Oh gosh, it came packed with the many many new lights I’ve accumulated over time here at BLF. Just wait a while, you’ll have plenty to choose from. 
:laughing:
G'Day Tom E, 
Thank you Very Much for your comments and feedback. Greatly Appreciated.
Yes, it is indeed a struggle getting used to the timings when trying to select a certain blinky and/or trying to step through the blinkies (in ramping).
And unfortunately, this makes this light not suitable for casual/non-flashlight addicted users who need quick access to a specific blinky (that includes many friends & family members who want this).
NarsilM is VERY good, But I think that the ease of access to specific blinkies, and ease of stepping through blinkies (forwards & backwards) should be addressed to make it even better. Just a suggestion.
Thank you Very Much,
Best Regards,
George
For the runtime test I used a stock Q8 from the second production run (just cleaned some contact points), with freashly charged 30Q’s.
I did two runtime tests, one of 10 minutes with timer stepdown at 3 minutes (the Q8 comes default like this), one much longer with temperature stepdown set pretty high (head too hot to touch but my infrared thermometer reads 55 degC).
I have no time for a graph now but here’s the crude data:
The timer stepdown seems to do good things, but with the temperature stepdown I do not know exactly why my Q8 behaves like it does. In words this is what happens:
*in the default timer stepdown my Q8 is basically at max for 3 minutes (while dropping from 5560lm to 4970lm, this is 11% drop), then it steps down to 1530lm and stays there. The light never gets close to too hot too hold (max=44degC), I think the timer could safely be set at 5 minutes and it will still just about be managable for my hands.
*after changing to temperature stepdown with fixing the threshold when measuring the head at 55degC, from switch-on the light stayed at max for 6 minutes (4700lm and 59degC at 6 minutes), dropped first to 2700lm for a minute, then to 1550 for 30 seconds, then to 820 lm and stayed at 820lm forever with the temperature gradually dropping (after 50 minutes 730lm and 39degC).
It looks like the temperature stepdown for me is less ideal than just a timer stepdown at 5 minutes, so I will keep the timed stepdown on this one.
I think its too bright for a nightlight actually! I will have to try one of your solutions when I have more time, for now I try to put the switch down on a shirt at night if its in the room to dim it, otherwise I’ve awoken to the room’s greenish glow and thought maybe it was Halloween already…
Are you certain about this parasitic drain though? I found with the BLF pair of SS+Cu and smaller whole Cu lights that the switch LED would drain/kill the battery in the little light, I ended up tossing one each time, all I had of that size just in case and have yet to buy more to use them again. I did leave them for I’m not sure how many months before trying again. Yes, I know this light has much more capacity, but the LEDs are much brighter and two vs one…are we sure its years to spoil batteries with the green full moon level LEDs? I tend to try not to keep any batteries in contact with those lights big or small version anymore because of this.
As for my issues with the current light and the switch boot shifting, I was able to look at only one so far and was able to manually switch it back so it was the boot. When I get around it again with needle nose pliars I will replace with the supplied boot…if it hasn’t been lost already 
Looks like you can kind of pinch it, pull up and re-seat it easily, is there any drawbacks for doing that in the meantime?
Unfortunately with the Chinese copy/modify/cheapen/resell ecosystem, I’m pretty sure its not going to go in a good direction! Better get em early!
The BLF X5/X6v2 tailcap used about 0.65 mA at 4.2V or 0.20 mA at 3.0V, with a smooth line between. The average was like 0.40 mA or so (0.40 mA per cell). This gives us runtimes of:
- X5 (600 mAh Windyfire cell): 62 days
- X6v2 (3000 mAh cell): 10 months
The BLF Q8 uses about 0.13 mA at 4.2V (or lower at 3.0V, not sure how much lower) (0.03 mA per cell). So the estimated worst-case runtime is:
- Q8 (12000 mAh battery): 10 years
By flashing it without brownout detection (not really needed), runtime increases to like 15 years. And by running the switch LED in “low” mode instead of “high” mode, runtime increases to about 40 years. But the cells will probably self-discharge in a decade regardless, so the 40-year estimate is meaningless.
In any case, it shouldn’t have any difficulty running the switch LED for 5 years per charge. It’s not much different than charging up batteries and leaving them in a box unused. However, that’s not very healthy for li-ion batteries and it’d be a shame to leave the Q8 unused, so hopefully people will run down each charge faster by actually turning the light on from time to time. 
