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

It’s great on the bill of a baseball cap.

No question, the basic Liitos, whether x1, 2 or 4 cells are up to the job.

I have standardised on the 1 and 2 cell basic Liitos, but that’s because I always carry a chunky USB charger with x4 2.4A outputs plus a fifth Qualcomm Quickcharge 3.0 output (can ramp up to as much as 12V 1.5A for my USB C Windows tablet).

So the two cheapo x2 Liitos can each get 2A, whereas I think the single x4 version has to share 2A 4 ways.

And having had failures, I also carry a basic 2.1A mobile charger for backup. So with two USB power supplies (one very sophisticated) and two Liito chargers, and multiple cables, I am confident of surviving multiple failures. Or helping out someone less well prepared.

Agreed no need for an analysing charger, but if looking for one, the Zanflare does seem to be ahead of the Liito 500 these days, when at the right price. Comes with 12V car lead as well as the mains transformer too, not sure if the Lii 500 also does ?

Thanks for the heads up on that Jason. I was thinking about pulling the trigger on one. Have to pass now……

Way to slow for me.
A 3000 mAh cell could just be charged at 0.166 C also.

Does it harm a cell to charge it like that??

The Q8 should be getting about 15 to 16 kHz (I’ve measured 15.3 to 15.7 kHz). S2+ should be 12 to 15 kHz, or ~36 kHz, depending on which batch the driver is from.

Generally these have tried to get a frequency which is as low as possible while still being too high for most humans to hear. Slower uses less power and improves stability, but can look or sound bad, so the sweet spot seems to be as close to 20 kHz as the hardware will allow. For attiny13/25/45/85, the closest it can easily do is about 16 kHz.

I am always a slow learner…and if Zanflare is as good as you say I will watch out for it next time price is right… but maybe I must sell or give away some of my other chargers before that.

My second Q8 from banggood was delivered today. It was ordered on 17 Sep. Looks perfect, and seems to function great.

I still have one on order from elfelend.aliexpress.com. I ordered from them at $44.99, then after a brief stint at $117.63, they’re back down to $99.99.

"You can have my MC3000 when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers"

There's nothing even close to compare it to.

Say whatever happened to the Elfeland orders?
Did any arrive fast?

Some of you are just closing your minds to the most obvious, realistic uses of this magnificent light. For example, pistol mounted:

Also available for the ninja glock:

Hmm I thought it was 18000 to 19000 hz for Q8 but it seems I am wrong. I do not have a measuring device. I used my ears and brain to measure it :slight_smile:

I probably failed because Q8’s sound is quieter to the ear than S2. And S2 is definitely 12 to 15 khz. I thought they were at same volume but being Q8’s quieter, it would be higher frequency. It turns out to be Q8’s sound is quieter and at near frequency.

S2+ is quite louder if Q8 is really 15 to 16 kHZ. Like 5 dB more at least.

The S2+ uses a tiny13a, which has a much greater clock speed variation from piece to piece. It’s quite likely slower than the Q8, which uses a tiny85 with tighter tolerances.

In theory, the PWM speed should be “MHz * 1000 / 256” for the tiny13a / S2+, and “MHZ * 1000 / 512” for the tiny85 / Q8…

  • tiny13a: 4.8 * 1000 / 256 = 18.75 kHz
  • tiny85: 8.0 * 1000 / 512 = 15.625 kHz

… but in practice, the actual clock speed isn’t exactly at spec:

  • tiny13a: 3.0 to 4.4 MHz * 1000 / 256 = ~11.7 to ~17.2 kHz
  • tiny85: 7.8 to 8.1 MHz * 1000 / 512 = ~15.2 to ~15.8 kHz

At least, this is what I’ve found by measuring PWM frequency on my Fluke and estimating clock speed based on that. The Q8 should be within about 3% of its spec’d clock speed, but the S2+ is typically anywhere from 8% to 37% slower than spec. And one batch of S2+ drivers ended up running overclocked by 2X so it was about 36 kHz.

The Q8’s PWM would probably be louder on high levels, but it uses a PWM method which reduces noise and visibility by oscillating between two power levels instead of turning completely off between pulses. If you listen to it during strobe mode though, it’s likely pretty audible.

I don’t have a Q8 yet, but hopefully in a few days I’ll find out if its behavior matches the other tiny85 lights I’ve measured.

Night time with the Q8…

Checked finally the difference between 30Q and Panasonic protected cells
My production Q8 and my son’s
I can’t really tell the difference.
If there is a difference I don’t know if it is imagination or real so close

Checking proto now, pressed against my ear, don’t hear whine, unleas on strobe yes then I can hear something coming from inside

Nice pic Patmurris!

Great night shot. I’m itching to get some night beam shots but it’s pissing it down with rain here (and looks like it’s going to continue all week).

With x4 decent cells, feeding x4 decent emitters, the Q8 is hardly over-stretched.

No more than e.g. an olde worlde BLF A6. Actually less so, pretty much the same driver as the A6, except the FET has to cope with the current from 4 similar emitters, not one, so that is probably the bottleneck.

Sonic whine, for those with bat-ears I suspect is mainly generated by movement (maybe simplistically think of it as inductive repulsion) of loose LED wires, (Lenz’s law) maybe could be minimised by twisting them tightly or otherwise physically damping their movement.

Well, well. My Q8 showed up today. No issues, small nick on the ano. Clean and mean. 30Q’s from Illumn are charging rite now. Nightfall is here, and I got the flashaholic shakes!

Just tried out my Q8 (came yesterday but didn’t get a chance to check the mail till about an hour ago). What stands out the most to me is that, in addition to the fantastic output, ramping, etc., this thing is gorgeous. I’d seen all the pictures of course, but there’s something that just doesn’t translate until you’re holding it in your hand. Thanks for all the hard work and patience!

Has anyone DC-Fixed their Q8 yet? Interested in trying myself? Dumb question, but how do I remove the lens?

I think it just sticks on, doesn’t it? Do you have to take the lens out? I wish there was more info on this stuff, like how much output you lose, before and after shots, etc…

Doesn’t the stainless bezel just thread off?