Upcoming Astrolux S42 18350/18650 quad w side button and usb charging

My S42 XPG3 arrived today. I haven’t had a chance to test it yet (no batteries here at the office). However, my preliminary impressions at a glance:

  • Anodizing looks perfect
  • As others have mentioned the USB port cover won’t stay in place. The main problem appears to be that the socket in the bottom of the head for the rubber cover just isn’t deep enough. The result is the cover falls out of position with even a light touch. I’m not sure I’d want to pocket EDC this light without either gluing the cover down or wrapping a rubber band around the head of the light to hold the cover in place.
  • The tailcap shroud is too short. At least on my sample even with the tailcap screwed down fully I can still see half the tailcap o-ring.
  • The o-ring on the body tube at the tailcap came well lubed. The o-ring on the body tube at the head of the light was unlubed.
  • Tailstands perfectly without the hammer thingy screwed in. However, I’m not a big fan of having screw threads at the back of a light like this. Those screw threads make the tailcap approximately 7mm longer than it needs to be. Why make a tiny light if you are going to add unneeded threads and the back to make it bigger again?

My overall initial impression without having been able to actually operate the light yet: Manufacturing quality looks good, but the light appears to have a number of design defects that should have been caught before production.

Ok, so having been slightly worried, unpacked mine and its the XP-G3 I ordered as a gift.

The battery is a tight fit for sure, I am using an EFest 700mA unprotected, brand new.

I must be doing it wrong, as it works ok here for me.

The springs are at both ends on mine, seems to compress just fine, its a tight fit to get the last turn or so on for sure but it does work. The battery does seem to be a bit “dented” I suppose now at both ends, but everything working as it should as far as I can see. I noticed on the tube the tail cap end was greased, but the head end was dry. There was also some oil on one end of the tube (left a ring on the table) so I wiped that down as that would have been reducing metal-metal contact on the tube.

I can’t test 18650, as BangGood cancelled my order for the tubes (still waiting for points refund - they cancelled not me!) and I only just re-ordered yesterday so still waiting.

By the way, tubes on flash sale yesterday when I ordered.

Can’t seem to get into programming mode, so stuck low-mid-high-turbo

Dbl click to flip to 7 modes.

Hhmm. I guess I could have crushed my EFEST 18350 as well to make it work, but don't think that's how it should be. Those dents you created are typically worth tossing the cell for. I'd say from the pics, yours is the same as mine. If you have to crank on tightening the light up, you are typically doing damage. There's an amazing amount of force than can be applied on threading a tube tight. I've done it before a couple times at least.

The best way of testing this is: remove the tailcap, insert a cell into the battery tube, press down pretty darn hard on the cell til it doesn't go any further by finger. If the cell still is above the lip of the tube, you got problems, because that lip must make contact to the aluminum around the tail spring in order to have an electrical return path for the Batt- signal. The threads are anodized so won't conduct electricity.

Regarding damage to LiIon cylindrical cells from axial compression, see my post:

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/38554/133

I figure my Nitecore 18350 is compressed way less than 1mm, so perhaps I'm safe.

Using your test, the battery definitely protrudes above the rear lip of the battery tube. That's why I increased the reach of the battery tube by shimming the front end. It also makes it possible to use the 18650 battery tube which suffers from the same problem (i.e. the driver board is glued in place 1-2mm too deep for either battery tube to reach it).

I just read elsewhere that Banggood has realized this is an issue from numerous buyer complaints and is working on a fix. From a business standpoint, mailing out some 2mm thick front-end retaining rings is a lot cheaper than replacing the same number of battery tubes having longer threads on the head end.

I'm still using a couple EFEST cells with minor dents as well. No clue what all that really means - top cap for 4 mm with a 18650 - might mean something or nothing for a 18350. I don't know enough about them internally. All I know is what's been said here, which is to toss damaged cells, though I don't listen well to advice anyway, specially my own .

I will though stop doing what I was doing that caused the damage, usually that is...

That could work, but what about the (maybe) resulting exposed o-ring?. The important thing, not to lose face completely, is for BangGood to act proactively and fast.

On my specimen, shimming the front of the battery tube allows the tailcap to be completely seated, so the o-ring is not exposed. However, yes - depending on how thick the shim is, you then run the risk of the front o-ring peeking out a tiny bit.

Where did you read that mate? Can you give a link?

Sure:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?434286-DEAL-Astrolux-S42-S42S-S42SC-4*Nichia-219C-XP-G2-XP-G3-2023lm-Flashlight&p=5105805&viewfull=1#post5105805

This is why I don’t like the shift into doing group buys and issuing coupons before a light has been tested. By the time faults are discovered, most of us that are interested will already be stuck with a dud.

Has Banggood been responsive in fixing issues with problem lights? I recall reading about some nightmare lights in the past, but can’t recall if it was through Banggood and if they fixed the issues in a timely manner.

I think it would salvage a lot of goodwill if Banggood showed some common sense here in the way this is resolved. Requiring customers to go through the rigmarole of lengthy problem reports and uploading videos to prove a light plagued with issues has an issue, well that is just too much. In the end, I suppose many people can simply submit Paypal claims which I don’t think would do BG any good. They should, at this point, be simply looking to proactively fix this and quick.

I can compare the cell I used with the second new one I have (two pack), but its not pushed in at either end, just slightly concave. EDIT: I saw the note on 4mm deformation, I would say its like 0.5mm maybe?

Using the battery in tube test, I can push the battery flush with the top of the tube without too much effort.

Lets see what BG do, I have not had to deal with their customer services in the past, but attempts to get my points back from an order they themselves cancelled (the day stock arrived) would leave me to believe your not going to have much luck as they don’t answer emails.

Hello Guys,

First of all, thank you very much for your support all the time, besides, on behalf of banggood, deeply apologize for the inconvenience to all of you.

About the problems of S42 you mentioned above, we advice you do as follow now:

1. The tube can only works only with unprotected flat top cells, please stop testing the s42 with 18350 or the 16340 with protection, Astrolux is testing and try to find out where the problem comes from.

2. We give solutions to solve this problem within 48 hours, the S42 is temporarily off sale now, we will try our best to perfect the after-sale problem.

3. If you already ordered one but have not shippied, please don't worry, we will ship to you until the problems was sloved, send you a new S42 without any problems.

Really sorry for the trouble, we will do better in the future.Thank you for understanding!

Best Regards,
Swi

Does this mean that we shouldn’t use 18350 at all? I don’t own any 16340 cells and don’t want to buy any new ones when I bought this light to use with the 18350 cells I already have. All of my cells are unprotected.

To me it sounds like the intended meaning is not to use protected cells - 18350 or 16340.

After all, the product is sold as an 18350 flashlight; advising not to use that size of cell would be absurd.

The recommendation to only use flat-top cells is new - not unexpected given the issues with mechanics discussed already - but a PITA as almost all of my cells are button-top.

That's not true at all, whatsoever. It will dent the shortest unprotected flat top 18350's I have. I consider a dent to a cell "damaged". Doing simple measurements validates this.

ADDENDUM: As of today, my review has been deleted from the Banggood product listing.

I’ve noticed this with Banggood before. I tried to leave a well-deserved negative review for the Astrolux E02, which came with an MCPCB that has a bad thermal path and it was never published.

GearBest does this too. I love Ganzo knives, have about 30 of them, and rave about them in reviews. But when one arrived with an uncharacteristic design flaw, I wrote a 3/5 star review (instead of the 5/5s I normally write) and outlined the problem.

And that was the one review that never got published…