Yes, 600 without even a prototype to show is a lot! I hope that Thorfire sees the opportunity and has the dedication to make this into the very light we have in mind.
Shouldn’t we delete the double springs and bypass the springs ourselves, so that we, ThorFire and BangGood are not responsible if some blow up?
(Nobody wants a light that is that tactical, LOL.)
Strange, I thought that had already been removed because of cost and there being no evidence that it does any good for current anyway. I’m not even sure what it was exactly but I agree on normal springs that we’ll bypass if we want to. They are a known to work last resort fuse.
Manker on the X5/X6 BLF projects started with the double springs - I never heard they did not improve current over single springs?? Where was that mentioned? Thought it was pretty well proven they did increase performance over single steel springs, but not as good as bypass wires.
My Manker/GODMES T01 and Manker U21 came stock with the double springs. Sometimes I rip out the inner one, other times I manage to add the bypass wire in with the nested spring.
For my own personal use/opinion, double springs just get in the way for bypass's, because any light that has direct/FET support, I would use high performance cells and add wire bypass's through the springs anyway. I suppose there's greater risks with parallel cells when only some are inserted the wrong way.
Double springs are still listed in the OP - I think this is still current.
Aha yes well the tail PCB is not a real point of discussion now.
So the adaptation to use single high quality springs is easy to do.
Need a size and specs on them though.
Gladly change it, ask for updated specs list to be translated (think we need the new driver parts translated too) and mail that to Thorfire
It is three days holiday in China now so we have the time to get the specs and springs sorted 
Wait - why go to single springs? I am still under the impression for the general Q8 buyers, best to have double springs to reduce resistance. Unless there's something I'm not understanding? I don't think we can assume the majority of Q8 buyers will do their own bypass wiring. I'm sure someone somewhere did some published testing of double springs?
RMM quoted here on the Noctigon Meteor: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/33137/295
"I have tried a few different solutions, and so far I think that the best is to “double spring” the tailcap by adding a fully collapsible steel spring inside of the beryllium spring. The beryllium spring still conducts most of the current, while the steel spring does most of the heavy lifting."
I'm sure the quality and make-up of the spring makes a big difference, as has been reported on, and tested - djozz's spring tests: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/29825
No need to change it, it’s just that I thought it had already been changed. Probably related to post #1530 where The Miller suggested it for the same reason (as a fuse). I don’t really care either way.
Hahaha it read like it needed changing. The less change now the better.
And well the wait for answers and progress is now at least till Monday with the China holiday.
May I direct your attention to the super duper sale pitch Steve and me wrote ROFLOL
Thanks to Jack it is translated in Chinese and I will mail it to Thorfire.
See post 3
And please don’t be to harsh on us, old fashioned guys thinling quality sells itself and needs no overstating
We needed something to convey our idea other then specs since most marketing and management peeps just don’t see opportunity in specs nor fully or maybe even starting to grasp what those specs actually mean. These folks need a commercial text, hence we gave it a try.
The test I read here of bronze springs did say they didn’t conduct as well as bypass, but maybe too well to make a safe fuse. I am not a safety freak. But three lithium ion cells pointed one way shorted with bronze springs to one cell pointed the other way sounds too much like a bomb for me. We know from Texas_Ace’s post that even flashlight people do put one cell in backward. Well designed cells may flame and not burst when shorted, but current forced forwards is another matter.
Whilst obviously never good to short circuit or reverse charge a cell.
With quality cells it shouldn’t matter to much should it?, don’t most manufacturers do reverse charging and short circuit testing down to complete discharge without rupturing, venting, exploding or anything nasty etc etc
It’s one of the many tests in the data sheet that came with my ncr18650 sanyo cells
I’m fairly certain venting is allowed in all those tests. They usually require “no explosion/fire” though. You’d probably survive the event 
The point is that the vents are designed for a dead short, not to have current forced through one cell by three other cells.
The linear approximation is to model each cell as an electromotive force in series with a resistor.
