My calipers aren’t very good (good enough for reloading where exact precision isn’t needed) but I’d swear one of the tubes is ever so slightly shorter than the other one. Being analog (and did I say cheap?) calipers I can’t be entirely sure but I’m almost positive that there’s a difference. At a minimum one has an extra row of diamonds (see Hank’s post) below the top of the tube.
Got my Q8 today, Canada Post left it outside. This is one hefty flashlight.
The default setting for strobes should be “all”. So all 5 should be there.
I have 3 Q8’s and 1 from the first batch.
The first one is buttery smooth screwing in.
Both others are hard to screw in and the o-ring or construction is different and most of the time the o-ring gets wegded out.
I made a pic of my batch 1 tube and 2nd and as you can see either the o-ring is thicker on the 2nd batch or the tube is and there is a row of diamonds cutout on the first one
Reyman, what if you switch orings?
Are the tubes interchangeable?
If they already have issues...
why would you send them PMS?
It's like adding insult to injury. 
Is this rough edge in line with other batch #1 Q8’s, I don’t recall seeing any this bad before. Easily solved and not an issue for me, but the quality checks definitely failed at some point for it to go out to a customer in this state.
Perhaps the lesson from ‘defects’ like this (stripped, inferior screws, etc., uneven switch leds, etc., specially from the first batch) is that the Testers of a project should not only approve the prototype versions, but should also be sent samples of the PRODUCTION version for approval prior to full production.
Do I hear this in the GT? Hint…hint
Just my .02c
rayman - ok, one other person is seeing the same thing I man 
. I took similar pics, didn't get to upload them though.
For the finish on the battery tube contact edge, yep, that's common in batch 1's unfortunately. I do two things:
- 600 GRIT paper on a smooth bench/desk, and rub the battery tube, contact edge down, across it, rotating frequently
- take a small piece of higher GRIT paper (depends on the how much is needed), rub the edge - that smooths out that bumpy interior edge
- final 2000 GRIT to smooth/polish it all out
Batch 2's seem to have a finished beveled edge on the inside - much better. I noticed this last night. Good sign that ThorFire is seeing these issues, and making the improvements.
Doing this might have added 2 or 3 extra months delay because TF moves so slowly. Plus TF seemed to be losing interest in the project if I remember what the Miller said. So since the last prototype was so good, the decision was made to start production. So the Miller was in a tough spot.
The GT is a different situation as it’s being made by Lumintop and they are working much quicker. So doing a check of a production version might mean a much smaller delay.
True, but , many of the messy assembly issues we won't see til they make large batches. Normally I'd like to see a 5-10 pre-production run which is what we had effectively had with the round 3 protos (7 pieces I think), but small design/parts changes got snuck in later, and only when they really geared up to full production did we see the result of short-cuts being made in assembly -- that was solved though by them firing the supervisor who ordered the assemblers to dis-regard the engineer's advice. There's only so much we can do without being there and looking over their shoulders. And even being there, it's not easy if engineering, parts fabrication and assembly are at distant locations - not sure if that was the case here, but it happens.
Yeah, as you said, “since the last prototype was so good, the decision was made to start production” —- while all these was decided in good faith and expectation, the additional time needed to assess the Production version could have exposed potential problems.
Good grief the problems of the Q8 were insignificant to the majority as not to demand returns/refunds, but the delay is a small price to pay should problems arise in the production version.
Imagine demand for returns/refunds for a 2kg light in the GT….God forbid!!
Those 7 third round prototypes were the production prototypes. But despite our explanation beforehand what a production prototype is (even though every manufacturer should already know that) they ignored that and made numerous changes (bad changes and even some good, in the second run, quite random) in the large scale production :person_facepalming: So the way it went is as good as it got with Thorfire, not much to improve for a BLF-team.
It’s either production or it isn’t. It’s not production if they only make 20 as you won’t have the same assembly line and workers. And if they make 500, you can’t really expect them to trash all 500 if the “samples” are not ok. That would be fine if they were making millions but not for such a limited run product. So I think the team made the best of it given the circumstances. Otherwise, we would have had a 60$ light instead of a 40$ light.
The extra delay might have ended the project and the Q8 would not have happened at all. That was part of the reason the Miller gave the go ahead.
………yeah, not much to improve for a BLF-team, and I never imply anything to the contrary…as you very well-said “But despite our explanation beforehand what a production prototype is (even though every manufacturer should already know that) they ignored that and made numerous changes” —- this explains everything in the Q8
However, my Production version check suggestion is for the GT already, but, as member fixed it rightly pointed out…it’s will not be simple as it looks.
Not to mention that everybody was warned that Chinese companies often change things from an approved design to the production run without prior approval from anybody. The Miller and the Q8 Team did all that could be done to minimize that. But the supervisor did what the supervisor did, and got fired for it! What more does anyone here want? It was even mentioned that only people who are fine with some defects even all the way up to DOA should order from the first batch, and everyone else should wait until later. I know that wasn’t the official instruction, but it was good advice that should have been followed! Previous BLF special lights have had way worse problems than the Q8 batch one had.
I have two lights from the 1st run and two from the 2nd run and although I must admit that I was able to do the small fixes that improved them a bit (large fixes were not needed), I consider all 4 as fine flashlights on a good budget that by length are better than what we aimed for at the start of the project.
If the GT project goes how the Q8 project went (with all the advantages and disadvantages that come with chinese budget production) again I will be extremely happy with the quality/budget ratio of the light.
Tom E, so what happens when you screw 2nd batch head onto 1st batch battery tube?
Did you measure inside diameter of each head?
David, I’ve been busy on the lathe, 24 hours in the past week to make DBC-06.7. Sorry, I’ll try to get online more and leave this thread in my dust. 
I had ordered 3 Q8’s, the first one almost 2 weeks ahead of the 2nd and the third a week after the 2nd. Q8 1 came in first, then Q8 3 came in the next day. Q8 2 is on the delivery truck even now. Interestingly enough, 2 and 3 got the LA together, but Q8 2 took a scenic route, literally circled me in about a 150 mile radius, went to Houston (about 200 miles South of me) then Dallas (140 miles North of me) and then back to Houston for a few days. It left Houston and came to my Post Office yesterday. Very strange how FedEx works….