Astrolux FT03 troubleshooting

Hi everyone, I’ve had my FT03 for a while now and still love it. a friend was a bit envious when we were hiking in the mountains, so I recently bought him another FT03 as a present. Sadly, it doesn’t work.

If you could help me out with the troubleshooting I’d be grateful, as I’m still too much of a noob when it comes to modding/repairs.

No matter what I do, I can’t get it to light up when I press the button.
It can’t be the LED, as it flashes twice when I do a short twist (to temporarily cut the power off) on the tailcap.

I’ve tried various 18650’s and 26650’s, same result.
I’ve tried a factory reset, but can’t be sure if I did it correctly as the only time the LED puts out any light at all is those two short flashes to signal that it has power.

My current hypothesis is that the switch might just be defective, is it possible that banggood would send out a light with a dead switch?
I don’t want to bother them if it’s something that I can fix myself, but at the same time I don’t want to lose my warranty if I try to take the switch apart and it’s not as easy to put back together, so I thought I’d get some input from you guys first.

Any ideas would be appreciated, there’s probably lots of stuff I haven’t thought of yet.

Which warranty? :smiley:

Either disassemble everything (requires desoldering) and replace the switch or contact banggood for a refund.

Wouldn’t it be easier to remove the switch retaining ring, button and de-solder the switch…solder new switch on…

So, if the switch is not working, it probably has to be replaced, right? I had hoped that it might be some kind of known fault with the flashlight like a loose cable, something that even I could fix :wink:

I’m not really sure what exactly I had hoped to get as an answer, as it is pretty much impossible to thoroughly troubleshoot via internet, especially since I can’t even provide a good description of the problem.

That means I have to decide whether to contact banggood, or try to open it myself and hope for the best.

Thanks a lot for the answers!

IIRC the switch is mounted 90° to the PCB. One could try to do it through the tiny hole, but I doubt that there is enough space.

Yeah….I gone thru and modded soo many too forget… :smiley:

Happy new year,they are several ft03 Wit
h that problem,they fail when the USB connector rubs against the body of the flashlight,in mine i solved It by moving the connector until It does not touch the body,Bangood behaves well,send then a video and refund tour money

Oops, yeah that looks easy. Probably the other end of the cable. :smiley:

Happy New year to you too, and thanks for the suggestions and pictures everyone!

I’ll have to look at this thread again tomorrow when I’m sober, but it looks promising!

Hi,

I have an FT03 issue myself….

Mine ramps up from off, then won’t ramp down or switch off!! I have to unscrew the tailcap.

And it won’t factory reset either, very frustrating to say the least!

Apart from returning it………any ideas?

Cheers,

Rob

Sounds like a broken switch. Either solder bridge, wire or switch itself. If it came in this state, ask for refund.

Hi Sammy, too old for a refund, and I have no idea how to ‘solder a bridge’……

I personally am coming round to thinking the driver might be broken. I managed a reset, it worked for a while. Then reverted back to ‘broken’. Yet if I screw the cap on, and do the 5 clicks for instant turbo, it’s fine.

Baffling and bloody annoying.

Cheers

Rob

I just got one from BangGood and initially I thought I had a problem. It would work with the USB plugged in but not otherwise. I left it plugged in overnight but it still wouldn’t work unplugged. Sometimes the indicator light would look like it was charging. Sometimes it would look like it was charged.

I ordered the version of the light with a battery included. In my case it turned out that they had put a clear sticker on the bottom of the battery! Duh. I removed that and everything worked fine.

I did read that when you try to charge the battery it won’t charge unless the voltage is below 4 V I think so let it get below that before you charge in the light.

I noticed a few other quirky but not major issues. I ordered another light (flood) at the same time as this one. I went outside to try them out and I was holding both of them (turned off) in the same hand. When they got close enough to each other the Astrolux turned itself on automatically. Some kind of induction between the two switches.

I also noticed, even before I figured out that the battery had that clear sticker on it, that if you twist the end cap the light would flicker on for a second and then not work. I think someone else in this thread noticed that.

Maybe I’ll have some real problem with this light after owning it for a longer period but I’m posting for new users. It may be that your light isn’t broken or faulty and just that there is a sticker on the end of your battery and no contact is being made.

Yes they put sticker always on batteries since they are inside the light during shipping because of regulations. i thought this everyone knew when u get the light take the plastic thing of the battery.

My FT03 had a similar problem. After tinkering with the tail cap and swapping batteries a few times, the problem went away.

Don’t forget, this stuff is Made In China. There is no quality control and that’s a good thing, If there was quality control and better design and better manufacturing, the price may be $200.

I would prefer to pay $25 for the FT03 (which I did) and take my chances.