Let us assume these cells have 25 amps. at half of their 4 volt open circuit voltage.
Then the model resistance in series with the 4 V is 2/25 = 0.08 Ohm (Ω).
Shorting one cell would give 4 / 0.08 = 50 A.
The power is 4 * 50 = 200 W.
We suppose that this causes chemical thermal runaway and vents the cell, but does not burst it. It may not even flame.
Then three cells in parallel has 4 V in series with 0.08 / 3 = 0.027 Ω.
Put this in series with the one cell. Then we have 8 V in series with 0.08 + 0.027 = 0.107 Ω.
The current, in this approximation is 8 /0.107 = 74.8 A
The voltage on the one cell is 74.8 * 0.08 = 6.0 V.
The power dissipated in that one cell is 6 * 74.8 = 447 Watt. That is over twice the electrical power, over twice the heat.
The chemical thermal runaway is not linear with heat, the reaction rate goes up much faster than that.
Added: There are diffusion processes that might only go as the square root of the heat, so it is hard to predict. Chemical reactions, as such, go up much faster than the temperature.
An other way to look at it is more linear. The time it takes it to run away is about half as long.
I’ll pull the trigger on one if it’s not too late.
Mahalo
There is the Nitecore type of reverse polarity protection,which wants button top batteries to work and that’s all.If there is not a patent issue,perhaps it could be used such a system.
See these photos of Nitecore MH27, scrolling down the page to see the battery reverse polarity protection.
The rotating tube when screwing it in does not seem compatible with a disc t prevent non button tops to be used.
Hmm
Annoyingis that the new panasonics 3500mAh cells have a side that protudes the wrapper, the old one, AND all my other 18650 cells have the metal covered at the edge by the wrapper. Meaning even put in wrong the wrapper insures no contact with the driver hence no shorts
Sigh, more input from you guys needed here.
(will update interest list later.)
Well, if reverse polarity protection cell-to-cell is so important, it might call for a change in the driver board. If you use the Texas_Ace board, with divided pads for the cells, then you could arrange it however you want using a reverse polarity diode for each battery contact pad. Thus, 1S4P or 2S2P or 4S1P are all possible with the same driver board, without cell-to-cell reverse polarity problems. Of course, you get some voltage drop through the diodes, but it could save your life and property from much greater losses!
Hmm a completely new board design…
I’ll leave commenting on this to Pilotdog68, DEL, Tom and TA for now.
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And well let’s be honest and mention the not so good too.
Got an email from engineering department
First their English is hard to understand and I am sure our English is even harder for them to grasp
1 They mention “noise” due to a component
2 they do not seem to understand how Narsil works.
Considering their office is not at the same location Barry, thus marketing and middle management works they probably cannot view BLF easy.
@1 we asked for more input here.
@2 the English text with Narsil manual is emailed and Barry asked to translate it. Engineering reacted with gratitude.
@2 we have been working on a flowchart to explain Narsil (well “we” meaning Tom E and Joechina as graphic designer)
Hopefully this chart can be made complete to the point it can be mailed to TF soon.
Well, as for a “completely new” board design, I agree that it’s wise to leave it up to those you mentioned. AFAIK, nobody has done any real testing of the TA SRK board yet, but both TA and Tom have been testing the other TA drivers already. Also, another thing I think I remember TA saying about his SRK board is that it won’t need a zener to do multi-series-cell arrangements, because of the way he designed for the Batt- of the first cell to connect on the outer GND ring and the Batt+ of that cell to connect to the first quadrant in the middle, for 1S power to the MCU. The remaining cells each connect to one another and to the remaining quadrants so that the board can be arranged in any of three ways (1S4P, 2S2P, 4S1P).
Edit: Oh yeah, his board arrangement will require that the cells don’t turn against the driver or tail PCB. They must load straight in somehow to stay in perfect alignment with the proper contacts.
I'm confused - the TA SRK board I read about in his OP did not mention 4P, only 2S and 4S? Something I missed? All we care about is 4P - other configs are nice to have.