[Ended]Groupbuy : Utorch UT01 (XP-L , AA & 14500 battery , e-switch etc)

It happens to the best of us.

It’ll be interesting to see what the truth is behind the Manker/UTorch story. Given Manker’s reaction, and the difference in body tubes I think it is more likely that any ‘funny business’ was on the part of whoever was contracted to manufacture the head units than Manker itself.

Maybe Manker is behind the Utorch name. It’s their way of generating sales while maintaining their overpriced MAP.

Whatever ends up being the case, it’ll be a cautionary tale (already repeated countless times) for pretty much anyone doing business overseas, no matter the product.
Young entrepreneurs need to both hear and understand every one of these angles before bringing anything they have developed to market.

Not hard to change the settings on a CNC machine to carve out a different-looking tube, right?

I am hopeful your the only one who caught that before I came back to get rid of it, and if others read that post, Please accept my most sincere apology, I should have taken that issue to that person and handled it that way, just might still if it doesn’t stop, post like the one I posted sure don’t help anything and just greats more garbage and issues and I know better… But thx again Kindle very kind of you…!

So lets talk witches or switches, alright here’s a thought, what if a company just had a bunch of left over stuff, like springs, lens, Switches, and decided to have an auction and all the smart OEM guys AND gals showed up and bought say 5000 of each…??
Well what would you do with them next…? No conspiracy there, I hope… ha ha

Anyhow, I’ve taken my CW light apart because I was getting intermittent failures with that lights switch, even though I had just been messing around with my preferred tint the NW for days and doing massive amounts of switch pushing while fooling around with those very cool hidden output modes so wanted to change the modes in the CW also and that is when I noticed that when I needed to do a one click to lock a mode it would not lock the mode due to no click and I did not have one issue with the NW while setting the hidden outputs and that was a lot of clicks, no issues at all until I pulled out the CW.

I took a few pics to show what I think the issue is, and I will only be addressing my lights switch issue,
But if you follow this idea the simplest way to know for sure if your having a switch failure would be to directly switch modes without the switch boot on and clicking modes directly.

It’s really easy to remove that boot and could be done without any tools even, you could use a small flat head screw driver but could also easily poke a hole through this soft silicone boot.
It’s also easily replacable, at least on mine, and even with the retainer ring still in place.

I removed the switch boot simply by gently pulling the boot back to one side so I could see the bottom part of the boot, the hat brim part that secures the boot under the retainer, and I saw how much room there was so I just held it in place with one finger pulling back and used my other finger to sort of pull the boot enough to get a hold of it and just gently pulled it out, simple.
The retainer is pressed in and pressed in tight, might even have a dap of glue but not much on mine, cleaned it all off, then I took a few pics of how I to get to that switch pad and see if your switch is bad for real or not.

In the picture you’ll see that the switch button pad is offset to one side, and these boots are very soft material, the center nub is really IMO to soft also,
Look at how they have formed the solid ledge around where the switch boot nub is supposed to contact the pad, with the switch off to one side like this the nub from the boot nub can get hung up on that ledge, that explained to me why I could sort of push down and upwards at the same time and get it to change modes easier than what is just a normal switch push.

All of this should be fairly simple to straighten out, maybe using a clear L6 switch small one or the ThorFire S70 clear side switch boot,
I’m not sure how to recenter the switch quit yet, but working on it,
I hate to admit this but I can’t get the reflector out, not sure if screwed in or glued in, but it doesn’t seem normal and don’t want to mess it up.

So here a few pics and if you do take a small blunt object and click through your switch modes directly on the switch pad, with no boot installed, and then it still won’t change modes, well that’s a for sure bad switch of course since everything that it could get hung up on is out of the way now, just want to help out because I really do like these lights,

George did a great job on putting these GB’s together and the price for these were super fantastic, so it does make me sad to see so much worry about this or that with the lights, it doesn’t matter at all to me who made them or what parts as long as it is as it is, I am happy, it works, it’s was very cheap and it’s a nice looking light,
“Pics of switch”:




OK, fixed my switch issue.
What was happening was the switch boot nub was catching on that flat ledge around the switch contact pad.
So all you have to do is remove the switch boot, very easy to do.
Check the switch by directly pressing on the switch contact and go through all your modes and on/off, check double click, check everything and if all your modes are working fine then it’s probably not centered and catching on that ledge, you should be able to notice easy enough.
So being that the driver, switch and MCPCB are all one piece, just get some very fine tweezers and inside the positive end of the driver take the tweezers like you where going to remove a regular retainer ring, and just slightly turn the complete driver assembly one way or the other until it looks centered and put the boot back in, it’s very easy to put in since that retainer isn’t really pressed down hard onto the lip of the boot.
And done,
Hope that helps someone, these are really great lights no matter what.