For reference, here’s the power usage I measured on the X5/X6. The blue line represents what was used in production:
From this, I estimated the X5 tailcap should last about 62 days per charge. But people wanted an actual runtime test too, so Joat tested it in a real light. This shows his result:
It did, indeed, last about 62 days.
The Q8’s graph should look more like the green “unused-cell” line though, since its power draw per cell is smaller than the self-discharge rate.
Nice, tks for the specs! I think I had 600, maybe 500mAh cells (I forgot which) in the X5 and yes it probably was almost two months (with a couple short on/showoff times in between that sucked power too) they got left both times, so 2x2= all dead of that size in my collection
I don’t think I’ll ever leave a light for 10 months without playing with it, but it could go several months and losing 1/5th to 1/3rd capacity (plus a short use here and there possibly) still makes me want to not leave the X6s in contact with battery. When I want to grab it and use it I tend to use heavily for hours in the dark, starting with 2/3rds a battery is no good at all.
But this worry becomes ridiculous with the Q8, thanks for the info!
few new youtube reviews on the Q8….one of them WeAllJuggleKnives
STILL waiting for mine to arrive (batch 2, order #700 some)
NarsilM v1.2 helps a little with it in allowing press&hold to wrap around from the lowest blinky to the last blinky, same for modes. If you don't like how the blinky modes work, then you won't like the standard modes, because they are the same thing. I've gotten a lot of complementary feedback on how modes are navigated, so hard to say. Not sure how to address this since it's a major change. Think TK had some suggestions wayyy back but can't recall details. I'd say a separate physical button would help the most but that's not an option for the Q8.
Many Q8 users don't even want the blinky modes or if they do, some want only one strobe, so not sure what % of users this effects: 80/20, 20/80, 60/40 etc., or if you are in the 1%-3%.
Hang in there. One took 42 days and the other 43 for me.
hahahaha wanted to do runtime test with the celingbounce app.
My phones battery gave up before the Q8 cells.
Need a do over, and well gonna stick a temp probe between the fins to see temps while doing it.
Cells charging again (when I saw the phone had turned itself off the Q8 was warm, not hot and the cells were at 3.57V)
will report when it is done,could be tomorrow or day after
Well I didn’t have to join the brigade for long as I received mine a couple of weeks ago. I did a quick check using the checklist and seems to be OK. Cosmetically I couldn’t find any issues. However, I think pretty much as soon as I used the button the center bit is now permanently at a downward angle toward the tail end of the light. I thought this might have been normal until I read another user had an issue with theirs pointing to the side.The button also makes no clicking and sometimes hard to turn off (although that may be due to the noob controller of the light where just a mere glance at the cheat sheet causes his brain go into complete meltdown). Can someone point me in the right direction on where to find instructions on how to replace the button with the spare one ? Thanks Here are some pics
Instead of bugging you endlessly with how I thought things should be done, I just went and did it. Details are in the first few posts of the FSM thread, but I don’t want to side-track the Q8 thread with ideas which didn’t make it into production.
For the Q8, it’s probably best to memorize the order of the blinky modes, and quickly click to the one you want. Or click all the way to the end then navigate backward at one’s leisure. Either way works.
You’re supposed to leave the phone plugged in, silly. 
Will do another runtime with 5 minutes timed stepdown, see if that is the most ideal one for me.
Hey everybody, I know there’s been a lot of ceiling bounce tests going on with the new Q8’s hitting everyone’s front porch, but let me ask you something…. what would you think of a “Pro Photographer” who aimed the flash on their camera at the ceiling for taking pictures at a wedding reception? And if I told you the ceiling was black? Yeah, that’s what I thought too… the room was quite dark and I really have my doubts as to how that ceiling bounce flash was working out for the lady.
LGW,
Check this out for removal. It may just be a matter of re-seating the button. Should be obvious when you get it apart.
Your a legend Etex, worked a charm. The button clicks! Its like a totally different flashlight now lol. And I've figured out what mr noob was doing to get the button unseated. I thought to ramp you push the button up or down i.e. push toward the LED or down toward the tail! hahaha :FACEPALM: In an attempt to offload some of the embarrassment, I noticed the switch isn't exactly pointing vertical and slightly tilted, would that make the button easier to become unseated? Or is it totally the fool who was pushing up and down on the button?
I let my grandson turn the Q8 on, he’s 1 1/2, his little finger pushed the button over sideways and got the center post off the switch, same thing… was a bit of a chore getting it back into position but that showed me really quick what’s been happening with a few of these lights.