Yes, the protected GA that Liion Wholesale carries is good for 12-13 amps. So no problems there. It might have a bit higher internal resistance than unprotected cells, but not much difference. It will still crank out very high lumens along with having longer run times.
Is your o-ring the right thickness?
I thought TK said she was going to tone hers down by changing something in the firmware or software or something. I would like to make mine less bright also but by some other way than with a sharpie.
Yes, she’s going to write new code and reflash the MCU. It sounds like a nice feature for future releases of NarsilM.
Can you reflash your firmware? If not, it makes it pretty hard to upgrade.
Personally I’d just swap leds and resistor. I’d do a custom color combo then adjust the resistor size to the brightness I like. That’s me, though.
It is easy enough to check the available room for the cells. Measure the thickness of the brass positive ring. Take a cell of known length, push it into the tube until the spring is fully compressed, then measure how deep below the end it is. Deduct the thickness of the brass ring, add the length of the cell, and there you have it, the maximum length of cell that will fit your torch, with your springs (standard or modified).
Less than a minute of measuring will give you facts and data.
I'm thinking ThorFire went back to a thicker o-ring. I'm seeing on recent batch #2 lights, it's really tight threading on the battery tube once the o-ring comes into contact. Plus they are lubing the threads lightly (least appears that way) but keeping the o-rings bone dry.
Way back on the earlier protos, I asked them to go use a thinner o-ring, and they did - think the last round of protos had the thin o-ring... Ok, not sure when/where it was transitioned though, think it was round 2 to round 3. I swapped the thick o-ring with a thin one and it was way better, easier to tighten. But the new batch #2's are so tight, I'm afraid to tighten them up even once without lubing the o-ring first.
Yes - the protected GA's from LiIonwholesale should work fine. They perform quite well in a stock Q8 compared to other cells. Used with the stock springs, longer cells compress the springs more, therefore causing a lower resistance from the springs, so they actually do better than you might think.
Oh, the code for the 3-level indicator is easy. It’s already done and works fine. I’m not sure how much is involved in getting it into Narsil though. Setting a single pixel’s color is a much simpler task than putting pixels together into a portrait of the Mona Lisa.
It’s probably worth mentioning that, despite being brighter than the lowest moon mode, the switch LED uses far less power. IIRC it should run about three months on moon mode, or about a decade with the switch lit up. Or more like three or four decades with the switch in “low” mode — way lower than the cells’ self-discharge rate. So, the switch brightness is mostly just an aesthetic thing. And depending on what happens with code, it may also be possible to increase moon’s runtime… up to about a year. That could be a somewhat tricky change though.
Regardless, this is only relevant for people who have hardware for reflashing and don’t mind doing it. That’s like 1% of the crowd.
Can I reflash my firmware? Not hardly. I saw your video on changing the leds. Maybe I could do that. I’m not sure about the resistor. It sounds like a good way to make it less bright. Thanks for your reply.
> a normally reliable sub-contractor had not provide the normal level of excellence in a batch
I get tired of the old “we did not bother to do QC to check the sub-contractor’s work” excuse.
But that’s just me.
> observe the very small contact between tube and driver, right at the outer edge of the driver.
> This is where the first batch sometimes had problems with the drivers not sitting flat, or otherwise
> having poor contact.
Yep. Put a dab of conductive lubricant on the shiny end of the battery tube, tighten it, and see where it contacts the driver edge.
I found very minimal contact on mine because the driver screws were so tight they had warped the driver circuit board. Which probably means the circuit board was not contacting the shelf underneath.
Looking at the tube where it enters the head, how many of the little diamond etch groove shapes are visible?
Mine makes contact when three of the four rows diamonds are still visible. In the picture above, showing the O-ring, there are four rows visible; one of those is covered by the head when mine is tight.
I've been swapping resistors to lower the brightness, which also lowers parasitic drain. Also some other LED colors are not as bright as green.
Using my hand crafted switch retaining ring tool, it's easy for me to get access now:
The code to drop the output level is tied to having the main LED on or off, which is good for that application of use, but not what is being asked for here - unconditional lower output.
The code though looks simple enough to drop in, just a matter of making it configurable or not, and how to apply it. Many of us have already used resistors to lower the output, so there may be no need, or use, to lowering it further.
I could envision when using blinks of the switch LED, use the brighter setting, then when it's serving as a locator LED with the main LED OFF, use the less bright setting.
Er, about making the switch LED dimmer with ink… it’s actually a pretty good solution. The power drain is so low that it doesn’t really matter, so it’s not like it needs a different resistor for the battery’s sake. Either way, the battery’s self-discharge is a bigger factor than the switch LED.
Just remember to recharge it every few years and it should be fine.
Since the switch is bright enough to see things across the room with dark-adjusted vision, I could simply leave it on my nightstand and use the Q8 as a night light. It’d last at least 5 years per charge.
Do you mean Djozz’s video?
I’ve taken pictures of led swaps, but not a video of it.
1st batch
Thin o-ring is place I measure apprx 50.10 mm +/- diameter, kinda tricky since it is so easy to squish down (soft).
No, I tried all 3 o-ring sizes/ lubrication/ both slots on the battery tube…nothing worked except without any o-ring.
It doesn’t really bother me to not use an o-ring as I won’t keep my Q8 in or near any water. But everything else works fine aside from this small issue 
Neatly done. And more elegant than the Sharpie idea 
This is pretty weird - not sure I can explain it.
Guess the o-ring could be up against the protruding threads of the head, and forcing it further would cut or destroy the o-ring? It's like the battery tube side is too short, or the driver is too deep and the o-ring acts as a blocker.
Still check if the driver is straight and not tilted.
Too bright switch led, it is just two clicks to turn it off
No the driver is leveled.
My battery tube must have probably been manufactured with a tiny degree of error.
It’s not the diameter we are talking about, it’s the thickness. 1/16”, 3/32”, 1/8”, etc…