HOLY CRAP… Another favorite light got hot after shorting and smells of burned plastic right out of the blue… I had a scary incident last month with the Imalent DX80 nearly exploding in my hands, and now this FW3A emitted burning smell and stopped working after just falling off a 20 inch high night table…
I picked it up and noticed it had turned on on its own and began ramping through its stepped modes to turbo, and could not turn it off with thew switch! i quickly unscrewed the head to revel a smell of burning similar to what i experienced in the DX80 failure and an extremely hot head section. so i got up and threaddded it back together as normal, but it did not turn on at first, but when i took the head off again and put it back on it turned on instantly and began to ram up to its turbo mode and could not turn it off with the switch…
so i got out of bed, went to my desk to inspect it, and found what appeared to be a burn spot on the switch MCPCB, along with the smell of burned plastic all to reminiscent to the scary moment my DX80 went into melt down.
below is the photo of the spot on the board that don’t look normal:
i know the 30Q was in correctly as i used it earlier a hour ago to take the dog out to pee before bed, then suddenly when it fell off the night table it did this…
Here is the video after i got out of bed to show what happened to this FW3A. I only had this light for a couple weeks and it did this… Its becoming hard to feel safe anymore around flashlights after experiencing to major failures of this kind with burned components and over heating due to a short…
Your point is - go see my Youtube video,. this light fell on the floor after just a 20 inch fall, and it turned on and would not turn off. SO after waking from my sleep… do you expect me to to go into a full dissection to to try to find out want happened to this light that went to full turbo mode, and would not turn off until i removed the head? …I want to say something here to you now after this scare because i already has one scare with a near flashlight fire, but i wont because your not worth my time or frustration at the moment. FYI, the driver side is fine, there was no damage i could see to photograph for your amusement.
You made a video trying to reproduce what you are calling a short. You should probably go to bed and address it a more safe way tomorrow. Being very dramatic…
One of my new FW3A’s ramped on it’s own out of the box, from what I understand this happened to a few lights. I removed the head loosened and then tightened the tail till it stopped then replaced the battery and head, problem was solved. No issues after that, one I gifted needed to have the battery charged and I assume my father in law loosened the tail first so he needed to follow the above process with the head removal and tail tightening as it stopped operating correctly but it was solved easily.
I dunno if that helps? Otherwise my lights worked faultlessly.
The fall might have shorted the inner tube making the driver think the button was pressed down continuously.
The tail pcb looks interesting. I’m not sure why it looks burnt, though. That would be due to high current flowing through that trace.
Here is a theory. The fall might have made the battery push hard against the inner tube. The inner tube might have shorted against the outer tube. In this situation the battery current might be forced to flow through that burnt looking switch trace to power the light PLUS the current flowing through the inner tube also triggers the driver to think the switch is being constantly pressed down.
Toykeeper has seen the results of a shorted inner tube. Hopefully she can comment. I can’t remember her description well enough.
Inspect the inner tube for any breaks in the anodized finish (outer part of inner tube).
Edit: Toykeeper said that if the inner tube gets shorted, the light acts like the button is pressed.
ok after closer inspection, there is no doubt the small trace had melted to the tail spring, why it happened after a small fall off the night table possibly landing on the tail to cause the short to the trace with the spring.I did check the inner tube, but dont see any scratches or flaws to allow it to short to the body.
( as i mentioned here in the FW3A troubleshooting thread, i will do a quick mod/fix to prevent the spring from shorting to that trace. FW3A Troubleshooting / FAQ - #618 by DBSAR
My wife runs around the house slightly unscrewing all of my tail caps. 2 years ago today(not joking) my zebralight(sc600w iv plus) caught my cotton shorts pocket on fire.
I’m more worried about her finding out that my new light caught the bed sheets on fire
Kawi: I use my flashlight a lot and in hard to reach places. I use it a few hours a day. I’m also clumsy and drop it off my lap at least twice a week. But my hands are getting destroyed from doing repairs on small devices
I believe that Japanese/Chinese hands are smaller, better able to reach inside their miniature engineered wonders.
One reason I had my sinus surgery by a Japanese doctor and my proctologist is Dr No.
