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

Has anyone else received an email from @thorfiredirect.com?
They offered a 30% off code for the Q8 on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Powerful-Flashlight-Searchlight-Configurable-Professional/dp/B0773Q46D3/

Pretty cool of them to offer this code and I am very grateful that they are including a seller/shipper like Amazon.

here’s the code Coupon Code: KXCWYFBO (30% OFF) * Is it still valid?*

They posted the 30% off deal to the forum a couple days ago
ThorFire Official Deals-ONLY $50.96 for BLF Q8 on amazon USA

[quote=Streamer]

Same code I received.
Wasn’t sure if they were unique or if they might not have wanted it shared publicly.

The emails tone seems to suggest that they want verified reviews to help boost their sales rank on Amazon.

The links I posted you could only buy one light per order but you could make more than one order on that code. It IS still valid and Amazon only shows 4 left in stock.

[quote=CircaM]

OK, just received same email about 30 min. ago. So I’m guessing Thorfire has my contact info through previous Banggood Q8 group buy??? Oh the power of the WWW. :open_mouth:
ETA: so glad got mine from batch 2 for $40. :slight_smile:

Banggood probably sold out our info. They have really been doing wrong by most of their customers in every other category. Anything Banggood can do to make/save money, they are doing it now, customers get to suffer from Banggood’s greed.

I like it when I get coupons by email for things I might actually want.

It’s the other crap I’d never buy that irks me. Buying Canadian medicine? Junk mail.

BTW, Banggood has stores on Amazon and Aliexpress.

At this time of the day I don’t know if this was meant as a joke, but I have to clarify anyway in case of any uninformed readers taking this seriously.

“Unprotected” means just that - the lack of any protection (by the means of an added protective circuitry). Unprotected li-ion cells do, however, have safety features including more than those inherent in the chemistry, materials, insulation etc. Such devices include over-pressure valves and fuses or a combination of these; in case of cylindrical cells, typically found under the positive contact. These are irreversible and will cause the cell to read a dead 0 volts when they operate correctly. These will also not activate from overdischarging or just from overcharging by itself. When they do, it’s often quite dramatic.

Just going very rapidly from about 2.5 to 0.8 volts is not indicative of a protective measure activating, just a feature of the li-ion chemistry. However, this is not expected behavior in most typical LED flashlights like the linear regulated or FET driven variety. This IS expected in various other scenarios including a dead short.

Mistaking electrically protected batteries for non-protected ones is common, though. It’s not unheard of that unprotected li-ion batteries were sold as protected and vice versa.

Maybe unprotected cells have fuseable links under one of the end caps?

Mostly they should have that; a pressure relief valve that permanently opens under a high internal pressure, designed to prevent/interrupt a thermal runaway during an internal short, a dead short or other overload event. It appears this can be missing in cells of questionable quality.

They can also have an actual fuse that melts at high temperature(even caused by a high temperature inside the cell itself), and the pressure relief valve can be separated in two stages: open circuit at a certain pressure, release pressure at a higher treshold.

The cell should read 0 volts after the activation of these features and show a very high resistance, refusing to accept charge at all.

A “protected cell” as a device consisting of an unprotected cell and a protection circuit will also have the same features as the original cell.

I’d like to ask, how difficult is it to update/flash the firmware of the BLF Q8?

  • does it require soldering?
  • any special tools needed to remove the head to access the driver chip for flashing?

I think you will need these two,

  1. ATmega/ATtiny 51 AVR ISP USBASP USB Programmer Downloader (HQ)
  2. 40-pin Splittable Ribbon Cable (20cm)

According to ToyKeeper, the first batch lights had led wires long enough that you just undid the 2 screws holding the driver down and you could tilt the driver enough to get the clip on.

The later batches switched to slightly shorter led wires and those require unsoldering them from the mcpcb in order to rotate the driver enough to get the clip on but still allow enough room to reflash.

Overall, quite easy.

Nice links, does Fasttech carry a clip as well?

FWIW, I can access my first-batch and second-batch Q8s’ drivers for reflashing without desoldering anything.

That’s what ToyKeeper said.

But hey, it’s good news if it’s that easy. :+1:

Not quite.

Don’t listen to me, I have a sample size of one. Listen to Tom. :slight_smile:

The second batch is shorter, but should still be long enough to reflash without soldering. Tom measured several and found the wire lengths were very consistent and just long enough.

As for flashing info, click the Link in my signature or use the “README” in the code repository.

Oops, sorry about that. I edited my earlier post.

Sometimes my memory is really sharp, but most of the time it can be pretty bad. Lol

Thanks for those info, ToyKeeper. That’s great to know. And of course, allow me to thank you and Tom E for programming all these nice firmware (although I’m still trying to learn about them…)

I’ve ordered these 3 items a couple of weeks ago, waiting for them to arrive, maybe in a week or two…

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1pcs-New-USBASP-USBISP-AVR-Programmer-USB-ISP-USB-ASP-ATMEGA8-ATMEGA128-Support-Win7-64K/32809542958.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-Programmer-Testing-Clip-SOP8-SOP-SOIC-8-SOIC8-DIP8-DIP-8-Pin-IC-Test/32402561848.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/40pcs-lot-10cm-2-54mm-1pin-feMale-to-feMale-jumper-wire-Dupont-cable/1999771500.html

Any idea if the item you linked — “ATMEGA/ATTiny51 AVR ISP USBASP Programmer” is better (can flash more chip types?) or just the same with the one I ordered ” ATMEGA8 ATMEGA128 AVR ISP USBASP Programmer” — what are the differences between various programmer devices?