Got a pair of C8F side switch hosts in the mail today. Cold and wet, they were! Must’ve been quite a trip getting here, the boxes had been wet inside the bubble wrap long enough to essentially disentegrate when I opened them to get the lights out. Nothing wrong with the lights, of course. Time to build one up and see how she be! 
I had forgotten how tricky building one of these is! The copper MCPCB being screwed onto the reflector, then the reflector having the center screw to snug it down inside the head, with the side e-switch, a lot going on in a small space!
Used XP-L2 V6 5000K emitters, 22 ga wires, and built a MTN FET driver with ToyKeeper’s ramping firmware from last century. 
Grabbed a rested Sony VTC4 cell and saw 8.25A pull at the tail, with the cell at 3.7V! lol This should be interesting when the cell gets charged up…
Edit: On the fully charged VTC4 it pulls 12.15A at the tail for 3860.55 lumens out the front. Pretty decent, I’ll take it.
Replaced the tail pcb with a copper disc, soldered a heavy gauge berrylium spring directly to this disc. Then put 20 ga bypasses on the two like springs top and bottom. The result? Same VTC4 cell, fresh off the charger, 4115.85 lumens.
Now we’re talkin!
Nice. I’m curious to know how long it lasts until it get’s to hot to hold. Haven’t touched my host yet. Too busy with programming drivers …
I held it for 3 minutes in a 73º ambient setting.
I got six of these hosts to play with. The driver retaining ring’s inner diameter is a little too small for my double sided drivers though. I could file it out but I’m too lazy to do it six times, I’ll just design a new dedicated driver and let OSH Park take care of it
As only one of the very few that can Mike. 
Thanks, so it’s pretty usable for high lumen output. I think I will do something similar with my host.
Should probably elaborate, I held it by the head for 3 minutes, it was getting quite warm to the point of being hot indeed. Some cooler night air on it with flow would take it longer, of course.
This should translate out to around 1372 lumens each emitter at just over 3A each, so the heat is fairly manageable for this emitter. Considering slicing and dicing to tighten up the beam profile, have to play with it some more first…
I chose this light as my first full flashlight mod and it makes me feel better when Dale says the word tricky when describing it. Between the e-switch and the way the reflector comes together things are very tight. Needless to say there is plenty here for me to ‘learn’ in just this one single host.
I found it easiest to solder longer-than-necessary wires onto the mcpcb, attach the mcpcb to the reflector (loosely, so it doesn’t pull it down tilted due to the centering rings) then put the mcpcb/reflector assembly into the head (with thermal paste) and flip it over to put the central screw in, snugging the assembly into place (have to watch orientation, the mcpcb screw has it’s own cut out in the shelf) Once the driver has switch wires soldered on I cut the leads to length and solder them onto the driver. Everything gets tucked in and the retaining ring installed.
Like doing surgery, almost. lol
After some trial and error this is basically the same conclusion I came to as well. However, since I was not confident in my assembly I kept the longer than usual wires and spent a lot of time stuffing them in the body so I could test before the final “snip”. Needless to say I re-did my solder a few too many times (troubleshooting my switch) and I think I bridged something I shouldn’t have. I was testing with a protected battery and kept getting no light. I got curious and swapped to a VTC6 and needless to say I got something, magic smoke. Pretty much right after I tightened the battery down I could hear the battery was suddenly “loose” in the body. It had instantly vaporized the tail spring including the bypass.
Ordered a new driver to get a clean slate and surgery will resume this weekend.
Ouch!
My buddy wants to know why they call it magic smoke? He says it’s satanic. lol
I’m thinking of disassembling mine completely and baking the finish, need to differentiate this one from the other’s and that’d be a good way to do it. (Yes, I really really like how Kawiboy’s Convoy came out! lol )
I like the way ZozzV6 did his L2 with the gradient. I was able to do something ‘similar’ on my M1 without much experience. The burnt orange going towards the torch end just seems fitting.
My miniature knock off. If I did it again I think I could prevent the bezel (it’s super THIN) from becoming too brown with a little more caution.
Has anyone tried XP-L HI in this host?
How’s the beam?
I did, well sort of…
I have XP-L HI in old version with tail clicky. It shoud be comparable.
Old C8F with XP-L HI V3 3C left, new C8F with XP-L right
That looks great! Host ordered
What is a good driver to use with the C8F host?
Should I order one from Sofirn or would Richard at Mountain have something suitable…… or somewhere else?
Thank’s in advance for any info.
I was wondering the same thing. But I’m looking for a driver that doesn’t have multiple modes (so I can use Lexel’s rear pressure switch mods with it on my hunting rig).