Thank You George, what’s next ??

Edit: By the way the reflector is threaded and mine had a small dap of glue on it, might be wise to remove reflector prior to twisting on the driver end…

Thanks for confirming that the driver, switch and MCPCB are indeed all one piece.
It might also be helpful to remember that poster Mankerlight has (for some unknown reason) been the most unhappy member with this light along with at least one other poster insisting that BLFers not support its sale.
Kudos to George have flowed and every post involving unknown manufacturing issues have fed off of those two challenges.

Your quit welcome Freedom, if there is one thing I regret posting on Georges thread here was my comment about Manker being stamped on my drivers,
I had NO idea that a member here was yet again making some big stupid controversy out of now these lights.
What bothers me the most is I have seen this one member do this so many times, seems to just thrive on conspiracy theories,
The guy doesn’t ever buy the light or support the group buy or Georges hard work, just likes to cause trouble,
It just gets old and hard to ignore sometimes.

All I know for a fact is I have 4 fantastic lights and I got them at a great price thanks to George,
Thanks again George, you are great, and greatly appreciated, and I’m sort of patiently waiting for your next venture, so very very happy with my lights for sure…!

Hey did I mention that it said JetBean on my switch? Hum, Odd… What’s really going on, :stuck_out_tongue:
And I think the anti reflective coating on the UT01 lens is a copy of the same coating on the UTorch 007 lens, weird…?

Thanks for cracking the code.

you got my respect bro :slight_smile:

NikolaS checked it , so he deserves some respect too :slight_smile:

Thanks everyone for your kind words .

Something good :wink:

Bravo to everyone who’s helped figure this stuff out.

Whatever the drama may be surrounding any of these lights, I still feel that this forum serves the purpose (well) of keeping its membership informed.
When somebody is telling me that I shouldn’t buy something and/or somebody else is insisting that what I may purchase is indeed “disgusting” (see this thread)…then the gloves are indeed off in terms of any opinion expressed there after and all subsequent comers frankly ‘welcomed’ (in my opinion).

Here’s the best deal at the moment:
http://www.everbuying.net/product1220293.html

I just got mine yesterday and I like it a lot. No switch problems so far and the only thing I’ve noticed is that it won’t go into turbo with a worn-out non-Enloop NiMh battery that isn’t fully charge. I’m guessing that’s a current related issue but it’s worked fine with better cells.

On the programming after I double-click on step 3 and it enters strobe do I then click through the blinkies to get to the lowest mode? If so does it automatically ramp up and repeat the ramping in the lowest mode until I click to select the level and then move to the next one?

Thanks

Hi SigShooter,
I thought I’d answer your question since it looks like everyone else is busy, but Yes, do cycle past the strobe until you get to the low and then it’s Yes again to your question, it will continue to ramp/cycle through the 3 different output options until you click on one of the levels and then it will automatically go to the next mode and will do the same thing again, choose your mode and then it goes again to next mode and until you end up at strobe again.

I had actually came back to clarify a misstatement I made to Freedom regarding the driver and MCPCB, I stated that this driver and emitter board with switch was all one piece, one component, well I misspoke as it is “NOT” all one piece,
In order to remove the driver you would have to de-solder the MCPCB and then the driver will easily come out being it’s pressed in and not really very tight and along with the switch also, this is a integrated shelf light, with a two layer stacked driver and separate MCPCB.
I’m sorry if my mistake caused anyone a problem, sure hope not,

Edit: By the way Thanks Jerommel for the heads up on Everbuying & UT01 and it’s only a few dollars more than GB price, wow,
I’m buying about 4 more, yep thanks to George I have bought a lot of these little lights, there awesome IMHO, so from now on I’m watching George like a flashlight Hawk, … :laughing:

Hi T18,

Thanks for your quick response. I probably should have just done it but I figured knowing how it works before doing it couldn’t hurt.

It’s a nice light and safe to lend to others given that it is fairly bright on a single NiMh. I should get a few more :slight_smile:

I wonder if solarstorm made this light 3 of there lights I have bought have this exact issue lol They are a main supplier also.

Your quit welcome SigShooter, and yes most certainly a friendly enough light to lend, simple operation for sure, but perhaps to nice to lend to someone who might like flashlights so much they may not want to give it back… ha ha,
That Everbuying store that Jerommel linked in China is a good fair price also, , http://www.everbuying.net/product1220293.html

+1 :THUMBS-UP:

Received mine today. No issues, great little thing

Thanks for the group buy!