I’ve occasionally heard that the later batches of S41 may have had bistro, but I’m not sure. Originally it was going to use bistro, but the drivers were too sensitive to voltage spikes and couldn’t handle the amps of a multi-emitter light. So they used the older blf-a6 drivers instead, which are more tolerant.
The voltage-spike thing has been fixed in later BLF drivers, but last I heard, it was still a problem on banggood’s bistro drivers.
Hello toykeeper, thanks for pointing that out do you know what kind of problems do that caused? I mean, is it some obvious malfunction or is it more about working regularly for a while and then risking to fail later?
What happens is that the driver reboots. When the FET opens it lets current through, then when it closes it causes kind of a shockwave strong enough to reboot the MCU. So, in the strobe mode, for example, it’ll flash once or twice and then go directly to moon. Or it can go from turbo to moon, or one of the higher FET modes to moon, on its own.
Basically, if it runs at full power it reboots itself and goes to moon.
The attiny13a is tolerant enough to keep running regardless, even when it’s getting far more voltage than it’s spec’d for. But the attiny25v doesn’t respond well to these voltage spikes, and it reboots.
Newer driver designs eliminated the voltage spikes, but I don’t think banggood has any of those newer designs.
Thanks g_sintornillos ,
anything I should be aware before ordering? I see that many people were not satisfied with QC, mostly damaged emitters, leds with different tint etc!
I wanted to go for Nichia version.
First batch was for oblivion, high failure rate and DOA, then improved
I do not know what’s happening with the current batch, Astrolux is not characterized by having a minimum quality control, it can be a lottery
Mine, from second or third batch, bought at the end of 2016, works fine from out the box
Thanks, I wanted one for a long time but all this hiccups turned me off, hope they improved the light, wouldn’t like to get faulty nichia led, don’t have those at hand.
do you know what kind of problems do that caused? I mean, is it some obvious malfunction or is it more about working regularly for a while and then risking to fail later?