Great price! *semi groupbuy* Jaxman Z1 host

I have retaining ring pliers with removable tips but they weren’t wide enough. I took the tips out and put them in my bench vise at the right distance apart and that worked fine as a makeshift tool.

As I’ve said before, I asked Jaxman to sell me a host — long before any of the group stuff happened here.
Before there was any mention of it on their web/sales page.
I did that because I noticed they’d posted a comment in one of the threads here saying they sometimes did sell people hosts.
I took it as a hint and emailed to ask. Got all I asked for and more, promptly.

I’ve seen several sellers start up on AliExpress and have to wrestle with the automatic posting of descriptions and costs that Ali apparently provides by default.
It’s only worth so much bother to deal with these small amounts, either selling or buying.

I’ll buy another host at some point.
Whatever they cost.

And may I recommend Hoop’s copper pills? I just got mine. Beautiful work.

Yeah, I can swap them in and out of one host.
You know how long that will last though.

Your welcome brother, I understand completely. :+1:
I do know the brand, and don’t blame you for not wanting to wait. :wink:

They are made by Lisle and I will include a link below that shows them on the Lisle site. If you want this particular brand, I would think most Auto Parts stores would have them in the tool section. At my store they are on a spinning rack with other Lisle tools. Anyway, here is the link below.

Lisle 4600 COMBINATION INTERNAL / EXTERNAL SNAP RING PLIERS

Good luck……… :wink:

@ Brett H

Here you go (Ships from and sold by Amazon.com):

U$13.99 Neewer Professional Dual Tip Steel Stainless DSLR Lens Spanner Wrench Lens Range Repair Opening Tool for Most DSLR Cameras | Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5F6ZI2/

Best Regards,

George

OK, you were smarter than me then; I did not notice it until I started adding mine up and was “cornfused” about the shipping total. :person_facepalming: That is when I realized the shipping had been discounted on mine and looked back at what you had posted. I was wondering if you had noticed it.

But I did notice what you were saying about the small items. For those 5 - 10 cent parts, $.50 total; the total shipping (before any discount) is $4.87. And shipping for 3 - 40 cent Lens Caps, $1.20 total; shipping (before any discount) is $3.66.

That is the part I did not and still do not understand. That is crazy IMO when other things are being ordered. That stuff could be put in with the other with no consequence.

BUT, I think this part has nothing to do with Jaxman; I think this is indeed a default operation of AliExpress.

In other words, much like you said Brett…… “It is what it is”.

I think my ole’ hero Forrest Gump would say it like this………
“I’m not a smart man, but if I want this stuff; what else can I do Lieutenant Dan”???
:wink:

PS, can someone who’s taken a complete light apart confirm exactly where the O-rings go?

Particularly these that fall out

“O-rings outside*2” — slightly smaller, fits around the lens bulge — don’t screw the bezel down hard or this pops out
(I only seem to have one of these, but it’d be easy to lose track, it says (“easily damaged, so another”) so perhaps there’s a spare
“O-rings inside*1” — slightly larger, appears to go outside the ‘limitation ring’ on the body of the light/against the lens flange when the bezel is screwed down
“Limitation ring*1” — hard plastic ring, fits into a rectangular cross section groove around the screw-in part

And there’s another O-ring firmly snug in its groove on the body on the outside just past the threads for the bezel, covered when that’s screwed down.

Sure,….

  • 1 O-ring in front rim of bezel before lens goes in
  • 1 O-ring at base of bezel threads
  • 1 O-ring around installed limitation ring

Edit: Oh yeah, I almost forgot; the limitation ring has a very slight inside taper.

  • The wider edge (smaller opening) of the ring goes in towards the pill
  • The slimmer edge (larger opening) of the ring goes toward the lens

Yeah, I really don’t understand WHO is actually shipping the Jaxman. In this particular order, I ordered 2 18350 Convoys, which shipped China tracked mail from Convoy, 1 Hugsby which shipped China small packets from a seller named LED Flashlights 101, and the Jaxman Z1 was sold by Jaxman but used AliExpress shipping from Singapore?

