+1 for the XPL HI 5D
Please Sir, no more soup, but can some kind soul pm me the promo code and special price?
(Who needs food when you can have lumen overload! ) 
Done 
Ohhh, that is Martin's (M4DM4X) code...
Always check his deals first even if you think you got a good deal, I always do now (am I allowed to say that? 
).
The YouTubers offer discounts but Martin's are pretty much always better.
Thanks guys…. 
I’d sacrifice the wife in your honor but then, I won’t know where to find my underwear…. 
Hans anyone noticed if low battery is indicated in red on the switch LED's? Wondering, didn't try yet but noticed the circuitry driving the switch LED's is pretty sophisticated. Trying to reverse engineer..
No, it doesn’t do that. It seems the red LED is only used while charging and not full.
K, thanks! I see a few 3 lead parts plus resistors feeding both wires going to the switch PCB (AUX LED's). Maybe the input from the MCU is going thru resistor(s) and acting as a pass-thru in the other components to one of those wires, not sure. My EE friend I guess is not fond of reverse engineering because if I ask him bout this stuff, he always asks me where's the schematic :FACEPALM:
What would be a good deal price for SP36? I want to buy one, but since I don’t really need it and I already have the Q8, I can wait for a discount to come along, just need to know what price to aim for.
Right now the lowest I can find is $52 on Aliexpress, and I can’t justify this price (Q8 is going for $46 on Banggood right now).
I think a deal of around 45 dollar should come along at some point. But when we discussed a possible group buy pricing some time ago (a group buy did not happen btw), Barry assured me that the SP36 is a more expensive flashlight than the Q8, so do not expect extremely low deals for it.
Curious, do you know what makes it more expensive? Is it just because of the USB charging circuitry? Or the new LEDs are more expensive?
It is mainly the USB charging feature I think. Looking at the circuit board (with my limited electronics knowledge) it is implemented in a proper way.
Another reason can be that the development costs have been higher than the Q8. All expertise that went into the Q8 came from BLF, while for adding USB-charging to the SP36 both hardware and software had to be newly developed by Sofirn.
Best deal is M4DM4X, cheaper than those prices. But BG just added another 4 weeks to the back order date! I got one on order and waited weeks for the Jan 28th stock, now pushed to Feb 24th --- 
Best deal is M4DM4X at BG but no availability. Fortunately I got one in from Ali, ordered back in November, now running 4000K 351D's 90+ CRI.
Yeah, best price, but have to wait a moment 
4 weeks min… I wait 
Good news. My battery holder replacement just came today and it works just fine!! Thanks so much for @Sofirn for the help! Definitely one of the best in customer service!! 
definitely Will buy more lights from Sofirn from now on!!
Tested on my TA lumen tube and get 6000 lumens at turn on and 5400 at 30 sec. It gets very hot, super quick though
Ordered SP36 from Banggood today, will be interesting to compare it with BLF Q8.
It doesn’t have a coated glass, does it? I know Q8 has regular glass.
Not very sure if the glass lens on the SP36 is AR-coated or not.
The BLF Q8 glass doesn't shimmer purple/blue when reflecting off light, so it uses an ordinary non-AR-coated glass lens.
However, on closer inspection of the SP36 glass lens, I think it shimmers a very very light purple, so maybe it is very lightly AR-coated, if there's something like that..
This is my beamshot comparison of the SP36 vs the BLF Q8. (SP36 has the cooler tint)
Good news is BG shipped my SP36 Feb 1st - what happened to the 4 week delay,end of Feb shipping date, no idea.
Bad news is Martin's discount price went up a couple dollars, not sure why. Fin17's deal here is a little better now, which matches GearBest's limited qty discount offered here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/28604/5420. All those prices though are/were within $2.
About the AR treatment - yes, I can confirm there's some sort of AR treatment on the SP36's lens - I can see a light purple, same as d_t_a noted above. Weird they don't list it in the specs though - you think they would want to.
My calibrated readings of the stock SP36 are very close to what Funtastic reported above (6,000/5,400), here's mine:
6,000 lumens at start, 5508 at 30 secs, using a set of VTC6 cells, solder blob tops.
The #'s improved slightly after upgrading the springs to the Blue Be/Cu large ones (~140 lumens).
My SP36 is now running with 351D 4000K 90+ CRI LED's doing 4,320/3,954 lumens (ANSI calibrated).
To be clear, my reading is for the SP36.
Can anyone give me an idea as to why my Sofirn Q8 doesn’t perform as high in lumen output to when first purchased? With a spring bypass I was getting 5000ish lumens at 30 sec and now it’s 4730. That’s after cleaning it with electrical cleaner which got it up from 4400.
I’ve rarely used it, mostly a few bursts of turbo now and then. Never got too hot. Is this normal even with light use?