, factory reset as described in this post, worked for me.

read the manual, it is very simple
in ramping? ramp up, then reverse ramp and keep pressing to enter config (you can do it when ramping up, but the Q8 is kind of bright :slight_smile: )
in modes, hold button for 2.5sec
you are in config and first thing you can change is ramping or modes (so it is logical one gets into config playing first time, holding switch in default ramp will start the config cycle and 1 click means modes is chosen :slight_smile: )
if you click 1 time, you disable ramping, meaning selecting modes. If you click 2 times here you are in ramping

In post 2 it is written pretty clear, I mean if I can do it, so can anybody who can read English :slight_smile:

I feel like discrete mode is a better description than modes mode - but I have been accused of pedantry on occasion. (But perhaps NOT a great speller!)

Thank you for the help - it would appear that I have now managed to reset back to Ramping mode.

I also discovered that the Moon mode that I had managed to enable DID turn on the LED’s - they gave off LESS light than the switch LED did. I only noticed it when sitting in a completely dark room.

It's somewhere below 0.1 lumens - pretty amaz'n. Glad ThorFire got the "good" 7135's in volume. They are getting hard for us to find, so they do have some good sourcing for sure.

Mailman just dropped off my Q8. Very first impression, its much smaller that I thought. I am just getting into this hobby and don’t have experience with the soda can form factor, I just assumed in my head it would be much thicker and chunkier feeling. This light is pretty much perfect in my hands.

I really really really like this light!

In the interest of accumulating data… no flicker issue with the switch indicator LEDs as of yet, but as another user noted, the left side LED is noticeably brighter than the right side LED in the switch.

Again, many thanks to all the guys and girls who did the heavy lifting around here to make this possible. I’ll be putting in my second order shortly.

You are a neighbor, so free modding for dropoffs! Let me know if you want anything tested, tweaked, etc.

Ah, I appreciate that! I’m sure I’ll find something at some point I want to change.

Do you know of any documents I could take a look at to really start to understand the nitty gritty as it pertains to this hobby? I’m a network engineer and developer with some soldering skills and experience with arduino and the like… however, I’m having some trouble really finding a place to start from the beginning when it comes to all about these type of light’s internals.

Everyone just kind of expects that you are already an expert on FETs and have an EE degree.

Are the switch indicator LED’s supposed to be like that? One much brighter than the other? Could this be an early sign that it might fail in the future?

This could signify lights that had LEDs from two separate manufacturer batches with a different Vf if the resistor value is the issue as amplificus noted. Indeed it could be a way to determine what lights have a combination of two different batch LEDs.

I’ve received mine today, got the 30Q’s earlier in the week.
It works very well, powerful and a nice combination of flood and throw. Narsil UI is a recipe for instant love for sure.
I have the kinda-sorta but not quite issue of one of the switch LEDs being brighter than the other, enough so that I’m not sure if it’s just one of them on or just a massive difference in brightness. I’ve tried to get an image of it to illustrate, but the lit up button on the background of black aluminium is confusing the autofocus on my cellphone, so those pics just looks like a single blob of light. if I were to try and explain how it looks, the one on the right is bright, and throwing a shadow of the outline of the part of the silicone nub that reaches down to the switch, and there’s a hint of a green glow in this shadow, presumably from the other LED.
I’ll be leaving it with the button led(s) lit to see how it develops, and gonna try to borrow a dslr so that I can get a clear picture of it.

I got my first of two in the mail today. I’ve had it for about 4 hours now…been playing with it here and there and I’m pleased to report that there are currently no issues with it.

Mine is still working fine thankfully.

But there is one thing my OCD cant cope with and that is that fully screwed in, so it can be switched on, the lines are not lined up to the top half ;-(
How can that be fixed?

I mean like it shoul;d be either like:

Not like:

on my bangood account this just showed up
my god what a long wait still…………

Order Placed Date: 2017-09-09 09:06:42
Expected Shipping Date: 2017-10-09 09:06:42

thats pushing 3 weeks still, just to ship……ughhh…….

Yeah!!! received mine. Happy to report no issues, other than self inflicted :stuck_out_tongue: Got a little click happy, and had to break out the manual. Switch led’s appear fine. No issues with them getting, flaky. Looking forward to dusk, to check it out.
Thanks to the Q8 team, and Thorfire for putting this together.

It is an excellent quality light, that was worth the wait :+1:

I’ve had this kind of misalignment on many lights (and other devices with parts that screw together))… and lived with it most of the time. Though i haven’t tried i believe that a round washer on the driver side could fix it. The trick is to have the exact right thickness so the tube stops screwing in the right position.

Note the 20A from turbo will go through it, so a nice and polished piece of copper would certainly be welcome. Tin foil comes to mind but may add a weak point in the current loop - or not idk.

First: Kudos to the team, and Thorfire, for stopping to take stock and get this right.

A correct but difficult decision. I am all the more impressed with the leadership demonstrated here. This has encouraged me to order my second torch.

When this is resolved, which I am confident it will be, it will further strengthen my respect for Thorfire. They are giving it their attention.

Second: here is my take on what might be happening. Just a theory.

The technology for making natively coloured LEDs differs depending on the colour. Technically, the wavelength emitted is a function of the bandgap of the compound semiconductors used. Practically this means that the forward voltage needed to light up the LED is different for each colour.

As it happens, green LEDs require one of the highest forward voltages. Typically above 3V. I.e. much the same as a single lithium cell. Leaving almost no headroom for further voltage drop across the series resistor used to set the operating point (current level).

If I was asked to specify e.g. a typical green 3.3V LED, to consistently light up from a typical single cell (say voltage ranging from 3V to 4.2 V, I could not do it with just a series resistor.

I would argue for using a different colour, e.g. red, orange, yellow etc, with a Vf around 1.8V, leaving plenty of headroom for the series resistor to control the current across the full range of battery voltage.

I would only consider using a typical green LED if it could be driven from more voltage, e.g. in a 2S light, and even then, preferably from an MCU pin set up as an “open collector” or “low side drive” output capable of handling the full voltage.

The MCU in a 2S torch, would be expected to be supplied from no more than 5V, possibly as little as 3.3V, so a direct drive from an MCU pin might be marginal at best.

In the Q8 the MCU is driven from battery voltage (minus the drop cross the reverse protection diode) so tracks the battery voltage as it varies with charge level.

I read that the switch PCB was derived from that of the Thorfire S70 a 2S torch. Is it possible that the same green LED is being used in the Q8, with perhaps resistor value change to try to compensate for the 1S Q8 ? If so, maybe it is right on the edge of working, and e.g. small shifts of Vf as the LED warms up, or during initial ageing, or between the two LEDs, are enough to tip things over the edge.

If this turns out to be the case, I suggest that the green LED be changed for one with a much lower Vf (and different colour), and the series resistor value adjusted to suit.

Anyway, I’d just like to throw this speculation into the discussion. If I had my Q8 already I could do a few simple measurements to see if this has legs. I.e. anyone with a torch with functioning LEDs, and a multimeter, please measure the voltage directly across the LED whilst it is illuminated (I.e. Vf). and report back.

Good tip :wink: Or if its really close mill or sand off a bit of the bottom half?