Series. Yes green protected NCR18650B cells from either FT, or mostly WB.
I would not trust a circuit that could have seen insane temperature, or could possibly haven been dropped on the floor or something. When it comes to electronics there will always be stuff that fails with normal use too.
As for the example with Scott, its obvious the cells have been abused due to excessive heat and seen temperatures above whats healthy.
Considering that protected green Panasonic probably outsell KP and various other brands by 1000/1 (guesstimate), its about 1000 times more likely you will hear about an issue involving those cells.
Until anything is proven with good consistency, we are both just speculating about the durability/quality. No doubt the KP use a better protection in terms of resistance though..
With my light (different light with different driver) pushing around 6,4A, im seeing around 4A at the tail. That means about 45 minutes runtime on high. Probably more like 40minutes since amps will raise when voltage gets lower. I prefer to not drain my batteries to 100% or below 3v. Having some sort of warning is nice IMO. If I were a hunter, I would much rather get a warning 5-10 minutes before the batteries are pretty much empty, and then be able to switch to medium and continue what I was doing with good light output. Id prefer that over suddenly have the light shut off due to the protection circuit. I hate having to worry about a light suddenly shutting off. But thats me..
How high mode works on the Maxtoch driver when modified depends on how much "headroom" the driver needs in input voltage vs emitter voltage. It may not be similar to the driver Im using...
If you modify it for extreme amps, PD/PF cells may have better capacity due to less voltage sag, which will be "converted to amps". So in a light modified to the extreme, yes there is a chance you could get slighly better runtime with PD cells. At least if you run it on high all the time. But like I said, I even prefer regular NCR18650B in my light running 6,4A due to the "battery warning" on high. Most of the people who modify XM-L throwers seems to stop at 5A if not a bit higher. NCR18650B do just fine in a series cell light like that. So I wouldnt say Protected NCR18650B are just for the layman.
If the stock driver can do 8 amps or you find the limits too it, please report here
When you kill the emitter at 8 amps. Please report here 0:)
What driver/emitter/battery combo are you using in the 6amp C8 btw?