Sofirn Q8 Bonus Feature

funkychateau · 2018-11-11T07:49:22.000Z

If you want to temporarily disable the green backlight behind the switch on your Sofirn Q8 without going through the programming menus or unscrewing the head, here’s a shortcut.

I discovered this quite by accident:

Do a fast-click to turn the light on, and notice that the green switch backlight blinks twice before going dark. If you do a second fast-click to turn it off during the two blinks, the backlight will be disabled and the light will be off. Turning the light on again in any normal manner (fast click for memory, double-click for turbo, or click & hold for ramp) will restore the switch backlight to normal operation.

Getting the turn-off timing correct takes a little practice. It must happen during the backlight double-blink, but if you are too quick you’ll just turn the light on in turbo.

This is handy in cases such as when you set the Q8 on a nightstand and retire for the night. You may want the room dark, but don’t want to mechanically lock out the light. Or you don’t want to wear the thread anodization from frequent unscrewing.

funkychateau · 2018-11-11T21:19:58.000Z

I’d like to know whether this trick works on other Sofirn Q8s. Or is mine just unusual?

BlueSwordM · 2018-11-11T21:20:28.000Z

This works on all light which have NarsilM.

Meaning it does this on the BLF Q8, BLF GT, GT Mini, Sofirn Q8, Sofirn SP36, etc.

It was initially a bug in NarsilM, but it became a feature.

Calaveras · 2018-11-11T21:24:15.000Z

I have the original BLF Q8.
Mine does that too. It is a known feature that has been discussed here by TK I believe.
Still cool do “discover” something useful. Chris Columbus got famous for it

fluke · 2018-11-11T21:32:28.000Z

My Astrolux S43 does it as well.

hank · 2018-11-12T00:22:15.000Z

Works for me, and it’s a valued feature.

Lightbringer · 2018-11-12T00:59:12.000Z

Mmm, I just leave mine on, but TCLOed. This way I know if it’s “armed” or not.

funkychateau · 2018-11-12T08:44:59.000Z

One other thing I noticed today, while playing with this “feature” - sometimes the button backlight would get into a mode where it only blinked once at turn-on.

When this happens, the turn-off feature will not work. To get it back into two-blink mode, I long-press to ramp up to about 75% brightness. Apparently it single-blinks up to a certain threshold, and double-blinks for anything higher.

joechina · 2018-11-12T09:18:21.000Z

Switching temp. off the button led is documented in the cheat sheet for narsilm or in the GT manuals.
Narsilm blinks the channels out: Regulated, FET

Cheat sheet:

accounts.google.com

Google Drive: Sign-in

Access Google Drive with a Google account (for personal use) or Google Workspace account (for business use).

Not in the docs is ramp a bit switch it off.