Good idea I was thinking the same a set of cells would be great .
I’m sure most people have found out by now, the Sofirn is for sale now at aliexpress for the discounted price, by following the instructions in the OP. For completeness I wrote an update in the OP also.
For the Amazon buyers it will take another week before the lights are there.
Ah, I’ve been checking out Amazon everyday to see if it gets listed. I guess I can chill out a while. Lol
Yeah!!
Still interested of course. Dunno if I want Amazon or Ali tho. I think I’ll go with AliExpress thanks
It worked, my C8 is ordered, thanks for the deal 
It’s cool to see this light getting another round of excitement. I love the two Q8 lights I have and use them pretty often around the house and property. I sometimes turn it on and am amazed at all that power and quality for such a good price.
Question: Will the 8-cell tube just allow for extra run time or is there a bit of a power benefit?
Interested. Amazon US please.
PBW, there may well be a bit of power gain for the 8 cells simply due to the lower sag rate of 8 cells vs 4. 
(Guesstimating, not exactly sure that the 8 cells will be in parallel in the same manner as 4 cells.)
A bit yes, but if the springs are bypassed you are with 4 cells already running the XP-L’s near the flat bit (top) of the output curve so more current will give you more heat and not a lot of extra output.
Add 2 lights for me, Amazon DE
Mostly run time, but since it will use carriers you could adjust it to run at higher voltages. Swap the mcpcb and you could get some really high outputs.
While the temptation is there to make the Q8 have massive output, don’t do it. Bump it if you must, but the huge gains bring huge heat and makes the light almost unusable. I know, I know, but it is what it is…
Just out of curiosity: Will the long tube of the Sofirn Q8 fit with the BLF Q8? Will those 8 cells in the long tube work in parallel or in series? Thank you!
The v1.5 uses carriers. I guess they can adapt the end to thread on to the regular Q8 head. If they use the same emitters, 3v xpl, then the carriers have to be in parallel. So you have the same voltage, but more run time.
Of course carriers can be modded to give different voltages. If Sofirn made a head that used 4 x 6v xhp70.2 then they would probably make the carriers 6v and they would still be in parallel.
This is probably a topic better discussed on the v1.5 thread.
Maybe Sofirn can give more info on the extended tubes.
Thank you JasonWW. You are right, this topic should better be discussed in the corresponding thread for V1.5.
With the AliExpress order after I type my message asking for the BLF discount how do I send the message?
Go into your orders list, click “View Detail” next to the Order-ID and there you have the text-window at the bottom
I happened to run across this picture by Khas. You can ignore the color differences because that’s not relevant. You can see the smaller and tighter beam of the XPL HI. It’s not a big difference, but you can still see it.
Im interested in 2 please