Would they be able to do anything?
I have no idea if its under warranty etc
im not sure, but worth a try
Well i’ve sent them an email, not sure how far i’ll get but it’s a start.
Paddy,
From your description, I can’t work out where to look, as there’s a lot of glare from my admittedly average photos, so singling out one mark in a bit of glare, from other bits of glare is tricky.
I can see the black mark on your later pics, obviously, so the damage it has now is clear to me.
I wasn’t aware of fibres being there, but like I said, all I did was pop in some cells, switch it on to check it worked, then packed it away again. I certainly didn’t put them there.
I would have to dismantle a torch a bit to get fibres in there… why would I do that with a torch I knew I was going to sell? Why would I dismantle a torch that was working perfectly for the time that I had it?
I can’t categorically say if fibres were there or not, I don’t recall inspecting it so closely. I really have to ask you this though - since you found them there and thought they were odd, did you not think to remove them or blow them away or something? Have these fibres maybe melted onto the dome and that’s what’s now come to be the black mark?
I’m a bit confused now too… are you saying that there are 2 faults? The ‘dink’ and this fibres thing? Or are you saying the dink has been borne from the fibres?
You said yourself “it was working great at first” - as it was with me when I tested it.
I do not have any spares I can offer you, nor do I even have another torch to swap the bit from to get you back a functioning torch. I’m sorry.
The suggestion to contact Solar Force is a good one and I hope they can help. When they get back to you, they will probably ask who bought the torch, and when. If they do ask, get them to contact me and I will provide the proof of purchase for them. Having said that, they should be able to go back into my order history if you provide them with my email address. You will have my email address on record in PayPal. If they need to contact me for any information I am more than willing to give it.
I know I sold you the torch for the price I did, and that I obviously accepted the loss. Quite a substantial loss I might add, but hey that’s the risk I took with the ebay auction.
I know too that the cost to you is of no real consequence… as you (or anyone else - me included!) pay for a thing, you expect it to be of a certain level of quality and give you a certain level of ‘service life’.
However, if you look at it from my point of view, I bought that torch and associated accessories for a lot more than I sold it for. It was brand new apart from the fact that I had proven to myself it worked perfectly. I sold it to you, you had no problem when you took delivery, nor did you contact me with any complaint - you said yourself it was ‘working great’. You said you spotted these fibres (and/or dink) yet continued to use it. We are now well over a month down the line from when you started to use it.
I’m not too chuffed either that things have gone this way.
When Solarforce come back to you, hopefully with a cost for a replacement part, I will consider splitting the cost of it with you. Maybe if you can forward me their email so that I can see the part and the cost and I will get back to you. I feel right now that this is the best offer I can make you in the circumstances.
I’m not saying the fluff was a fault, just saying what i saw incase it meant anything. i noticed the dink straight away but i assumed it wouldn’t matter because it was literally tiny.
And i’ve had it from the 25th and it’s only been used three times on the way home from work.
how long ago was it bought if you don’t mind me asking, might help me have a search and see how long their warranties are.
I’m not blaming you for anything btw was just trying to sort things and see if anyone has advice. 
I have a XY-T08. I was Moding it + I noticed a Black Spot on the Emitter. I think it was Oil from the Theads or my paws. I cut the Spot off with a knive. That cured the problem. Later I DeDomed it. It is still working good.
I bought it on April the 6th this year.
What is it you mean by a ‘dink’?… do you mean a chip or dent?
It can’t have been me, as I didn’t dismantle the torch, so it must have been there from the factory.
Hopefully SF can help provide a spare part to swap/repair. Let me know what they say and we can try to proceed from there…
They emailed me back asking my to ship it to them to either be fixed or replaced, they didn’t mention if it was still under warranty though. and from looking i can’t seem to see how long their warranties are. Or how much (if any charge) it’s be to fix.
And by dink i mean a small dent i guess out of the dome, but it was all smooth around the edges. For some reason i can’t think of the exact word to explain it but i did have to look hard to distinguish between light on the curve of the dome and the dink.
I’m pretty sure i can get shipping for around £10 there because they only want the LED pill part.
Cheers.
A tenner? 
Royal Mail Airmail will get a 100g small packet to HK for £3.50 
If you go with this, I’m happy to cover the cost of the postage.
I can send you the money to cover it through paypal (I have a note of your email address here)
Paddy, what’s happening with postage?
Are you going with the £3.50 option?
Sorry been stuck in work last few days, i’m off on holiday on monday so i’ll be going to the post office for my money so i’ll see if i can get the £3.50.
