4x26800 or bust for me
Ohhhhh, that’s not a good idea. I remember Convoy threads where poor Simon asked for opinions on a light, and people wanted throwy and floody, CW and WW, reflectors and TIRs, 10ec MegaTurbo and sustainable high, and the poor guy probably wanted to lock himself in the bathroom and cry.
Ask 10 people for opinions, and you’ll get 27 different answers.
Was wondering who’s Umuk, then I got it.
I was thinking 1×46800, 4×21700, etc., with the body carved out to fit the biggest config, and tight minimalist carriers to fit various combos. But 1SnP so that a conductive spacer can just be dropped in the bottom of the tube to make up for length.
A Q8 only needs a coupla more mm to fit 46800, so that shouldn’t be a big issue.
Not quite true. Lots of us have dedomed 519a. I dedomed 26 of the 28 ones that I have.
That said, there isn’t much discussion on how to dedome 519a, because it’s the easiest LED to dedome ever. Just heat the led a bit, then push the dome off with a toothpick and done. Perfect dedome!
Well, yah, okay, I overgeneralised. Was referring to Way Back When, not recently.
I was referring to the general headaches of trying to dedome older emitters like XP-Gs and -G2s. I even remember the big hoo-ha about solvents, and how someone “discovered” the bestest most reliable way to do that with some mixtures of solvents and maybe heat, The Perfect Technique, yet wouldn’t tell anyone what that technique was, and the hard feelings people had about “hoarding” that info.
Basically, those discussions were a Big Thing way back.
Blf I love you all to me you all are my brothers & friends and I consider you as my true and close family.
If it’s true that BLF is dying (god forbid) a huge part of soul will die with it.
I wish all the happiness and the good health and good fortune for all of you my big universal family
ヾ(＾-＾)ノ
Agreed, at least 27 answers from those 10…. if not more. :person_facepalming: 
That will be the case whatever the project. 
Yeah, good call, an epic BLF exclusive GB really gets discussion and excitement going, I love it. I’d love a BLF headlamp and adjustable tint with Andruil
Hi everyone, thanks a lot for the insightful comments.
So, the 800 pound gorilla in the room (or whatever the idiom is supposed to be) is Reddit. As a platform, Reddit is obviously much more modern. But it also has a lot of fundamental design decisions that in my opinion make it far inferior to a traditional forum. So I honestly don’t see it as competition to BLF even if it does get tons of traffic, since there will always be lots of users that don’t like Reddit as a platform. As a community, Reddit as a whole is a patchwork of subreddits with authoritarian moderators and highly toxic users that get rewarded with upvotes for being jerks, whereas other subreddits are much more friendly. I don’t have enough experience with /r/flashlight specifically to comment on them. But I do agree with many commenters here who feel that in general the up/down voting mentality on Reddit tends to favor witty and snarky comments by users with questionable motives over comments by real down-to-earth sincere posters. And the arcane threading behavior and ephemeral nature of posts tends to bury valuable comments, which to me just doesn’t feel like it shows respect to the commenters.
Hmm. This is rather complicated. The problem with reprimanding or banning users that are borderline violating the rules is that the user in question and others too will invariably view it as unfair and cite numerous examples of other users that they view as showing similar behavior that wasn’t handled. And that sort of behavior is highly subjective as to whether it really is problematic or not. I do take very seriously clear violations of BLF Rule #1 and a number of users have been temporarily or permanently banned for starting fights and being extremely offensive. But I understand that depending on your personality and the other user’s personality, even less serious behavior can be annoying. I would strongly encourage everyone to simply not engage at all with users that you perceive as being problematic. If someone really is trying to troll us or cause mayhem then they’ll quickly get bored if they find themselves in a virtual echo chamber with nobody reacting to them. I’m not shirking my responsibility as the only moderator here, but I do think it’s important for everyone to know how to react to prevent troublesome users from even getting a foothold.
I’m not convinced that this is happening on a regular basis here. But it’s fundamentally a very good point that we definitely should not allow to happen here. The same goes for what was mentioned about treating manufacturers with respect. That was largely what helped BLF get started, because our policy was and still is to be open and respectful to commercial sellers to forge good relationships with them. If they get out of line or willfully violate the rules then they will be reprimanded and eventually banned. But those that are allowed to operate here deserve to be treated with respect, and that will benefit us all as a forum and for our hobby, and it will foster normal human decency that is so lacking in this world.
