There are. In most countries you have to use them if plug is placed in public place, or in factory area, even in office.
Also, usually place owner have to add RCD to this lines to protect each potential “idiot”. On big factories we always have safety engineer who should care of each worker and protect them from any damage. If something went wrong and it went to health problems or worth, this person (safety engineer) bears criminal responsibility.
We all here are idiots and safety engineers at same time. Lets protect newbies from unsafe mods.
That is a bad analogy, you would have to try really hard to get any significant shock from a USA 110V wall outlet, they have been idiot proofed for a long long time (floating, 55V to “ground”, if your building even has such a thing.)
Try good hard UK 240V between phase and neutral (also ground connected either at the house or the supply transformer), that will make you wince, or kill you, if you don’t get past maybe 30 milliseconds before the RCD device trips, if you have one (we often still don’t, just bits of fusewire).
Fact is decent 18650s of good chemistry don’t seem seem to blow up like exploding hoverboards, so it is not something I particularly worry about, just a nuisance when it burns out expensive bits of torch drivers or just springs. Has happened to me, and I suspect quite a few more, who thought we were safe but got careless. Not much risk in a single cell torch with reverse polarity protection, but multiple cells in parallel are a different matter, and I don’t think simple inexpensive mechanical protection should be sneered at.
You're right. I am aware of the cell positives overlap the outer edge of the brass ring in some batteries. That's why I made another version for 3d printing for a larger diameter of the positive top button. Or the thickness of the outer plastic may be in the same plane as the brass ring. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2627854
Some of us borrow flashlight to others therefore it is better to prevent it than to treat. This modification cost me 15 minutes of time and now I'm relatively safe.
A idiot who takes security measures at the end of the story becomes the wisest.
[quote=kiriba-ru] Lets protect newbies from unsafe mods. [/quote] Excellent thought
I guess being a Texan makes me recognize personal responsibility, used to shooting guns, handloading ammo and driving loaded down trucks, forklifts, etc. Not much room for error so personal attentiveness is a must. Seems pretty simple to pay attention to how you load cells in a flashlight. Pretty sure a lot of these folks fuel up their vehicles then drive em, so I would HOPE they are capable of paying attention.
I do make mistakes despite being very vigilant.
Loading multiple cells into a torch, perhaps in total dark with cold numb hands, is one of them.
There are two ways to fit a cell into a single cell torch, one works, the other won’t, but if it has reverse protection it won’t do any harm.
For the Q8 there is one way to fit all four cells correctly, and 15 ways to get it wrong, of which 14 perhaps badly so. A simple plastic disc could protect against all of that. Why so resistant to such an obvious safety feature ?
Edit: Do I feel lucky ?
Nothing wrong with too much safety. I think the protection ring is neat and easy to implement. Nice when buying for the family. :+1:
It has been said from early on that these lights will require a button top cell. If you cannot identify the button top positive end of the cell, you shouldn’t be using the light.
2 is 1 and 1 is none. There are a great many lights sold for less than the price of an 18650 cell that could easily allow someone to see what they are doing to load cells into the larger light. No excuses. IF this protective plastic ring were in place, and IF you were loading cells in the dark, how could you be sure you didn’t lose the safety disc in the dark? Take responsibility, make sure you can see what you are doing and do it right the first time. There may be no second chances…
I dare you to get it correct every time.
I have lost the tips of two fingers, and the others are partially numbed by vibration exposure, even when temperatures are warm. I am not an unusual case, and 18650s with added on flat button tops are not at all easy to reliably fumble the right way around in the dark. My solder-blobbed flat tops are easier, but really this is a 1:16 chance of getting everything correct. I am sorry that you continue to be so dismissive of such an obvious, simple, inexpensive little addition. I will make my own and withdraw from further discussion.
So this inner plastic ring would be a tiny bit higher that the brass ring? Keep in mind the brass ring is not level - it's higher on the outside edge than the inner edge. I've sanded a few on a flat surface and it's easy to see that way. Didn't take measurements though, but something to keep in mind.
Also I'd think the height of the inner plastic ring would maybe negate use of the GA flat tops, unless that height is pretty precise to enable them? ThorFire wanted to get rid of the plastic rings because of the extra difficulty added to assembly. I don't think their design of the rings would have been reverse prevention anyway because the height was too low - think even or slightly lower than the brass ring.
