What scares me here is that the root of the problem can be traced back to one crucial component in the circuit: the inductor.
A badly soldered inductor can cause problems at higher power levels because of a bad solder joint, like in my stock driver in my Haikelite MT01: the inductor actually slightly mechanically got separated from the solder, and wouldn’t work, until I replaced the driver.
I then inspected the original driver, and saw that the inductor was slightly lifted on the side(very slightly). I then pushed the inductor while connected to a 6V LED and my power supply.
Behold, the driver was working again! Only on low modes though, before it shut off because of “LVP”.
I then resoldered the inductor, and everything was working fine.
TLDR: Either the inductor is badly soldered from the factory, or it got damaged during shipping. They should be giving you a half refund for that, since turbo isn’t working like it should.
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts BlueSwordM! :+1:
I’ll have Banggood evaluate the latest updates on this issue and maybe they are gracious enough to offer a refund. So far, my previous experience with them is rather disillusioning.
Wow was gonna get the MR30 , now I don’t think so. When I first got the 70 , step down from turbo was almost immediate. Saw on here to try cleaning contacts , and did. Still immediate step down. I was too lazy to try returning. I liked the side light so much , I was willing to put up with it. After recharging a few times , it started to work properly. So , I got the MR50 to add to my 21700’s. It has been fine. ( step off turbo at 1 to 1+ minutes )
After seeing how poorly their customer service is , I don’t think I want to risk another purchase of their products.
After I informed Banggood's CS team about the latest insight they now asked me this:
"[Sorry excuses excluded]
Is is possible for you to change the battery locally so the device will work normally?
[Sorry excuses excluded]"
Well, I don't think they understand what the real problem is about or is it just me not understanding their answer? I'm afraid they think the battery is the faulty item, not the flashlight. I replied again that it doesn't matter what battery I put in. The turbo will not work properly and starts to kick out even when reaching 4.0V already, maybe because of a faulty inductor on the driver. Unprotected batteries won't work unless artificially extended by spacers which is not a solution of the problem.
We are sorry for the situation, But we received the reply from our supplier and they told us that the Turbo mode requires the battery voltage over 3.9V. So the voltage in the video is not enough. Can you try battery over 3.9V to see if the issue will be resolved?"
[Sorry excuses excluded]"
I summarize:
Rofis couldn't care less of my obviously defective MR30. Their 5-years warranty is not worth the paper it is written on. They don't even respond to my objection that it is anything but usual that my MR30 will only work with protected cells as unprotected don't even seem to get electrical contact. In contradiction to several reviews of the MR30 where turbo worked until the battery's become more or less depleted Rofis also tells me their boost driver can only handle the turbo mode until 3.85V (please keep this figure in mind!) no matter what type of battery one puts in. At this voltage the MR30 is even prone to shut off, they told me!
Banggood now keeps on bullying me with more and more videos that will not help to sort out the mistakes of this flashlight I have bought from them. They don't seem to pay attention anymore to the fact that my MR30 will not work with standard 21700 batteries whereas everyone else who bought the MR30 reports it is capable to use them.
Banggood now tells me that Rofis told them the turbo only works when voltage is higher than 3.9V....wait a second....3.9V? Do you remember what Rofis told me in their reply? Yes, 3.85V. So, now they keep telling me the turbo only works until voltage reaches 3.9V and insist to get a video proving that the turbo will not work when above 3.9V.
Now, I'm asking myself where this BS is supposed to end?
I don't know if PayPal will side with me in this situation as it will be hard to prove that it is unusual for a flashlight to stop working properly when a battery is 75% full and it will also be difficult to judge about Rofis' advertisement that the MR30 works with 21700 batteries without to mention a slightest word about the small but important discrepancy that it only works with extra long, protected batteries. Those batteries are hard to get and Rofis does not even offer single batteries for sale.
I suggested you should try the tube short experiment using the unprotected cell. You clearly used the Rofis Protected cell. You should also try and exert more pressure on the wire. It does seem to me that you have higher than usual resistance in your light, and that indicates springs or the Rofis protected cell. Having stepdowns from Turbo with a cell with a resting voltage of 3.7 to 3.8 V is normal.
Obviously, people will say the get Turbo from lower resting voltages. Mine does too… But it is definitely not the 1600 lumens that you would get from a fully charged cell.
So your light does not charge the Rofis cell inside the light? Up to a point where the light turns green??
Hi Kevin, thanks for your help and yes, I was probably wrong using the protected Rofis battery instead of one of those unprotected 21700s. Sorry about that. I will try to repeat this with unprotected ones as well but it will not help me to get things resolved by Banggood or Rofis (see latest updates above). Actually my MR30 will not even activate the turbo in many cases when voltage is lower than 3.9V, i.e. no step-down but immediate shutting down as can be seen on my videos. I must admit, I'm beginning to lose my interest to put any further efforts and investigation into this.
