I couldn’t agree more
Received mine yesterday. Real fine light. Looks and feels great. My wife digs it too. I immediately bypassed the springs and drilled the driver mounting holes to clear the mounting screw holes. Neither were necessary, just my preference. The light is the real deal. I measured 6K lumens in partially depleted 30Q's. The light get hot fast like it should. Beam pattern is a great mix of flood and throw.
This is my first time using Narsil. Love the ramping and natural feel of it. I got lost a couple times in the UI, but that is probably just operator error. The indicator light is very bright for my taste (Think I will swap in a less harsh red or amber emitter). The indicator emitters turns off when the light it on. Is that by design?
Very happy with the light and I totally understand the frustration of those awaiting to receive theirs. Big congrats to The Miller and team. First light I don't feel the need to do any major mods on. Hang in there guys.
My take on battery tube alignment is that mine spends the vast majority of time “aligned”,
… during the daylight hours,
… where it can actually be seen and appreciated.
I thought that was a brilliant design decision, thanks Team Q8!
I never even noticed the tube was “misaligned”when fully seated. I did not expect it to and don’t care if it does not.
Maybe you would feel different if you didn’t already have a flashlight sitting in your lap
No, Joey, I’ve said all along — I want the manufacturer to test samples from the first run properly (that’s QC) and check during production for problems being built in (that’s QA). And I’m well aware of the “quality fade” issue that we’re all hoping to avoid with this production.
I’ve accepted that the first run of any batch is going to have undetected problems because we’re the QC/QA people for most of these manufacturers. That is, we’re the “Charlie test” group. There’s the alpha test (first round); there’s the beta test (did the first round get fixed?); and there’s ship it and “Sorry, Charlie” test group.
If the first round were proving to be good enough, they wouldn’t have stopped pushing them out. Four percent failure in the first 24 hours is one thing. But if that’s an early indicator of a problem that will emerge, that’s something else.
If they are concerned that the asymmetrical brightness is an early indicator that a light may develop the flicker-failure problem, they have good reason to pause.
Trust me on this. I own a Cometa. I’ve avoided a number of the other disaster-batch flashlights that have been popular here.
Talk to anyone who bought one of the bad ones. Ya think they feel different — happier — because they got them early?
Don’t think so.
Oh, did you find out about the secret “purr” setting on the interface? Mmmmmmmmm.
My cat’s jealous.
But the fact that these four lights are showing very similar problems leads me to believe that it’s much more than a coincidence and it bears looking into.
I’ll keep patiently waiting.
Posted this as an edit to my original post…but wanted to put it here in case it was helpful or relevant to anyone.
It appears after playing some more, that my switch just MAY work like it’s supposed to in regards to disabling the switch LED when the light is off (after reading TomE’s suggestion of how to hit it). It does appear you don’t have as long to click the switch a second time when the light is in the lower voltage outputs…and that timing is a little more finicky…for me at least…than when the light is in brighter modes. SO….mine may NOT be an issue…JUST FYI. ALSO, I just left the switch LED on for the past 3 hours or so and after coming back to the light, it did NOT appear to be flickering or anything.
THANKS AGAIN Q8 team!
And thanks TomE for encouraging me to play with the switch thing some more. :+1:
Are you talking about the tube screws in the head a bit “cockeyed” OR… the flats on the tube are ‘mis aligned’ with the head??
A little time with a piece of sandpaper on a nice thick piece of mill finish steel can quickly adjust this. I use a worn coarse corundum belt then 400 grit wet or dry on a piece of 3/16” a2. Stand the tube on the paper covered steel and sand while maintaining the angle. Take a few passes while gradually turning the tube to evenly sand the un-anodized end and test assembly and repeat as necessary. When close to aligned repeat with fine paper to smooth the end and do final adjustment. It’s the method I used to align two tubes to the head assembly on my Chimera. Of course, alteration like this would void the warranty.
[quote=tekwyzrd]
Warranty? There’s a warranty?
I’m in Florida where Hurricane Irma just ripped through. Afterwards, no lights, no communication, no commerce, no gas, nothing open. Toilet paper isn’t too far behind water on one’s list of desirables! LOL
My flashlights sure got used. All of a sudden, the whacko with 50-plus flashlights was everyone’s best friend! 
Hank I was responding to your flippant “don’t get bent out of shape” comment. I just feel that maybe you should off commenting to members who have now coughed up multiples of 40$ for a flashlight that we now have no idea when it will be produced. Each issue during development led to a month or more each time. Sorry but I would take one with asymmetrical indicator leds over an open ended whenever any day. And most of the other 1600 would too. I am going to wait but I don’t need a lecture on quality control. In fact it seems a few post up that one of the problem q8s now seem fine. I will abide my time as will most other members.
What part of Florida? I’m in contact with someone from high school in Ft Myers and my younger brother in Tampa (busy with construction work doing repairs). Ft Myers got hit hard whereas much of Tampa had power within 48 hours.
In Palm Beach on the Atlantic coast Tekwyzrd. Power returned in two days. Still had plenty of flashlights in the arsenal. 
Dunno why, but ThorFire has been in a big rush to get these going as of late. I have no doubt it's gonna move quick. Last word from TF was they seem to know what's going on. Not sure I posted these, but these pics were sent to TF:
Last Prototype (round 3): Production:
Clearly they changed the LED's - gold tracing to silver tracing is one sure sign, also a different layout of the traces. The resistors are the same value, 15K, which I recommended from the round #2 prototype after experimenting with them. The prototypes are definitely not as bright. Round #1 had only one LED, so was a different PCB.
That is a perfect description…… that is exactly how one of mine looks also. Good job putting it into words.
I was watching the nhc site and others for days before it turned north and following the movement of pressure systems and spaghetti as Irma moved. I know you saw some rough conditions but were fortunate as were millions of others that early forecasts predicting a direct path through Miami as a Category 5 were wrong and Irma lost a good bit of power following the coast of Cuba. I’m not minimizing the severity, just thankful it wasn’t worse.
After using it heavily for over 1 hour, maybe 30% of the time on max, and then max for 3 min, temp was only 42 Cel in 2 Cel ambient temp. I will not care if the switch Led stops shining, it isn’t that important, will possible disable that Led. Walking in the dark forest with this flashlight gives me complete peace of mind.
Had no switch problem. I will enable Thermal Temperature stepdown and want the switch light to be permanently on to easier locate it in the dark, except when in lock mode.