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

Nope. You know the big golden light in BLF’s front-page logo? It’s that light. An original Skyray King, modded with a BLF driver and some other things. Currently it has a prototype Q8 driver in it, and it’s what I used for part of FSM’s development.

Oooh I had completely forgotten about the original inspiration of the BLF Q8.

Very nice light BTW. Also, very smart idea to combine multi-tint/CCT LEDs. Maybe I should do that for my bathroom with some high CRI LEDs lol. The fluorescent lamp currently in makes everything look green.
Because of this, I feel like I look much worse during the evening than during the morning when there’s abundant sunlight.

Have you ever experimented with multi-tint high CRI LED strips setup BTW? I don’t know if it’s a false memory or not, but I have seen you write about it on BLF. Maybe I’m just hallucinating or something.

I’ve been meaning to, but the parts are pricey and I’ve been busy.

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The hole on the center of Ledboard shel is bad to see
when manufactured make a flat surface area?

That does look like a big hole. :wink:

With a big copper DTP MCPCB I doubt such a hole would make much difference. It’s what, 10-15% of the area? and its the furthest from the outer edge and the emitters.

but if they can fix it or smaller will be better

Probably a good point eas. :+1:

I’m sure this was discussed way back in the design phase, before I followed the progress, and the best choice was made.

Maybe someone remembers the reason why they couldn’t shrink the hole another few millimeters.

The hole it’s too large,it can be smaller

That hole doesn’t really have any significant effect on the light’s performance or heat-sinking capacity. There is a thick copper MCPCB over it with four emitters, and the purpose of the shelf is to wick heat from the copper to the outside of the light.

This was considered extensively during the design of the light, the team went with what they determined would work, and it does.

This was discussed 2 years ago. It’s too late now. 2 years too late. Thorfire is not interested.

Sofirn is making a Q8 with small changes, but I don’t think they will alter the led shelf. It’s too late for that.

Sofirn is planning to make a more radical version, v1.5, using a battery carrier. Maybe you can suggest changes to that model. It’s early enough that they can actually do it.

Easiest thing to change in a CNC Lathe, set smaller diameter drill length the same, depth won’t change, reset the speed and feed in the program, takes minutes, smaller drill, means higher rpm and a faster feed rate, shorter cycle time, a smaller diameter drill should be an easy quick change. It’s not like they are circle interpolating the hole.

Two years ago we were concerned about the hole, we got a prototype, ghat one had an unmatched thermal performance, so it was clear: that hole does nothing with the performance of the Q8, it is thermally outstanding.

That’s cool… but was there a reason why it was/had to be so big?

A pic from Reddit.


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That large hole in the emitter shelf concerns me. It may be far from the edge of the light, but it still reduces the total amount surface contact between the MCPCB and the Host. The holes on the 2 BLF Q8's I received are significantly smaller than what is shown above.

But what concerns me even more is what appears to be a step in the shelf. It appears that the shelf is higher starting outside the 2 small holes for fastening the MCPCB. The whole surface under the MCPCB should be flat and true. Is that an optical illusion or and actual step?

Can we get an assurance that the Sofirn Q8's will not be like that?

EDIT: Why are those 2 small holes threaded? Shouldn't they be smooth so that the screws pull down the MCPCB? Seems like there is risk the screws will push up the MCPCB by catching the threads in the shelf holes before catching the threads in the reflector.

It might be that the MCPCB is somewhat smaller than available space. I don’t remember clearly. After all, there is no reason to make it much larger than the LED circle and there is definitely increased cost. At some point, it does not help heat transfer significantly.

Also, my memory might be off but I believe the MCPCB is screwed from the LED side, hence the threads in the shelf (and presumably none in the MCPCB). I’m not sure why that other picture shows 3 screws on the driver side… perhaps someone put the screws back in on the wrong side. It’s the center screw alone which holds the reflector to the MCPCB.

It sounds like we are back in the design stage of the Q8 1.5 year ago. That hole was an idea of Thorfire and in prototypes proved to be of no influence on performance, and as far as I know the MCPCB shelf is as flat as can be. There was a design change between the first and second run of the light in which the Sofirn engineers decided to let the MCPCB screws come from the other side. Also this change had no effect on the performance.

If you doubt the thermal performance of your Q8, measure the output of the first minute (which gives an idea of the quality of the thermal path from led to shell), and compare that to any random light of same output, you will find that the Q8 will show the least output drop.

^

Not sure why the original design is being defended. It's not being called into question. I'm talking about the specific one in Alen's picture.

fixed it, here is a djozz picture. The MCPCB spans the whole width of the thermal pasted area below. The 2 small holes in the shelf are smooth. Notice the threads in the refector for those 2 holes. I'm comparing the above picture to the original design. Can't tell is the center hole is smaller in the below picture. My memory of mine was that both samples had much smaller center holes than Alen's picture.