Has anyone`s Z1 GB clone (aka informally as the COMETA 2016) burned down their house yet?.................

LED Flashlights – General Info
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I ended up buying 19 of these things. That’s right. I know an insanely great bargain when I see it. Notta one has acted in any way, shape, or form in a hinky fashion. All work as expected.

That said, seeing that T18’s original thread is approaching 17,500+ reads and 710+ posts thus far I figured he’s prolly ready to ask SB to close the book on it much less being burned out on all the attention the Cometa has surprisingly given and asked of him. He’s actually all things sensitively considered been really very cool about it.

So………this new thread is to start afresh on its latest and greatest attributes (or failings) from strictly a performance related perspective.

If anyone has anything else to say about their recently received Cometa’s performance (without including all of the last unfortunate politics and business issues related to the BLF GB fiasco to and fro’s) it would I think be appreciated.

I’ll start if off with the following quick general personal observations

1). All 19 received have included a positive driver side spring separator delrin-type disc (donut). White in color. I intend to add a dab of mild adhesive so it stays put.

2). All 19 received have no flickers, burnt electric smell, or other obvious aberrant behaviors, machining mess ups, etc., this even after running them on turbo and other levels repeatedly.

3). Everything on every unit appears to be well torqued down. I received 1 light with a slightly torn tail cap button which I will eventually replace with one of the spare button caps provided.

4). BG did refund me 2 Cometa’s that were to include 26650 batteries. I didn’t ask for the refund. They unilaterally gave it to me without asking. Obviously they couldn’t meet the insane order price of $15.95 including the batts. I can’t blame them for not
doing so.

5). My house has not burned down yet by having these 19. Although I do 2 things that may be worthy of emulation. I use a protected 26650 and I always endeavor to lock out current by unscrewing the tail cap a 1/2 turn or so when I carry in a pocket or even have it sit around on a shelf. But I do this with pretty much ALL my lithium lights if they’re capable of tail cap lockout anyway. Otherwise they’re stored empty whenever I can remember to do so.

I believe over 600 of these clones were sold recently.

If you have any performance-related only thoughts/comments/improvements please share them here. Like I said the other thread is still active but it’s getting ungainly huge and cumbersome to unravel who said what to whom, etc.

Please remember that PICS say a thousand words when discussing improvements etc. :student:

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a bloodless coup

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only issue I have on mine is the tailcap is very hard to screw down. Have to really crank on it till it gets to the point where the tailcap light comes on. Anyone else like that? Any advice welcomed.

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None of mine have that problem. I mean don’t get me wrong there’s some resistance when it gets to the o-ring but nothing like you describe. The cap light should come on about 1/2 turn to full lock and well past the o-ring point of course.

Looking at it from the side your tail cap is basically square to the tube, right? I mean not obviously machined off center either to the tube or to the cap as you start tightening it down?

Oh one other thing, is your battery protected and thus extra long by any chance?

Ok I may have found one reason for your tightening down problem.

Remove the tail cap o-ring and see if it changes the resistance to full lock. If it does, check the o-ring for any tears, nicks, sliver bumps, etc. Take a spare o-ring and reinsert with extra lube in that area especially. Check beforehand for any burrs on the female tail cap threads before doing so. While you’re in the tail cap area double check that the tail cap ring is cinched down nice and tight. You have two holes there that you can use needle nose pliers if you don’t have special tools.

PS. That o-ring comes from BG a little drier than the tail cap threads. Reapply some lube there periodically to keep it nice and smooth. Btw I check threads with a Q-Tip. Any burrs will show up with Q-Tip hairs sticking to the threads as you swirl it around.

If you use the tail cap unscrewed method constantly like I do as an extra safety margin you will tend to ‘dry out’ the tail cap o-ring more often than those that insert a battery once and then leave the tail cap screwed down all the time.