The inner plastic piece would fit inside the brass ring centre and be a little bit higher. Less so than the button tops project above the outer edge of the cells.
The button tops of the cells don’t come anywhere close enough to the inside diameter of the brass ring to foul on the plastic disc, I’ve explained that ad-nauseam recently. There is even precious little overlap with the outer edge of the brass ring. Sanding it flat, instead of slightly dished, does seem rather a waste of effort to me, only the outermost few mm make contact.
With the plastic disc fitted in the middle, reversed cells will not contact the brass ring. That is the safety feature. Without it only the wrapper overlapping the base (negative) of the cells might prevent a double-voltage short, if the cells don’t tilt enough to still make contact, which I think you have experienced yourself.
There are 16 ways to fit the four cells, only one is correct, one is totally reversed but safe (reverse protection), 14 have various combinations of reversed cells.
With a central plastic disc all of these would be safe, the 14 wrong ways would all work safely to varying degrees. Without it, all of the 14 are potentially hazardous if a double voltage short were unfortunately to happen.
I did propose this disc weeks ago but it didn’t find favour then, sorry if I seem to be banging on again about it again, but I still do not understand the resistance to at least considering it as a mod. This is the modding thread after all.
I removed the extreme XP-L2’s from my Q8 and replaced them with Nichia 319 emitters. They look nice, the beam profile is good, and my light is running much less current.
For now.
Worthy of mention is that the low thermal pads on the Q8 board was responsible (rather, I missed the fact that it was low) for one of the XP-L2’s becoming damaged. Of the remaining 3, one was put in an Emisar D1. It pulls 9.51A at the tail and produces 2387.4 lumens out the front.
While I agree about being responsible, I think it misses an important part of the problem: most people do not expect a flashlight to be dangerous. Pretty much everyone has some basic sense of the danger of fuel, heavy machinery, guns, blades, chemicals, etc. But people outside BLF expect that the worst thing which can happen with a flashlight is that they’ll drop it on their toes.
I understand the principle of course, and idea of it, just never saw enough details. No, I totally agree with you on this, now that I understand it better. Just an inner insert is the way to go, like you said.
The sanding I do only covers the outer area - been doing about 2/3's of the surface - no need to get the inner area sanded because, like you say, it doesn't make contact. I think the sanding has got to help somewhat - instead of the battery making contact by some very thin edge, a significant amount of the button top will make contact to the ring - it's gotta help, maybe not significant difference, but better. Here's an example of one I sanded:
You can see the shiny section of the brass ring is sanded/polished. When I started, only the outer edge would make contact to the sand paper. The sand paper lays flat on the table top, while I hold the driver and rub it on the sand paper.
I can also understand the non-interest as well though - generally we mod for performance improvements, not for safety. Could be argued this crazy amount of amps, 20+, by itself is not in a safe zone of operation.
If I can buy or 3D print these inserts at a reasonable cost, and install them fairly easily, I would take 20 pieces for sure, and update all the Q8 lights my friends/family have. You would not believe the popularity of the Q8 here at work. I got co-workers buy 1, then buy 3 more for gifting. I count 14 lights bought by co-workers here, and I modded or will mod most of them with bypasses. They would probably be even more popular with this safety feature installed, because I'll only let guys buy them who know tech, and know how to handle it. If it had built in charging, then it would be even more popular for the convenience, though I consider multi-cell built in charging a bit of a risk on it's own.
I could probably get someone here at work to 3D print a prototype piece. Not sure of what temperatures the material should tolerate, but for prototyping, might be worth while. I could use a good 2 part epoxy I suppose. I got a couple good epoxies at home, just have to check about bonding plastic to metal/PCB. If the insert is made with a solid bottom, most of the bonding surface would be the exposed pad around the "Q8" lettering.
Suppose it's possible to screw it down as well, just need to work out positions based on available space on the SMD side of the driver.
Do you have measured lument with the 319s?
It is one of your fully modded Q8, isn’t it?
As the power density of these things goes up, it’s time to think about safe use over the longer term.
Ideas that were suggested during development but not implemented during production should be saved and looked at for mods — this safety ring especially seems a wise addition.
