interest!
count me in!
great shots thanks for the “firewall”
Amazing beam shots, thank you!
It would have a little more reflector area and therefore a little more throw if the LEDs were farther from center. This is generally true of SRKs. I don’t know if the way they are has advantages. I really like the idea of Siamesing the parabolas together. That seems much better than spacing the LEDs out to get a full circle for each emitter.
I really like this project. It is good work, and it may have an impact far beyond the group buy list. They may have to switch to a simpler user interface for the regular production version, but maybe this one will be an option. It seems that Sky Ray felt they could make more money quicker by competing with the clones than by maintaining quality, and that may have left a gap of unfilled market that this light will fill. $40 seems low for the price, but it is too late to change that, as it would invalidate the interest list.
A lot to comment on here, some goods points. Quality of AR lens vary quite a bit, and yes true - some non AR glass variations as well. I did some careful comparisons though, with/without UCLp lens, and have seen 5-6% gains in lumens, and greater gains in kcd, sometimes 10% gain in kcd across a few different lights. Sometimes I'll even swap a stock AR lens with UCLp's - seen gains on that as well.
I've tried a variety of AR lens, some claiming it's a good one, and UCLp's always beat them - I'm not trusting AR lens, even ones from our trusted retail sources.
There's been a bunch of published test results on AR lens:
Some results and links: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/20748
Very thorough testing of AR lens, and other attributes for P60's: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/19458. This one is very informative, but lots of data to peruse.
Tom could you ask about ultra clear lenses? (Or email me the details so I can do it)
Fritz email will come sorry we were just having a relaxed day at our river and I just know I got the gold medal for drinking beer 
It's not Ultra Clear Lens per say - it's a registered trademark of Chris at flashlightlens.com, info here: https://www.flashlightlens.com/index.php?app=ecom&ns=prodshow&ref=ucl_lens, and UCLp is a plastic lens, but equally high quality, info here: https://www.flashlightlens.com/index.php?app=ecom&ns=prodshow&ref=UCLp_AR.
Actually I tried to help Richard at MtnE to contact Chris about becoming a distributor/reseller - would make it so much easier for us, and save us on shipping (adding to our MtnE orders), but Chris simply did not respond to any of his emails, or replied to my requests, so I assume he wasn't interested.
For our use, it's a different thing - a one time volume purchase. If roughly qty 500 could be bought for $5 each for example, then shipped to ThorFire in China, even if shipping was $100, that's only 20 cents per lens. Hhmm.... Still, it's an add-on cost, thinking in the $4-$6 range.
I could try contacting Chris, but clearly (no pun intended 
) this is a straight additional cost, and maybe not all would agree with the benefit vs. cost.
Hmm $5,20 is a big chunck of $40 
And if he does not want to work with RMM I fear we do not stand a chance. 12,50+% is just too big of a piece of the pie for somebody not anxious to step in, so sorry, but thanks for clarification!
It seems like we are treating the $40 price (including shipping) as a hard ceiling. Thank you for this. I’m sure we all appreciate efforts to make this a truly budget, premium light.
Having said that, I would like to add my own personal preference…
If a slight price increase would translate into significant and demonstrable improvements that could not later easily be done through modding, I would gladly pay it.
So for example, I can do spring bypasses myself, but I cannot remachine the light for better heatsinking.
Therefore, if an additional $8- $12 in material or production costs would produce a light that has noticeably better safety, or heatsinking, or efficiency, or ??, then please do it.
As a reminder, this is just my own personal opinion.
+1 .
Yes I get that
A lens can be changed by almost anybody so IMHO that does not justify 12,5+% of the price.
_to be honest I have a set ceiling of $44 (like the number and gives 10% play room) but for now we are set at $40 and strong arguments must be given for a slight raise 
I hope my dialogue did not put anyone of the driver. I have all sorts of problems working out how they work. I had a mate over to work out how to program a Taskled driver, not to mention a few other lights I have that I dont even try to work out even more.
The ramping mode I would guess 95% of users will use as it just works perfectly right out of the box.
Tom E and others that helped him deserve a big thanks for the effort put in and honestly I dont think he could of made it any simpler with all the different options he has packed into this driver and made it all work without a hitch.
Thanks mate. Personally I’d rate this as the most impressive piece of engineering for 2016 on BLF. :+1:
Wow, Thanx! Actually been working on a couple more features today:
- blinkout out the firmware rev #, maybe not so important for the BLF Q8, but would sure help keep'n track of what light has which, and getting into support issues
- trying for strobe mode access from ramping: dbl-click to max level, then dbl-click again to strobe. Or if already at max level, then simple dbl-click to strobe
Think'n ramping will be the most commonly used, so want everything accessible. Just hope it doesn't clutter things up in the UI - I'm trying to avoid that.
The configuration settings UI is the most trouble-some, because there's no way to do it without a document listing the settings. I would really prefer the ability to do this on a cell phone, tablet, or PC, then download or direct link the light, but, we are not quite there yet to do it economically and easily.
Narsil is up to about 80% used memory for the program, only 20% available for more additions.
Ohh - this is post #2048, which is exactly 2K in computer terms, or 2 raised to the 11th power 
. I only got into computer science because I really liked math.
Nice Tom!
I bet the first real easy to setup flashlight (via for example an app and smartphone screen) will be a future BLF project.
Ha that post count remonds me:
I’am feeling like a flashlight firmware stalker
Main words were “in this light”. Your test stand is far away from SRK host.
Do not forget that thermal trasfer depends on temperature difference. If you have test stand with great heat capacity and just burning leds for few minutes you will be able to see profit in dtp vs non-dtp.
While if you have 40+ watts in SRK host after 15-20 minutes you will get 80 deg.C host temperature and 90 deg.C LEDs temperature and it will be very hard to see any difference in such conditions.
As most short-sightedness people I hate reflectors and like changing them to TIRs if it is possible.
Also I hate all this FET-drivered lights that are not available to gave constant output Hi/Mid-Hi level for long time. Such big light should have enought space to fit buck or boost driver.
I certainly hope nobody is going to led it fet … ehm let it get 80°C.
Even with the now proposed thicker shelf there is a cavity that leaves room for modding in different drivers.
It is not very difficult to get it even hotter with tripod mount.
Put me down for one.
Just one more question - what is pcb size and pcb place (depth) in the shelf?
Yes, and a long one at that. It requires driver/hardware changes to enable communication, firmware changes and writing the smartphone/web app. A fun project but not something that can be done in a few evenings.