As for the shipping cost, they do give the “appearance” of a discount based on what you said earlier about the total shipping being less that the total of the stated shipping next to each item. BUT, what I did in those two screenshots was simply remove the 5 - 10 cent LED adapters and check the total shipping which went from $22.95 to $19.33! I do realize that some of these items may very well be under priced to begin with, but nonetheless, it doesn’t look good when you take off 50 cents worth of items that don’t weigh anything and your shipping drops $3.62.

Thank you again George! I had seen the Neewer lens spanner wrenches sold on eBay but this looks like it actually comes from Neewer Co. which is preferable. Again I appreciate the help!

Brett, just one last thought here; I think this could possibly be how the “waters got muddied” somewhat in communications with Jaxman.

Considering there is a language barrier, especially on our end (Jaxman does at least know some English, probably very few of us know any Chinese at all); it might have turned out different if you had just sent a picture of the crappy white box and chipped lens. Along with a short note that asked something simple……… “what’s up with this”??? :open_mouth:
Not pointing a finger at all my friend, just a thought. :slight_smile: Nothing else to say about this from me, I just hope things work out well for you… :wink:

Oh yeah, like I mentioned a few months ago; IF all continues to work out I’ll be down your way in Bonita this winter for a few weeks… not sure exactly when yet but I’ll let you know. I do hope we can get together and shoot the breeze a bit, maybe over lunch one day or something. Who knows, we might even shine some lights. Talk later……… :slight_smile:

OK hank, I have tried to communicate with Paul at Jaxman as you and Miller suggested. In my latest response he appear to be yelling at me, unless he doesn’t know net etiquette, which would be strange since none of his other responses were in caps. Do you have any suggestions here? He doesn’t seem to want to send me a lens, even though he says he will send me a box? Furthermore, I showed him my upcoming order, as Miller stated to do, but he still doesn’t seem to understand that if he is willing to send me a box, then he could simply add a lens in that box and add the box and lens to my new order? Instead he seems intent on giving me a $10 refund, which means I will have to order a new lens and not only pay shipping costs on the lens, but also wait longer for it to ship.

Yeah, I have tried to be pretty cordial with him. As you notice, I first just asked if they give the factory boxes with their orders, which had a twofold purpose; 1. I wanted to make sure this light was a legit Jaxman light and 2. I realized there was a possibility that they had changed to a plain white box, since many of the Convoys ship the same way. I really didn’t mean to hijack this thread with my issues, I just thought that in light of the GB here, maybe someone had some pointers which would help me to overcome the communication barriers with Paul. I am sure this can be resolved and I am being plenty patient with him, as I could have easily just called my credit card company and gotten a full refund and told Jaxman to send me a label if they want their light back. However, I am not one to try and get something for nothing. I just wanted the same top-notch quality that others have received from Jaxman. A chip on the edge of the lens if a concern for me and as far as the box is concerned, I do keep all but about two of my lights in their factory box. I am the kind of guy that cleans up my tools when I get done working on the car :slight_smile:

You just let me know if you make it down here brother! We will definitely get some lights out if you are able to make it down this year!

Wow! I guess my patience has not been rewarded. This is the response I just received from Paul.

Please don’t prolong this.
Time is money, and you’re spending his.
A thousand words now won’t explain what one good picture could have.

Honestly hank, my cell phone camera was not capturing the picture of the chipped lens well at all, this is why I did not send him a picture. Furthermore, I personally don’t understand the whole insistence on a picture from these companies anyway. I mean if I really wanted a free lens that bad, I could send a picture of any broken aspheric lens laying around. AND if I was trying to rip off the company, I simply could have called my credit card company and gotten a full refund and Paul would have to send a prepaid label just to get his light back if he wanted it. As for the box, he eventually told me he sent it in the white box, so a picture was not needed for this.