I’m another old guy, I’ve got some loss of feeling in my fingers, and could get in trouble in the dark. I put the little “glow in the dark keyfob” light sources on all my lights. That’s mostly to find them when everything goes black and the earthquake shaking starts, but it’s enough light to tell one end of a button top cell from the other.
We should learn the lesson from aviation — most crashes are caused by someone’s mistake that was made much earlier in the day/week/month, which led to the eventual crash.
Look at “root cause analysis” and “proximate cause” discussions.
Eventually, in some emergency, somebody is going to pick up a Q8 that was set out to illuminate a rescue and
— be perplexed when clicking the button doesn’t seem to make the light come on bright
— dump out all the cells looking for a problem
— shove all the cells back in, and
— have a problem of the kind these plastic rings could have prevented.
Yeah, I know, the universe keeps making smarter idiots to defeat idiot-proofing.
My brass ring is 1.7mm thick. The button tops of my Banggood 30Qs project by 0.6 mm. So for me, I think a 2mm thick disc could work quite well, and could be cut out of e.g. standard 2mm perspex sheet. I have some off-cuts, no need for 3D printing etc. even a run of laser cut pieces from my local supplier would be very inexpensive.
I’ve also been considering how to install built in charging too.
The obvious way is e.g. a TP4056 board in the head, I think there is plenty of room but I don’t want to drill a hole in it for the connector. Perhaps the switch/connector that Convoy use on their BD series could be fitted.
Whereas if I made up a positive connection rod to fit the middle of the tail PCB, run through the centre of the battery tube and contacting the centre of the driver with a spring loaded tip, I could put a charging circuit connection under the tailcap.
I would then have in-situ charging, or a 12000 mAh powerbank, just by unscrewing the tailcap and plugging in my charger. E.g. a £3 LiitoKala Lii - 100 could work nicely as a slow charger, or a USB powerbank.
Maybe even a wireless charging receiver could be fitted under the tailcap too.
I’d quite like a different tailcap, more robust and with lanyard holes. Something like the one on my MF-01. I do worry that a modest fall on the tail might bend or jam this rather delicate piece.
I’ve only had my Q8 for a week, my ideas are still bubbling around, but I am looking forward to personalising it, but not rushing into significant changes. Not even sure I want to bypass the springs, it is a very good torch exactly as delivered.
Makes compelling argument for idiot proofing battery compartment then suggests parallel charging :person_facepalming:
Parallel charging, and discharging, is as good as it gets, assuming you need more than one cell, and start with well matched ones.
Doing it in-situ avoids the risks of replacing cells incorrectly. My thoughts on reverse protection don’t stop it happening, they just prevent incorrectly inserted ones making contact, otherwise they are just dead weight.
That’s how most laptop batteries work, two cells or more in parallel, then series connected, with balance-charging. Look at how e.g. electric bike battery packs are tabbed together, nevermind how e.g. Tesla wire up the cells in their cars.
Parallel is OK. If you don’t like it for whatever reason, you should worry far more about discharging the cells in a Q8 on turbo than trickle charging them up again afterwards.
All of the packs you mention are specifically manufactured and balanced for this purpose and have additional protection circuits. If people cant put batteries in the right way what makes you think they are going to match/analyze batteries in a safe way. I mean look on ebay/amazon at all the batteries with the word fire in the name 
My point is you were extra concerned about unsafe possibilities yet introduced even more potential hazards in the same post! A little ironic
I don’t think I did.
It should be obvious that a Q8 buyer should use a matched set of cells, preferably bought new at the same time as the torch, and keep them together. That’s what I do with every new multi-cell torch, they are individually labelled too.
I discussed in-situ charging in the torch. How is that of any possible concern ? Are the cells such precious delicate objects that only the finest analysing charger should ever be allowed to touch them ?
Give them 4.2V or less at sensible amps and they will be fine. Actually LiIons are about the easiest technology to charge safely and accurately, and they parallel up perfectly.
Take a set of four out of e.g. a Q8, even a random set of unmatched things, and they will all be at precisely the same voltage. Even if of wildly different capacity, they will load-share and discharge (or charge) together in unison.
Please explain what your objection is to charging matched cells in parallel. And why it is such a problem compared to discharging them in parallel. Because until you do, I can’t have a sensible discussion.