I’ll stick £4 in your PayPal just now then.
I love the people of BLF!!! Members are so helpful when issues come up! I started off over at LPF and there has been a few issues and it turns into a pointing match……glad its not like that here 
Just thought i’d update; i sent the LED part today but paid for the £8.90 tracked (just because i don’t trust any mail companies)
So now i wait
The M8 CAN be modded. I had to bore two small holes in the white plastic disc with my dremel tool, out on the edge where it meets the metal. Turns out that it’s about 3mm thick on the edges, recessed to jump the star and connections, and then has a centering ring that mates perfectly with the emitter. Once this disc is out (pried it up with a jewelers screwdriver from both sides using the holes) it is pretty easy to swap the aluminum star for a copper one with XM-L2 or whatever.
New emitter is about $6, copper star is around $2.50. Could be upgraded for similar monies as your shipping costs.
Recently got mine, changed the driver for a 3 mode configuration and bumped output pretty substantially. Driver is about $4.50. So for some $12.50 US, I’ve seriously increased the performance of my M8 and very much love this light.
My choice of driver only allows for a single cell, but the driver can be modded to accept 2 cells for literally under a dollar. I’ve done this with the same driver and power an MT-G2 at 4.05A in a Solarforce K3.
Hope your issue gets resolved, am interested to see what Solarforce does to rectify this situation.
So i received my replacement and now having issues with the new one, won’t always switch on (sometimes doesnt even work for hours and will randomly turn on on its own)
Solarforce are being very helpful thus far though.
Very strange 
I don’t know that much about the inner workings, but could there be a fault in the switch or driver or something then, making the LED part not function correctly?
Good on SF for helping, as you say.
Looks like you’ll need to contact them again to tell them that the new part isn’t working properly.
Hopefully this time they will accept it’s not right and not insist on posting it back and having to wait even more weeks….
Maybe make a youtube vid to show them the problem?
I contacted them again, they said it may be a problem with the batteries, although i explained i’ve tried 4 different combos of battery and none work they decided to send me out a set of 18650s (free of charge i think) so i’m waiting for them to arrive before i can do anything else.
It’s such a shame really because i really like the light when it was working
It’d be hard to make a youtube vid now btw, i don’t even get flickers anymore.
Paddy, what part, exactly, did Solarforce replace? Very interesting to me that you’re still having any issue at all as this is a solid light. If I were closer to you, I’d fix it for you. Don’t know if you’d want to sent it to Texas to get that done, if you were able to do that I’d fix it for you free of charge simply because I love this light.
I have an MT-G2 on the way for mine, with a driver modified and waiting. I’ve “baked” mine so that it is now an interesting bronze color, with the finned light engine area still black. As it is still running an XM-L2 T6 at the moment on a single cell, I made a dummy cell so that the extension tube is on it but it’s operating on 1 cell. The bigger more powerful emitter will require 2 cell use.
At any rate, I wish I could make your M8 right for you as it truly is an excellent light.
Are you able to take the switch out of the tail cap and check to see that it has continuity? Have you tried the other tailcap? Are you able to test the pill out of the light, perhaps with wires from a battery? The reason I ask is that it would be interesting to test the ground circuit for the driver. It may very well be something quite simple keeping it from working. Like, is the magnet still on the flat top battery? Are you installing the one with the magnet last?
Have you tried contacting a forum member that lives relatively close by to see if they’d be willing to give it a look? Gords perhaps?
May I purchase this light from you if/when you tire of it? Or trade you a light of equal value? Solarforce is probably limited in what it can do to help as the light is no longer in production. Which puzzles me how they replaced any part of your light.
Good luck! Let me know if there’s any way I can help, I’d love to see it working perfectly and you grinning from ear to ear.
Hey, i’m not the best with the inside workings of the circuits etc, but i have tried both tail caps and the momentary one mode one only makes the led flash for a split second when pushed in (@ about 5% brightness) does this every time. I took the tail cap off and just used a bit of copper to the negative and the host and the same happened so i’m assuming that rules out the tail cap.
The part i got replaced was the LED section, the light worked perfect before apart from the LED dome just melted itself which makes me think it’s the new part.
One weird thing to note is that if i leave the light on (but obviously no light being emitted) after a few mins it sometimes turns on and works for about 5-10 more clicks on and off but then nothing again after. (That’s with 2x 18650, i don’t get the flash or anything at all on 1x18650)
If it helps I’ve tested both batteries and they’re fine, i’m not to sure what the easiest way to test the pill would be though (i don’t want to do any damage to it)