I definitely prefer light on the warmer side of neutral. I like the compact fluorescent bulbs for being energy efficient, but they start at a warm white and go to a harsh white. Glad led bulbs in nice warm tints are available at an affordable price now.
Indeed, there is. Blue light activates the IPRCGs, which tells the brain to make wakey-wakey chemicals. In most people. About 19,997 out of every 20,000 people, really. I’m one of those other 3. And, statistically, the other 2 are blind. So I’m … nocturnal. And morning people are weird.
Anyway, the smoke grenade pouch showed up and fits my SRK well. Shipping was stupid-fast too. I ordered on Saturday and it arrived on Monday. Considering USPS has Sundays off, that’s like one-day shipping.
I suppose it sort of fits my BST too, but it doesn’t slide in far enough to reach the bottom, and the velcro is a bit short for a good grip. It’s still usable, but not ideal… a shallower or wider pouch would work better. What this one really needs is a Q8.
D@&$ right Dale, you won’t hear me admitting it!
Nice TK
Tint preference is personal for sure.
I like neutral for flashlights but in the home we have changed all white halogen and those annoying “energy saving bulbs” for LEDs after a few months of living here.
3700K and now I buy warm white from China and these match very well.
Candles give a yellowish light and dimmed during dinner or something it just is a nice atmosphere white cannot give IMHO
I found a likely problem with my Q8 when using short batteries like my solder blobbed 30Q's and BD's. I was testing the light output with 1 to 4 batteries, on both types mentioned above, when unexpectedly on 3 BD's the ouput was not better than on 2 BD's. And this is what caused it:
The springs are loosing tension which caused one battery not to touch the batt+ contact ring on the driver. This may be caused by the one battery test that causes quite some current through the battery spring. The springs are in no way collapsed, they look and feel ok, but they are a bit shorter than before. Perhaps the best solution (I think we want to be able to use these short batteries in the Q8) is the use of bigger springs (longer, thicker wire). Another solution would be a shorter battery tube, but that will limit the battery size range a bit.
So I tried to fix it by sanding the battery tube shorter. I thought that because the head falls fully over the battery tube that that was no problem, but unfortunately the threading on the battery tube has a hard stop at the end, so by shortening the tube I lost contact with the driver 
So to fix that the nice plastic ring had to go and a copper wire was soldered on the edge of the batt- ring
And I got contact again. I get 5725 lumen on 30Q's, like before
Btw, here are the results of the light output on different numbers of batteries. I chose the 30Q because that will be the most widely used battery for the Q8, and BD’s because that is the only lower drain battery (but still pretty high drain though) that I have 4 of and solder blobbed. Outputs were measured after 30 seconds on the highest setting:
Samsung 30Q:
1 cell: 2535 lm
2 cells: 4330 lm
3 cells: 5130 lm
4 cells: 5350 lm
NCR18650BD:
1 cell: 2510 lm
2 cells: 3480 lm
3 cells: 4340 lm
4 cells: 4970 lm
Some notes:
*on 1 BD battery, the LVP kicked in at 32 seconds (output drop)
*the output on 4 30Q’s should be 5700 lumen, as I re-tested later. Two possible causes: This test was done before shortening the battery tube, so one battery may already have had poor contact. And also I did not recharge the batteries after each 30 second run, just added a freshly charged one every time, so 3 out of 4 cells were already slightly depleted.
Interesting. The double springs should lessen the effect of them losing tension correct? That could be quite the pain I planned to use solder blobs.
The springs loosing tension was something I was worried about, the first spring is much taller then the second spring. My guess is that with short batteries the second spring is not even being used, so all the current is flowing through the single main spring. 5A is enough to soften most springs and thus allow them to shrink.
I experienced this in some of my SRK builds during testing before I bypassed the springs.
The only real fix is either to make the inner spring taller or both of them taller to give more wiggle room. Or you can use a much heavier duty spring that can handle the current without sagging.
Hmm this is something to take into account
Wouldn’t bypassing the springs fix the problem? I haven’t done that yet for any light. If it’s a solution, what is required for the job* and is it any more “difficult” than solder blobbing cells? (solder blobbing is pretty easy)
* I assume a very flexible conductor is required.
Yes, bypassing the springs should fix it, although this is something that can’t be overlooked as the light would cease to work if left in stock form.
Bypassing the springs is not super hard but can get frustrating if your bypass wire won’t stay where you want it. You get better as you go. I now make the baypass a bit longer then needed and roll it over the edge of the spring to hold it in place.
Thanks. Too soon to be concerned about it then.
Bypassing the springs is not what we want for two reasons:
- The springs are limiting the current a bit, we are already close to the flat top of the output curve of the XP-L, more so than planned. Even more current will not gain a lot of output and does generate a lot of heat.
- The springs are our fuses, the ultimate safeguard against battery shorts, i.e. they will prevent catastrophies when inserting one of the batteries the wrong way (they will collapse and contact is broken).
Hmm, why not just use “real” button tops?
If someone wants to use solder blobs, they probably can bypass the springs too (and probably don’t care that much about security anyway).
I have no official (unprotected) button top batteries, but they are not that much longer, I fear that over time the same problem occurs.
Hmm and if 1 o 2 springs go weak it could be that 1 or 2 cels are not making proper contact, uneven discharge, shorter runtimes. Yes this needs attention
Would a thicker spring over the small secondary spring fix it?
Has, anyone checked the usable battery length range? I don’t recall it being mentioned. Was this left up to Thorfire?
We need someone to use a ruler and measure how much the springs can move. From light pressure to fully compressed. Then measure the height to the top ring. This should give is a usable battery legnth range.
It should be something like 65mm to 70mm. If the springs are going to loose some of their height over time then we may go from a 65mm minimum height to 66mm. Or something like that.
Anyway, someone should measure this and make sure it’s right.
You can also make a tall solder blob, at least that’s what i have done on some 18650 that came from a HID flashlight battery.
My blobs there seem as tall as the buttons on the single set of button tops i have.
I know its breaking with soldering 101 class rule, but so far it have been working fine in my P 36, though i have now modded its battery carrier with solder blobs so it can also take flat top batteries now.
Where i look from it seem like the mist abundant batteries are unprotected flat tops ( 18650 and 26659 )
Making me wonder why so many flashlights seem to be build for button top batteries.
Couldn’t flashlight makers provide a flat top to button top converter / adapter, sort of like some lights come with a 18650 > 26650 adapter.
For something like the Q8 here just some ring you can but in the battery compartment that will space out the batteries in the top end and so add a button.
I am thinking like a plastic ring with cobber balls in the right places to act as button/spacer.
Here are some possibilities I can think of. Some of this has already been mentioned. But here we go. First, the springs may be too short and/or too physically weak. Enlarging the springs or changing the material to something stiffer may fix the issue. Second, the tube may be too long for shorter cells. Yes, it should be long enough to ensure that longer/protected cells will fit. But, it shouldn’t be so long that only the longest cells will make good contact with the driver board. It might be desirable to both shorten the tube AND lengthen the springs (or make them stiffer). It would be okay if the springs had to be compressed all the way to fit longer cells so that shorter cells can also fit with a little bit of spring compression.
Ideally, the lengths would be such that the compression distance of the shorter spring is the same as the length difference between the shortest and longest cells. So, for a short cell, the longer outside spring compresses until the cell just contacts the shorter, fatter interior spring. But, for longer cells, both the springs would compress all the way down for the cell to fit in the light. Maybe make an extra millimeter or two of initial spring length, so that the permanent compression over time is taken into account.