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Hey nottawhackjob, thanks! Problem solved. Thanks to you. I took another look at it and compared it to my Cometa from the GB. The o-ring looked thicker! So I changed it out with a spare that they had included and, man, it is easy now! So, your new thread has already helped someone out! I leave my two Cometas lying around the apartment with the tailcap lights blazing. I think I have 6 or 7 lights with tailcap lights and they are all on all the time, getting my moneys worth.

thanks!

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I carry mine while playing battlefield use it as a grenade clear out the building before entering lol

Just to clear things up lol
!

!

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:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :beer: :beer: :beer:

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Occam’s Razor, baby, Occam’s Razor. :laughing:

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OMG u bought 19 .

No wonder it got sold out quickly:-(

I ordered 3 times and all got cancelled. Luckily 4th time I snatched one without battery

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Ya know what else I like about this Cometa 2016 design?

No GD crenalations to poke my nutz or tear up my pockets.

I like smoooooooooth, baby.

Women’s are like that way too compared to us hairy apes. :laughing:

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I ordered 2 - 1A and 3C.

1A was delivered with the ring.

3C was delivered without the ring in a very old package and with a lot of labels one on each other.

On a support they wanted to give $2 to find it in my country. I said your country is bigger so find the ring and send me. After that I recieve full refund.

Few days later I put the ring from 1A and… driver works 10x quicker than it should, the tailcap disconnects the circuit 10 times in one minute and finally the 3D diode appears to be 1A…

So I put again the ring to the original 1A and all works great.

PS. ‘3C’ was delivered enabled. They put battery when tailcap makes circuit and did’t see the low light…

PS2. I hate 1A. I can sell for the price from BangGood. But shipping costs will be high so that has no sense. Or maybe someone lives near me? PL,ZS

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I like Hank’s Post #1570 solution to this potential problem. It conveniently knocks out 2 birds with one stone. IMO the less pressure in certain areas the better. Tape-type insulator material generally is significantly thinner than other type washers and does the job just as well.

Again, if you’re not comfortable messing around in these areas you can always lock out current with your tail cap until ready to light things up.

PS….The positive driver spring white plastic-type washer that should’ve come with your Cometa should be kept there mainly for the case where the positive battery end is larger than usual. Most batteries typically don’t have an overly large positive anode. This thicker type material than the tape mentioned above is appreciated due to its toughness.

Prolly not a bad idea to put a little dab of silicone type adhesive to this washer for further assurance that it inadvertantly doesn’t fall out when changing batts, etc. But of course this isn’t absolutely necessary.

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Bought one, at that price why in hades not. Inserted a cell and found moon mode doesn’t work, meaning it’s enabled but the emitter just doesn’t light. No problem, who needs moon mode in a zoomy anyway. Disabled moon with no issue but wanted only four modes so tapped like heck and got into configure mode and clicked when it flashed the fifth time and now it’s stuck in turbo mode only. Tap all I like, can’t get back to configure mode. Guess I’ll need to replace the driver.

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if I recall reading it, someone did a ‘reset’ and it fixed some problem like yours. Or default? Worth a try. Best!

  1. is default reset
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Appreciate the thought but I can’t get to number eight if I can’t get to configure mode. Probably just re-flash the driver with STAR or something.

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Just the usual problems with the X5/X6 driver, when driving an LED hard.

With a clickie switch interrupting the power, and totally inadequate decoupling or holdup of the MCU, plus the FET/LED switching spikes it was always a recipe for disaster.

Once the memory is corrupted, it’s toast, unless you re-flash it. A shame, because it could have easily been possible to detect that the non-volatile memory had become corrupted, and re-set it.

And even if you can re-flash, the same thing could happen again, at any time.

There are simple hardware mods that can fix all of this, if you are handy with a soldering iron.

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See my post over in the other thread.
The centering ring may not put pressure on the MCPCB (or only via the wires / solder joints). If you wiggle on the leads from the driver side, check for movement of the emitter.
Mine also had some lead particles from soldering under the MCPCB and consequently dents. I recommend cleaning everything.

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Man, just one T18 thread is enough. Now two threads to look for info.
Of course anyone can start a thread, just that you mentioned T18 original thread.

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Ah….

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