I love that hood feeling! 
Hahahahha:D
Damn g
Yeah we can’t wait what Tom finds inside!
Looks fantastic!!! :+1: … 
Well Tom kind of stole the Q8 thunder with that monster light. Where do we sign up for that? What does that get like 2 seconds on turbo before meltdown protection kicks in?
Tom I would think with that many LED's you could purposely misalign them in a symmetric way, like put them all on a radius from the middle that's 0.5mm too large, and this would likely solve the hole in the beam. It would ruin the hearts and daggers symmetry though. It may also end up with a dark ring around the middle. Of course that only requires remaking the ledboard lol.
Yea, on VTC6's @4.20V I hit 37K @start, and then 10 secs later it dropped to 33.5K. 10 secs is about the limit I'm using. Outdoors, a little longer.
I certainly ain't touching those wires again any time soon - I knew the wiring was gonna be the worse part, and it was. I almost seriously considering buying another one for like $62 off of eBay, and using XHP50.2's this time - that would solve the donut hole. Actually the beam pattern looks great on a white wall - much more evenly distributed than the 3X, 4X, 5X lights -- accept for the black hole of course...
I'd also like to measure tail amps on that light, but for that, I'd have to do a bunch of cuts and jumpers on the tail and wire in a big thick wire or 2 to hook a clamp meter around. I'm think'n it's over 40A for sure, for 45A it would be 15A per cell, maybe 300 watts for the 2S3P, based on djozz's tests here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/30860/275, if I did the math right.
Put me down for one, please.
Can I be added to the list please. Looks amazing so far!
Looking forward to the Tom Test.
I still say, when and if the Proto is approved, they should send out 20 or so units first to get a feel what the production units will end up like. If they end up having some problems, it’s a lot easier to fix 20 units, and address any changes in production and QC, than it is to have 1000+ units out in the wild with problems.
I’m not talking about sending out 20 free flashlights, just picking 20 or so volunteers to pay, receive the light, and report back. Then if all goes well, let it fly. I’d volunteer for the cause.
I’d be happy to be a paying reviewer, as long as any early defects are replaced for free.
Sweeeet!
That is actually an excellent suggestion RobertB. I too would be happy to possibly “take one for the cause”.
This is the UltraFire 4-L2 I bought to play about with & get a feel of a soda can type light until the Q8 was available.
It is the same head & tube dimensions as the Q8 so they are pretty standard on this style of light, but 15mm longer at 150mm, due to the raised lip on the tail cap for the lanyard slots.
It was $36 so nearly as much as the Q8 but not as much output at 3300 lumens on start up on 30Q”s & only 3 modes H,M,L.
It has onboard USB charging & displays battery status via the numbered readout going from 9 down to 1.
I really like this light but with the greater output & much better UI the Q8 at $40 will be a real steal :+1:
Will update list later
Idk if 20 pieces count as production samples or prototypes
?
I get the idea and we take it with us.
Ian, what does it do after 30sec and a minute on lumens and heat?
At 30 seconds it has dropped to around 3000 lumens at a minute I don”t know as I haven”t measured it but can do later on today.
On high it gets warm but not uncomfortably hot.
It pulls about 10A on high.
Mitko recommended this light to me as being the best stock budget “SRK” type light out there at the moment.
Being aware of all the poorly built, fake emitter SRK type lights out there I had been reluctant getting one but went with his recommendation.
He was correct :+1:
It does have genuine XML2”s & a better than average build quality.
Myself & Teacher have one each & we are very very pleased with them.
I expect the Q8 to blow it away in all departments though 
20 lights is the safe way to go …
I’m in too for testing a final production unit .
Hopefully TF understands the value of the suggestion from RobertB. Rather than being one of those anxiously anticipating the opportunity to fine tune the proto, I am at the other end of the food chain. Being an early adopter has never appealed to me, I would rather take advantage of a mature and ‘fine tuned’ design. Shipping roulette and adjustments are less interesting to me. I have survived until now without the Q8, happy to wait for my 5 x Q8.1s, Q8.2s or whatever, enjoying the fruits of other more qualified evaluators. I am here for the learning experience more than anything else.
Yeah, 20/1000 does seem like a small sample size. It wouldn’t be enough to ensure quality throughout the entire run of 1000+ lights. If we do ask for a production sample, it should be a larger number of lights. But, it’s going to slow things down quite a bit in the production facility if we do that.
However, the way I would ‘count’ whether they were production samples (versus prototypes) would be whether they were made in a production run. You set up the line and make multiple lights, all the same. And all the lights that are made in that run, whether it is a run of one day or a week, constitute a lot. If you take some of those lights and ship them out, then those are a production sample. A prototype is, generally speaking, run down the line by itself. The work stations have to be set-up to make that one light, then changed to another set-up to make something else. It is a lot size of one piece. There’s no continuity.
Hello.
I would also like to be on the list for the BLF Q8. Many Thanks. I hope this is right here in this thread.
Best Regards, Hardware
Yeah idk how production goes and doubt if we ever know.
In my mind I see big machines doing lots of automated work like chip placement, flowing, cncing.
Then I guess they have a machine for making of housings for test samples so a new light and prototype work won’t interfere with general production
Feeding, programming and working the real production machines doesn’t seem logical for just 20 or even 100 so I guess (guess!) a smaller run as test would be made how prototype and internal test samples are made thus won’t be comparable to the actual production.
Based on this I think next steps are:
Waiting on proto V2
If correct, proto V2/3 production for the teammembers , packaging tests and reviewing of those.
If good (we have a batch of 7 then) and confirmed that before shipping - right after making each light - the QC test we specified (actual turning on so DOA problems can’t happen and mistakes can be fixed directly) is conducted we can move forward and make it available. It would be the most thoroughly executed ramp up to a BLF special like this IMHO.
Welcome to BLF!
Will update list later 