I also agree that the BLF Special Edition projects were a huge key to our success. It would be fantastic if we could keep coming up with ideas. They don’t necessarily have to be the next BLF GT, it can be as simple as requesting the addition or deletion of a pocket clip, or a special BLF color, or the addition of glow-in-the-dark O-rings together with a special BLF discount if X number of people commit to buying it.
Thanks again to everyone for this useful and mature discussion!
I like reading everyone's points of view on the the subject.
Thanks for weighing in, sb! 
Thanks for the insights sb! BLF seems to be very well-managed and moderated, and is generally much more welcoming and helpful than many other online spaces.
It may not be as active as it once was, but I don’t think BLF is dying, nor does it seem likely to die anytime soon as the hobby is still quite popular. Mods and forum-designed lights aren’t as common as they used to be, but this is still a great place to go for information and reviews from many different viewpoints that can cover different use-cases. Elsewhere on the interwebs I still see people linking to BLF pretty frequently.
However Reddit has eaten a lot of this site’s traffic. Just to throw my own experience in, I find Reddit is far superior for the more ephemeral stuff, not everything needs to stick around forever. It’s nice to have a place to ask a simple, quick question, or to post a dumb meme and generate some fun discussion. What’s most valuable to me is the tiered-comment system, which makes organizing threads far easier, and unhelpful/toxic comments quickly get buried or can be collapsed and ignored. Meanwhile the traditional single-thread forum system can make sifting through threads very tedious.
On the other hand, BLF has the massive advantage of longevity, which is really important for informational threads and ongoing discussions. Longer written posts, such as reviews, are much better here.
So yeah, Reddit is great for most of the basic questions and simple posts people make, and has rightfully taken much of that traffic, but BLF serves a very important role in the hobby and I doubt it will die in the near future.
For me the biggest annoyance are the occasional toxic and or unhelpful comments, it’s very annoying when threads are derailed or evolve into pointless arguments. Thankfully that doesn’t happen often, far less than other forums I’ve read, but it does really turn me away from the discussion at times when it’s over-filled with distracting comments.
IDK if this can be done but I would really love some sort of subthreading system, where replies in a thread can be linked to each other, and then collapsed if they aren’t useful to the reader. Not a tree system like Reddit, just a standard single thread like the current system, but with relevant replies linked to each other. Even just having the ability to collapse single comments so they don’t take up space would be useful.
I guess that depends. Now that I have no log-in and don’t use an app, the mobile site is highly irritating. It constantly tries to get you to download an app.
If a post is not relevant to you, you can still scroll on.
A collapse feature will add complexity to the usability and call for display errors on different browsers.
What about a “skip” button that scrolls to the beginning of the next post?
Can be made with the # fragment in the HTML, but then that has to be on top of each post and once you decide in the middle of reading the text to skip, you’ll have to scroll back to the top of the post or scroll on, anyway. So, a skip feature does not really make a big lot of sense and the same applies to a collapse feature.
Making this with a CSS fixed button or even worse JS, will call for a big box of compatibility problems.
.uk 
We mostly have discussion about new released nightvision devices, issues, repairs, IR lights etc. Modding(DIY nigh vision devices) really died at that forum. China manufacturers nailed it …
In our BLF case modding will never die! Why? No matter how good they are made; brand flashlights also tends to fail(especially hunting lights under heavy rifle recoil). So I guess someone will always need repair or learn here how to repair or improve it 
Well i came here as i wanted to get a few flashlights, and thought i better educate myself a little first, and lean on more knowledgeable people.
I now have all i need aside for a LEP, which i am in no hurry to procure.
So i dont drop in as often anymore
@sb, you make a good point, and I just realize something.
We don’t ping you enough. That might be why issues are passing under the radar.
I realized, i got every light i needed in the last ~9 years of membership. 
So i am not as frequently here, as i used to. Additionally there is a modern trend for lights with electronic side switches, which i don’t like. I like the (antique style?) mechanical tail switches and side switches only for switching modes etc. I know, i’m a lost reminiscent - i still prefer P60-lights! 
PS: BLF won’t die - Basta! 
I’m surprised you weren’t banned for even broaching the subject …
Mr administrator is a kind sole . Personally I would have had you keel hauled ,drawn and quartered or burned at the stake using many, many, many flashlights . Eventually throwing into the fire batteries that never made it to recycling
who doesn’t want to throw 18650’s in a fire ?
Blasphemy Burn the heretic