What dishonest person tries to rip off a company a $10 lens when they are about to order $100 worth of merchandise? I showed him what I am about to order and all he had to do was put a lens in a brown factory box and add it to my order when it left; problem solved! He wouldn’t be sending the lens until my order had been placed, and I told him I would give him the order number. Really not that difficult in my mind. Also, he is completely insistent on giving a $10 refund instead of replacing the lens for reasons unbeknownst to me! So, it doesn’t appear a picture would have gotten him to send me a new lens.

Lastly, my time is money as well! My $58 spent on this light is also money. If this thing had been in the brown box shown in the description and the lens was in good shape, I wouldn’t even be dealing with this right now and nor would Paul. As I said earlier, when I saw the white box, I questioned whether this light was a real or a fake! Jaxman knows people have been faking their lights ever since the Cometa episode, so a little customer assurance with a factory box and expected quality could have gone a long ways here. As for his claim that he was making sure I received the light faster; well, it was not that fast anyway. I only ordered one factory light and it wasn’t even received at the warehouse until a week after I ordered it and then aliexpress shipping was not nearly as quick as the regular China shipping. So, waiting for the factory box really wouldn’t have affected shipping times much.

What’s your time worth?
You’re spending your time — and his.
Yeah, each order is a special snowflake.
But the orders are going out on an assembly and shipping line.
It’s not like there’s a waiter with a tray and your particular order on it.
It’s a bunch of boxes, meeting a stack of labels, being put together and sent out.
You won’t get someone to go find the box with your name on it, open up the shipment, and put in an extra free replacement lens to save you a shipping cost.
The man said the time has already cost him significantly. $20 is a lot of money.
So is $10.
Take the refund.
This is a cheap lesson for everyone so far. Mistakes were made.
It could become an expensive lesson.

It’s rare to have hosts offered to BLFers. It’s unusual.
Stuff happens.

I’ll come back when this thread is back to building custom lights into these hosts.

If you really, really can’t stand what you got, post it for sale and someone will take it off your hands.

It seems that hosts generally have more issues than completed lights.

There is no issue with the hosts at all i think some blf members are a bit sensitive I’m with jax who cares what box you recieve it in. My lens also has a very small chip in the side but once assembled you cant see it either & if you cant undo a tight retaining ring i would find another hobby

His English is shocking which doesnt help and i generally find chinese VERY reluctant to give refunds i probably would have just sent you another one but i guess they work with very tight profit margins.

It’s a really well made light imo everything fits together lovely a lot of time gone into R&D

Image of “chips” in my lens

The hosts are fine.

When I bought a complete Z1 from cnqualitygoods it came in a very small white crappy box. But I don’t care for the boxes of lights for myself.
I did not have any urge to take mibe apart, knowing how much pride Jaxman takes in proper assembly. Hence I bought a host.
I did not looked at the lens, it is in its protection till the whole light is build and tested ready, only then I will touch it.
If some chips like shown above are present it would not bother me, for all I know they are present on the complete Z1 as well, it doesn’t matter since it does not show and I cannot see anything like that as it is assembled or in use. I care about AR coating being there and the proper overal shape, this I do see :wink:

Shipping is not nice, I don’t like it but it is how it is.

I think I pretty well understand what you are saying Brett, and I don’t really disagree with you. But I also think that we may very well never understand the “rhyme or reason” to it or even how the process works. And by “process” I mean the steps that must actually be taken to get a light (in our case) from a manufacturer in China to our chosen ship to address here in the USA.

Whether I, you, or anyone else likes it or not… it just is what it is. Most likely it is not going to change and we can either choose to buy or not to buy.

I fully realize that is a pretty simplistic view point on my part, but I am trying to learn to “choose my battles”. And to me this is one battle I choose not to aggressively ‘fight’. Oh sure, I’ll let my opinion on the subject be known. But even in doing that I also know full well that my measly little opinion is not going to change anything at this moment in the here and now.

It just is what it is…. simple as that.
:slight_smile: