I guess I’m being picky here, but the above is incorrect. The XPL-HI are not dedomed, they are domeless. Dedomed implies they originally had a dome which now has been removed, usually resulting in horrible tint shift.
Sorry, should have mentioned - nice review! Thanks!
Couple minor issues/questions:
- you mention the light is powder coated. That would be pretty bad if it is. Pretty much all these lights are anodized, not painted. Anodizing bonds into the metal, resulting in a strengthening of the surface.
- as Mike C says, we call these type of LED's "factory dedomed" sometimes, or simply XPL HI's, by their true name - domeless
- you did mention the BLFQ8 - could you take a side by side pic of the two?
- could you take a pic of what the driver contact side looks like? You should get easy access to it.
- is the bezel true Stainless steel like the Q8?
- you mentioned the ring around the switch is aluminum. The Q8's is SS - are you sure of the aluminum?
- compared to the BLF Q8, do you have pros/cons?
Thanks!!
Any owner know if the bezel is SS like the real Q8? Can’t tell from the pics or specs.
Yes … The bezel ring is SS. I am not equipped to dissect my light but I must say the build is top notch in my opinion, I own three O8’s to which I base my comparison. All in all a very nice homage to the Q8 “King of Can lights”.
Interesting knockoff that looks nice. Surprised the promo period already ended especially considering the Q8 is still on sale for $45. Nevertheless the slight update over the Q8 with the usb charging is demanded by many but IMO the silicon flappers they use to seal them never, ever work as intended and the IPX7 rating is really IPX6. I’d never purposefully submerge a silicone flapper light. Watched a video of a guy who destroys his Olight X9 testing it’s water resistance in a 1m pool. Flashlight filled with water and I expect the same result from any light with a silicone flapper.
Other than that, it’s a nice light and hopefully a compliment to the Q8
weklund - thanks for the info! Could you take a pic of the contact ring, driver side facing the batteries? Wondering if it's screwed down, glued, etc.
For under $45, I'd buy one, but at $75 - little pricey... Ohh wait. I see a $25 coupon right on the page, interesting.... So $50
I didn’t get an answer on Facebook yet, though it says the question was seen 3 days ago. So I asked on Amazon. Amazon’s question system is awkward at best for this kind of thing, but maybe it’ll work? If not, I can try some other method.
Yea, searching I can't find anything on the brand name, not yet, but funny this DC7 model was listed back in January so it's been on Amazon for a while.
Easy access … screwed not glued. I loosened the screws on mine and the contact plate is free.
Ahh, that's cool then. In the upper left I see a board mount, probably for the USB-C connector.
If you got it loose anyways, is it loose enough to pull out and take a pic of the other side? Don't try unless you are comfortable with it - don't want you to risk messing anything up. Ohh, do be carefuly with those screws. They tend to strip easy, usually...
Here you go …
Ok, thanks again! It's clearly our FET+1 design with the good 7135, just not sure of the MCU - can't make out the labeling.
Yeah, I can’t tell either. With the USB port pointing south, it looks like there’s a FET and a 7135 to the west, a 14-leg MCU in the center, and some other 8-leg chip to the east. I can’t tell what the center or east chips are. It looks like the 14-leg chip is probably in control though, since it has traces going to the FET and 7135 chips… so either it’s not running a derivative of Narsil, or they did some work to port it to another MCU.
Just got mine today, pretty nice. Only tried it with 1 cell from my MH20, so didn’t crank it up to 11 or anything, but the basics seem to work.
Curious, what’s different about the UI, that Airpro wanted to “simplify”, vs the Q8?
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Just ordered another as a spare :person_facepalming: , and would’ve gotten yet another to gift if I could’ve snagged ’em at 43 vs 51.
Still, build quality looks nice, threads are nicely lubed and gliiiiiide nicely, tint/color is pretty good… all in all, I’m happy. 
A Q8 with USB charging would make a perfect gift :+1:
But this is in dire need of experts opinion of quality of the changes, for example a “breathing” led button did not seem necessary and may introduce unnoticed problems.
I dig the Green Eye that never sleeps … great for the nitetime locator. I am very pleased with mine so far.
That’s my only gripe. I hate “breathers”. Constant-on, or beacon, great. Breather, nope. Turned mine back off again.
Nighttime, that “movement” would just be too distracting. Even the “beacon” on my MH20’s switch is too distracting.
Constant-on tailcap of my Cometa (or Q8)? Just fine. Go figure…
They “Simply” didn’t want to give credit due for license of software so they pretended to have changed it
Wellp, it’s got a “breather” sideclicky instead of constant-on like the Q8, and I don’t recall any battery-check option. I found some narsim “cheetsheets”, and yeah, it looks like a PhD dissertation vs the DC7’s manual/options.
Frankly, I managed to get it into stepped modes (vs ramping), and could only manage to go backwards with a long-press. Too short, and it just shuts off (duh). So back to ramping…
Hate “breathers”, so the only other option was to keep the sideclicky turned off. Oh well…
So… quick braindead ramp-up/ramp-down seems fine to me. Shortcuts to lowest/highest are great, too. Probably all the other stuff was edited out for the “simple” version of the UI.
Seems like they tried to copy NarsilM, but couldn’t do it perfectly.
If it’s all freely available in source, wouldn’t it be easier to just pilfer it as a whole, than to try diddling with it trying to copy it one feature at a time?
If they did start with narsim, they might’ve just lopped off parts they didn’t want to bother with, to muggleify it.
Anyhoo, up/down/lowest/highest is fine with me. That’s pretty much all I ever do with my real Q8.