The Rofis cell will be charged inside the MR30 when using the USB-cable, any unprotected cell will not. I can try to measure the impedance of the Rofis cell but for the internal resistance I do not have any equipment here and probably not the math skills, too. :-D
Doesn’t the multimeter that you used for testing voltage have an Ohm scale?
So at 4.168V I’m measuring 33.36 Mega Ohm. Made an error in my previous message, it was 21.xx Mega Ohm.
That immediate shutdown of your light looks like the protection tripping on the Rofis cell. Lower cell voltage means increased current needed from the cell to supply the amount of power the driver needs to run Turbo. I have had this issue with protected cells in the past. That’s why I’m curious to see what happens with a fully charged UNPROTECTED cell when you PROPERLY bypass the tail cap with a wire.
I think the reason why BG/Rofis are so adamant for more proof is that your tests don’t indicate to a driver problem. I might be wrong, but I am on my 2nd MR30 and I have stripped the 1st one. I showed them all my tests and they didn’t hesitate to send a new light. And the only weak part is how sensitive the driver is to supply circuit impedance. So not really a driver problem, but a design problem. Something that can clearly be tested by cleaning contacts or bypassing the bottlenecks. The only way to combat the voltage drop that occurs from running in Turbo will be trying lower capacity high drain cells that have less voltage sag.
So, yes it actually has an Ohm scale but I never used it before.
I don't mean to disagree with you but I have already cleaned all contacts that are accessible to me. In terms of those springs there is nothing I can do about it. I already mentioned in my OP that the driver spring looks suspicious but I might be wrong and this black residue around the spring is just normal. It cannot be wiped off, though. However, I will try to follow up on your suggestions and report back here.
Meanwhile, Banggood's CS team has clearly stated that they will not consider this flashlight defective unless I can prove that the MR30 drops out of the turbo level above 3.9V. No word about the incapability of my MR30 using standard size 21700 batteries without PCB. They just ignore my request to give me an answer about it. They also stopped giving me suggestions to point me into the right direction, so this case can anyhow be resolved.
Bottom line:
No help from ROFIS
No help from Banggood
Last but not least:
I wanted to publish a negative but honest and factually stated review about the MR30 on Amazon DE. Guess what happened? Amazon now wrote me the review was rejected due to violation against their review criteria. I did actually check all criteria for violation but found none to be applicable to my review. Well, that figures...
Would you go protest in a BMW sales lot for a problem you had with a Mercedes?
You didn’t buy the flashlight from Amazon, so what makes you think they should allow you to slam the product on their website?
Sorry you got a lemon, but you are going about this in the wrong way.
Later,
Keith
Agreed. Maybe I was foolish enough to think THEY (i.e. Amazon) have at least some kind of a neutral, independent rating system where anyone can post his/her opinion about the corresponding product. At least I expected it as in former times it did not matter whether one bought something from Amazon or not. But now, I stand corrected and consider their rating system as trustworthy as Banggood's or Gearbest's rating system where nearly all products have 4 or 5 star ratings only. ;-)
Lately, my MR30 stopped to work completely, i.e. the switch would not work anymore no matter what I tried. As far as I have heard, there were some more people affected by this problem. While Rofis refused to assist in the first place when I reported about the driver- and contact-related issues, they eventually agreed to send me a replacement covered by their warranty.
The new MR30 came „naked“, i.e. just the flashlight, nothing else. So far, it appears to be a new revision as the driver spring looks much better designed and a bit longer. Moreover, the side switch feels totally different. Whereas the old one had a very distinct pressure point with a click sound the new one feels mushy without any hearable feedback.
I have quickly tested the new MR30 with an extra short Vapcell 21700 battery (actually Sanyo NCR21700A 5.000mAh 15A a.k.a. „Tesla cell“) that comes with a recessed positive pole. Fortunately, everything seems to work fine this time. Hopefully, more tests will reveal if there are any issues with the turbo mode once the cell is being discharged.
Glad to hear this was resolved, I was looking at the issues with the MR30 on BLF because mine only works on turbo and strobe but you can barely see the light at all. you have to cup your hand around the light to see it. Rofis has not responded at all over the last 3 weeks or so. I guess I will e-mail them every week until they respond.
Has anyone been able to remove the bezel on this thing? It is glued super tight. I tried everything but couldn’t get it off. I like everything about this light besides the CW tint so I want to replace the emitter but just can’t get to it.
Add mine to the list. My MR30 I got 11/2018 and used often and liked a lot has failed. Very careful with it, looks like new. Switch reads battery green for 2 seconds but won’t turn on. Tried cleaning all contacts, threads, and using different batteries, it is dead. Second Rofis to die on me, I will not buy more.
