You also have to understand that the thorfire will not be making as much per light for this GB, the price will go up after the GB almost assuredly.
That said we could say the price point is $75 and I bet they would still try to cheap out on anything they could, just how things are over there.
Yeah, I understand that fully. I’m glad its not me trying to organize these buys 
I hope nobody who’s put so much work into this build thinks I’m being negative by expressing my pricing concerns, cause I just want it done right and really do appreciate all the effort this stuff takes.
Carry on guys, I’m just hanging out her patiently waiting….
emarked, its more then cool!
never let us fall asleep or rush!
First I think you all are doing a great work.
About the price point, I rather pay 50 $ and get a decent working light, than trying to save same $.
Just my 2 cent.
I agree 100%.
I would like to join the list for this light please. I agree with the above completely. I’m only really interested in the light as originally intended by all of you putting the work into it.
Put me down for 2 please!
Yes will update list later.
We BLF give Thorfire a new classic light that should provide a nice modding platform for BLFers and stock just very versatile for as long as Thorfire makes it. If they do not price it too high it probably will earn them lots
Combined with the almost risk free development (they know lots will sell), free publicity and buzz the Q8 should be a good deal for them thus I see no reason to elevate the price now.
Let’s see what the new engineers do with driver and reflector first
The main reason i joined the GB was the driver!
I ordered 219c´s to replace the XPL`s already. If Thorfire is not capable enough to produce it right i think i will go with Tom E and DB Custom and drop out. The M6 from Richard will cost me a few bucks more but then i know i will get what i want.
I Still hope that everything workes out, but at the moment i am getting a bad feeling.
Hope Thorfire realize that it really will effect the number of light they can sell if they screw it up!
You guys have given them all they need to produce an outstanding light with the Narsil Q8 driver as the crown jewel.
Until the Light is ready we will probably reach ~1000 lights. And when the GB is over they are free to up the price as they see fit. With 1000 sold lights they would get really good word of mouth publicity (hope the term is correct). If the price of the ATTiny85 is the problem (difference for all lights together 1000-2000:money_mouth_face: they should think about what such good advertising normaly would cost and how much money they could make after the GB is over!
Now we have to wait if they are willing to produce something awesome or if they want to mess it up.
Sometimes it appears they are trying to pull defeat from the jaws of victory.
Another way to look at is, if they have to pay $2 for the ATTiny85 and so raise the price to $42, then we have 1000 people sending them $42, which by my math is $42,000 worth of lights. That should be a good reason to humor us.
Never a more true statement made, yet there still seems to be a lack of understanding or comprehension or communication happening. One of the “absolutes” about this GB was that there would be no changes from our plan. We saw the results of that kind of crap with the Cometa and A6, where good designs went bad because of un-asked-for changes.
I can tolerate minor changes (like reflector or lens or color of switch cover or exact bin of LED’s) but if the driver changes I’m out. Too much time and effort was spent in making it perfect and they can dam well copy it or forget about me (and apparently numerous others) buying a Q8.
The proof is in their hands- a functioning driver- so it can be done and they either need to do that or drop the project so we can get someone else to make it. If need be I’ll pay more but I want only the light the Q8 team designed and no other . Maybe it needs to be put to them like that to get them to understand and if you want that phrase put into Chinese to send them I’ll get that for you :smiling_imp:
Phil
Miller, put me in the list 
So, do you have the release data?
Same…don’t change the best part of the light to save money…you will lose business and good business at that. They, (Thorfire) just like every other Chinese manufacturer out there will buy the cheapest part to make the most profit. If that’s the case just stop the group buy. It’s “Our” collective thoughts that brought this buy to fruition, not Thorfires. If we settle for less then that just paves the way for us to get railroaded every time we try to star an endeavor such as this. Just my thoughts…
42k doesn't exactly sound like raking in dough to me. Maybe it's a about right. I don't think it's anything they'll get particularly excited over, just a bit of business.
I have mixed feelings about it all. There seems to be a bunch of negativity over a hand held light that puts out about 5,000 lumens, can easily start house fires, and a company that still seems like they're talking. I'd be surprised if any U.S. based company would be willing to make this at all. I wouldn't. People brushed off the near mattress-fire post that was probably a few seconds from destroyting a member's house, brushed off because "candles are dangerous". It may be only because it's Chinese companies that there's even a chance at this, at any price. Maybe I'm uderstimating the thermal protections, well and maybe we would have them but they might not, so maybe it's still because of being Chinese after all.
Still, no reason not to go for what we want. They might not care much about 42k, but if it goes off well they'll get a light that sells for years fueled by reputation here, could be a a mil in the end.
I’m really wondering about the math involved in flashlights. We seem to be led to believe there are tens of thousands of a particular model made, but from what I’ve seen I consider it highly unlikely that every model we know of has tens of thousands, much less hundreds of thousands, of copies out there. Yes, there are a lot of people in China. They work for peanuts, do you really think these “poor” people buy flashlights? Many live in the cities, the major cities, where everything is lit all the time, who needs a flashlight? Phones have lights built in, a flashlight mode in most, so if you already have much of any ambient, the phone you already have serves as a flashlight in a pinch, we’ve seen it so many times before. In our own culture, take a major football game for example… 100,000 people in attendance, how many flashlights do you think are in the house? Is it common, or rare?
1000 flashlights, in pretty much one order, is a lot, in anyone’s book. I don’t imagine even a billionaire shrugs off $42,000 without some thought, they didn’t get to be billionaire’s by sloughing off money.
Thorfire is not that big a company. If they were, a $2 MCU wouldn’t matter much at all. And besides that, buying this ATTiny85 by the 1000 is much less than $2. ($2.30 buying one, $1.07 buying 2000, that’s per Mouser, seconds ago… for comparison, the ATTiny25 is .95 each by the 2000, not much difference and a lot less memory.)
Hi Franz. There’s no firm release date as yet but we are getting closer.
I must agree with DB Custom that a 1,000 units is a lot of flashlights to a company the size of Thorfire.
In fact I would imagine that a 1,000 confirmed orders would be a big order for most flashlight manufacturers.
Couple that with the fact that they can increase the price after the group buy for their “normal” sales of the light plus the free advertising the group buy generates I would have thought that it is a win win situation for Thorfire even if the profit in the group buy is not that much.
Plus they have the driver design for free that they could use on other lights.
Unfortunately though past experience shows that Chinese manufacturers are prepared to ignore design & performance criteria if it means that they can increase profit by a few cents.
The Miller & team will need to be firm with Thorfire to keep the design & price as intended.
If however Thorfire are adamant that the light cannot be produced to the exact design & performance at the $40 price point then the price can be looked at again as I think most BLF”ers would ultimately be prepared to pay more for a light to the original design & performance, I certainly would be.
Same. I hear the Supfire M6 being tossed around. That’s very cool but I’d certainly rather the Q8, even if that meant more $$.
If Thorfire were reading this entire thread since April, they’d see it’ll pay off in the end. Big time
Hmm why talk about changed drivers?
We have stated the old chief engineering made a changed driver. And that he is no longer working at Thorfire
And that they want to make it as we specified.
And I have not heared anything about a changed driver
And I wrote in this thread before there is no need for speculation of a changed driver
And I wrote before in this thread the Narsil driver it the crown jewel
And we have stated many times, Q8 as specified is a Q8
And it is said numerous times, we don’t rush and slowly get to the Q8 as specified.
So is it not clear what we aim for?
Not apparent that our goal and only light to be OKed is described in the OP?
Or did a changed driver magically appeared in the OP? Please inform me since I have had no intention or memory of putting it there 