Well, they beat the HG2's. So when I buy more high amp cells, these are the ones I'll buy. Didn't test the capacity yet on the OPUS BT-3100, but Samsung's have been pretty good. My pair of SONY VTC5's never performed well - could be because of the age. Back when I bought them, don't think fakes were on the market yet. Think'n from high use, charge cycles, etc. Also my EFEST 35A's usually get beat by HE2's or 25R's, but maybe for the same reasons.
I’d like to thank Richard for a helping hand. My eyes and arthritis make micro projects a bear. Richard helped me finally put two solid copper silver plated P60 dropins together. Both are triple XP-L HI leds. One dropin uses Qlite Rev.a 3.04 amps 17mm board with a 16mm 12-7135 4.5 amp slave board. The other uses a 17mm FET driver set for 5 modes and memory. He did all the soldering. Both host using the excellent Toffy switch.
I tested 6 I bought from Richard on my opus—-They all tested in the 2900—–2950 range @ 1amp—I made a matched trio from the 6 capacity/resistance—my first run in a Supbeam K40 down to about 3.4v—on recharge they were all exact 3.41v on start and charged up to within 20mah of each other at full charge— In my testing they definitely hold their own against all contenders
If I need parts asap, is it best to order and wait for the backorder?
I’ve build my first new version C8 and I’m dissapointed… For proper focus, the reflector has to drop lower over the LED which requires a thinner LED spacer or modification of the standard one. This causes the bezel not to properly tighten down - lens / reflector is loose…
I haven’t noticed the body warming up significantly quicker with the integrated pill? Feels very much the same as before to me. I’m doubting the effectiveness of the integrated pill, taking in mind the new trade offs related to LED focusing. By the way, I’m running an XP-L Hi V3 at +–5.5 amps at the tail.
I’m absolutely for the more efficient heat transfer with the integrated pill, but I prefer the non-integrated pill for modification’s sake…
One of my best modable hosts has died.
This really is sad… I’m not going to have a good week…
PS: To get the above fixed, I’ll have to find something in the line of a 0.5-1.0mm thick [20mm wide] copper / alluminium spacer that should go between the pill & MCPCB. Not nice. I don’t want to fiddle with a thicker o-rings on the lens, it will start to look funny as the space increases between the bezel & lens.
I had the same problem with a convoy M2 and apparently it was just my unit. I soldered another 20mm noctigon under the existing mcpcb and it fixed the fitment and focusing issue. However it was too much height increase and now there is a gap in the bezel about 0.5MM, just a cosmetic detail so I left it that way.
Oh and I noticed the M2 focused better without the centering ring (the reflector sits over the mcpcb), perhaps you could try this with your C8.
Hi Will. Thanks for the advice… Having the reflector directly on the MCPCB is too much. I’m going to look into some custom copper spacers… I know Richard is selling 2mm AR lenses for the C8, which I believe is a bit thicker than the standard lens. This might also help.
I was not fond of the thicker o-ring idea, but maybe that could just be an easy solution. Anybody knows of a trusted seller where one can buy a wide range of silicone o-rings?
Thanks Will. Are you using the standard centering ring? The UCL lens is thicker than that of Richard, but twice the price, very good lens though. At least there’s a few options to solve the issue…
+1 
Total bummer guys. So you're saying that you're having problems with the included spacer?
Hi Richard
No, according to my findings thus far, the included spacer is 100% fine. Should you assemble the host with a noctigon, using the included spacer, all tightens down properly, and you’ll get light out the front.
But, we’re not happy with just light out the front. The focus is out… to get the light in focus, the reflector should be ‘lowered’ by means of sanding down the included spacer, or, by using a 3rd party, thinner spacer. As soon as you do this one cannot properly tighten down the lens / reflector because the bezel ‘bottoms out’.
To get around the issue, I believe one has to make use of a heftier o-ring, or, add a thin copper / alu spacer between the pill & MCPCB to make up for the lost height taken away by the thinner LED spacer.
So, in ‘standard’ form, from my experience, the C8 seems to be fine…
Is this only an issue with a dome less or de domed LED? does a normal XPL or XML focus correctly?
Sorry, all my comments are for de-domed LED…
Edit: I cannot confirm anything around focus for domed LEDs.
Well, I think it is true that de-domed emitters focus lower, so that would explain the situation. But, even if you use a thinner spacer and fix the o-ring and/or bezel and/or Noctigon to get the reflector to sit lower on the emitter, how do you deal with the fact that the back of the reflector is flat and is almost as wide as the MCPCB? In other words, what do you do to keep from shorting the LED wires on the back of the reflector, as it is already tight in stock form?
I built two C8s today, one domed and one dedomed. I agree that with the dedomed emitter the reflector needs to sit lower. I am working with Simon at Convoy to try and get a solution. I think that an optional slightly thicker glass would work fine, as we don't really need a ton of extra space. He pretty much said that he's not going back to a separate pill. I may have to get some more XinTD hosts made up.
--------
It's alive! Mega M6 12xXP-L V3 HI. It puts out over 13,000 lumens OTF and gets hot insanely fast despite the large aluminum insert. I am finally getting to the point again where I will be able to offer this light..
There are some guys here when more than enough is just not enough. 
Did you black out the lens around the tir's on the MEGA M6?
What? Never enough??? I've been thinking of ways to get even a little more boost out of this thing! Not that it's lacking or anything.... 
The insert is blacked out, not the lenses. I used some PCBs to mask the spot where the MCPCBs sit then sanded it and painted it flat black. My other one was mirror polished, but I think I like this one more!
It looks really good from your pictures. Being blacked out makes it look really slick and finished of, to me anyway.