Acebeam X45 defective, 2 months old

next time ask me for replacement driver

not working head can be also a cold solder point on carrier or a defective PCB of a battery

soon available X45 3x Buck 15A driver with BLF firmware

This gets even more interesting if you read the specification sheet at the company website Acebeam High Lumen Flashlight X45|AceBeam® Official Store | Flashlights, Tactical Lights

It does come with four 3300 mAh high discharge 18650 Li-ion batteries so the 29W draw for each LED is possible ……… but with some very short run times - 3 minutes at 16500 lumens (Turbo Max) and 10 minutes at 9000 lumens (Turbo). It automatically cuts back to 4000 lumens when the heat sink reaches 65 degrees C (~150 degrees F). It weighs a hefty 535 grams (1.18 lb). Four of my Panasonic 3300 mAh batteries weigh 182 grams so it must have a pretty good heat sink built into the front of the light to deal with the heat generated by the four LEDs. In comparison, the inexpensive 900 lumen tactical flashlight I use weighs 168 grams with the single 18650 battery and will run for hours at the maximum setting.

Approximate runtimes in each mode:
Firefly : 3 lumens 310hours; _ (allow the seller to quote a ridiculous long run time)_
Low : 500 lumens 10hours;
Mid : 1500 lumens 3.5hours;
High: 4000lumens 1.4hours;
Turbo:9000lumens-4000lumens, 10minutes+1.2hours
Turbo Max:16500lumens-4000lumens, 3minutes+1.1hours
Strobe 4000 lumens 3 hours

Lots of bells and whistles but doesn’t seem very practical for ordinary use. I have a 5 XML-T6 bike light that theoretically can put out over 4000 lumens. It doubles as a camper’s headlamp but if you happen to accidentally look directly at any of the people I camp with they get rather irate. It also comes with a hefty battery pack that is a PIA to deal with when used as a camper’s headlight. It only got used a couple of times before being permanently parked on a shelf. Not a big loss as it cost me $32 at Banggood.

Ouch, yes, always send packages registered so it can be tracked!
But the CS of acebeam could have been more supportive in your case.

Hello RonNL, welcome to BLF.

IMHO this is a combination of beginners (bad)luck and a bit too much good fait on your side.
I’m afraid I cannot offer you a handy solution for your situation.
The only thing I can offer is a set of rules I work with (so far, so good).

a/ there are two parties involved in a sale. The buyer (you) and the seller.
Do not agree on hints of the seller to take things up with a third party, like an importer or a manufacturer.
b/ keep polite, but don’t let go. If they stop answering your mails, continue on the review page of the seller.
c/ whatever the conditions of the seller, keep referring to national or EU law. That is (almost) always prevailing.
d/ try to pull the PayPal card (or the Visa card). At first as a (implicit) threat. If things go bad, for real.
e/ the sender is always responsible for the parcel until it reaches its destination (not: he/she asked me to do).
f/ that’s why I send my parcels (from a certain value up) with T&T. In NL sometimes insurance is included.
g/ when buying something, go for the cheapest shipping solution. Seller is sender, so he/she is responsible.
h/ ask for a low value on the package. If it is lost, you don’t want to receive that lower amount but a new item.
Or a refund of the actual amount you have payed for it.
i/ avoid insurance, because the (higher) amount of the insurance alerts customs (maybe that has happened).

Good luck!

“This is not the kind of service I expect on an high quality flashlight.”

High quality, that is relative. I personally don’t spend much money at all on a Chinese made light just for those reasons. (Quality, and if I have a problem, sending it back).

Unless it is an Olight. They have USA customer service in Georgia and I have used it once. I got a tailcap for my X7 sent to me in 2 days with stickers and a morale patch. I did not have to pay a cent.

That is the exact service I got from Surefire for their replacement tailcap.

I am sorry you are out a decent amount of money, I hope it gets resolved.

Thanks for all the replies, I see some good lessons in them.

For now no update from Acebeam yet, I’ll let you guys know when I have news.

shame… rule nr.1 never send untracked stuff to china, its really hopeless atleast with a tracking number u have something to track otherwise yea u never know where package went or who stole it… its shame acebeam couldnt help u better :frowning:

Yeah, the postal services don’t work well in China at all unless you have tracking or live in China.

Another day and still no reply from Acebeam. Being left in the dark here really.

thats really sad, i thought acebeam had better customer service… after all they dont have exactly cheap lights in the higher lumens range… not ok :person_facepalming:

Sad but next time buy from an authorized seller and you get support for sure

If you still have your postal receipt, you could go to the post office and check if they can help you.

he bought it from amazon, isnt that authorized enough ? he shouldnt have to send a light defective back to china, only to amazon since he bought it from there…

All I want at this point is that Acebeam will cover the import duties for the replacement light, the 47.16 EUR.

I don’t think I’m asking too much. If my contact still hasn’t replied by tomorrow I’ll contact someone else at Acebeam.

Amazon probably would have make things right. I bought a jogging arm light from an Amazon vendor last year and it never shipped. I emailed Amazon about it and they contacted the vendor for me. After an unsatisfactory response from the vendor Amazon refunded the $3.99 cost for the light and in addition gave me a $10 credit :slight_smile:

I’m not even a Prime member but I have spent several thousand dollars over the past 5 years so perhaps that helped out.

Hi Ron,

Acebeam is a top quality manufacturer that doesn’t allow their products to be discounted by their distributors and charges more than any other Chinese manufacturer for their products. There is absolutely no excuse for the lack of customer service they’ve displayed throughout this situation.

Amazon may use many “sellers” but Amazon is the worlds largest company and has absolutely excellent customer service.

#1- you need to immediately call or use live chat and review the entire situation with Amazon customer service (not the seller, Amazon). Have ready any documentation available including your receipt for the head shipped to china. #1- Advise Amazon the total amount of money you’ve now spent and advise them that you’ve started a thread outlining the details of this situation on BLF (advise them it’s a 28 000 member online community dedicated to lighting/flashlights that is very sympathetic to your situation and are behind you in it being resolved properly). Advise Amazon that you would like them to force the seller to help provide a solution to the problem. Ideally Amazon and the seller would both begin pressuring Acebeam to make this right.

#2- please give us the Amazon seller information here on BLF

#3- please advise the Amazon seller the same as above: “you’ve now spent and advise them that you’ve started a thread outlining the details of this situation on BLF (advise them it’s a 28 000 member online community dedicated to lighting/flashlights that is very sympathetic to your situation and are behind you in it being resolved properly)”

#4- please advise Acebeam the same as above: “you’ve now spent and advise them that you’ve started a thread outlining the details of this situation on BLF (advise them it’s a 28 000 member online community dedicated to lighting/flashlights that is very sympathetic to your situation and are behind you in it being resolved properly)”

It’s very easy for a big company to disregard the little guy and just ignore them. When they realize that a huge chunk of their market is not alright with how they’ve handled a particular situation you begin to achieve strength in numbers. Can even be more powerful than consumer affairs involvement

Keep this in mind: any issue creates an opportunity for a company - handle it well and this can become a source of praise for Amazon/the seller/Acebeam… Handle it poorly and this will become a public negative review which will be seen and heard by many. Give everyone involved the opportunity to make it right and hopefully a couple days from now you can thank the companies involved.

In the future, now that you’re a member and new to the flashlight game it’s very beneficial if you review potential purchases with members here before buying.

Amazon and Amazon Marketplace are 2 totally different things
its like Ebay or Aliexpress, no local support, and send to China claiming gurantee on the manufactory not the seller

if you bought from Amazon
you simply put it in a box
take the retoure label you got in the parcel when buying
download RMA label for broken light and fill out as best as you can
and get refund or new light

an authorized dealer for example Amazon without Marketplace has to take the support and send it to china for repair/replace not you

Netherlands:

China/USA one option:
www.amazon.com/shops/acebeam

I know but Amazon still offers some sort of assurance that their vendors will look after you don’t they?

Isn’t Amazon mkt the same as Ebay where Ebay at least get’s involved when theirs a dispute that you didn’t feel was resolved through the seller?

there is no Ebay case for warranty and replacement
they simply can solve a dispute if your item arrived damaged or went missing

if you buy it cheap off an unauthorized dealer mostly the support sucks

Ya… That makes sense… The original claim would’ve had to have been handled through Amazon as a DOA product

Either way, with him being $400 US in the hole I’d involve every person and their mother I could.