Agree with OP on all points.
SP10S is my current favourite e-switch AA. Only improvement, but pretty major IMO, would be re-introduce shortcut to moon (hold from off). Minor improvement would be chamfer the cooling fins.
Just grabbed one of my SP10S units off the shelf and memory not working, loosened/tightened tail and memory now works. Must be a bug in the firmware
Hey Funtastic Thanks for your post I thought i was imagining things. :sunglasses:
To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed with mine. I was excited when I first received it, but I’ve found it to be unreliable. I load it with an eneloop, but the light is rarely working properly whenever I pick it up occasionally to turn on. Seems like every time I need to replace the battery, because when I press the button it just turns off right after. Or it turns off when I press to access the brighter two modes. I’m beginning to think it drains the battery even when it’s switched off. Not to mention if you lightly tap the tail end against a hard object like a table the light just turns off mysteriously. In contrast, a cheaper AAA light like the C01S doesn’t have issues with reliability. It always turns on, and the battery is never randomly drained and not able to power the light. It’s just about as bright, too. Maybe the SP10S is just not as compatible for NiMH cells as it is with lithium. Too bad I don’t use lithiums. Maybe I should make an exception for this one light so I can get some reliability from it in addition to those crazy lumen counts that they advertise.
If you’ve got a multimeter you should check for high parasitic drain. Put it on mA setting, remove tail cap, red to negative battery and black to unanodized top of battery tube.
A lot of my stock of Sofirn lights have come with dirty connections so try cleaning tail cap, both ends of tube, driver
Lumens on an AA - 250 ish, 14500 - 650.
I would also recommend cleaning all the contacts even if they don’t look dirty.
@Sean Interesting post. I checked my SP10S & found that the tail-cap spring was very flimsy. Thin & just a push fit into a shallow depression in the tail-cap. Possible Sofirm are using a cheaper spring, to save a few cents cost ? Maybe the spring is not seated firmly.
I tried tapping mine & it also switches off. Probably cos of battery bounce caused by the weak spring.
I dug around & found a heaver spring & replaced mine. Just pulled out the old one & pushed in the replacement. Maybe needs to be soldered in for better contact. It does not switch off now unless I really bang it on the tail-cap.
I have only used Li cell.
Worth trying a 14500 it gives an amazing amount of light .
I don’t think you can solder to aluminum
@PiercingTheDarkness Thanks; I’ll check for that.
@cm64 An easy to loose contact is a definite flaw in a fair number of them. The incidence would probably be a lot lower with some better parts being used.
Not my video but what we both experienced: SP10S issue - YouTube
And this lost contact from shaking: Sofirn SP10S Flashlight Failure - Power Loss Problem When Shaken, #1 - YouTube
Have you tried a regular AA battery?
I’ve sold over 40pcs and haven’t had any so sensitive to a bump like those videos.
They do lose contact with a bump on the table but a lot of lights do that with only a rear spring. Tried a stiffer spring like cm64 suggested and now it takes a pretty hard hit to switch off.
Spring used is Convoy’s high drain springs, these work well.
Good point. I didn’t realise that it was aluminium :laughing:
@PiercingTheDarkness The tap to turn off still happens with a run-of-the-mill alkaline AA. I noticed that the impact needed to lose contact is lower the brighter the mode. A very light tap would accomplish this on the highest brightness. The lowest brightness is fairly resistant to switching off in this way and has to be tapped a lot harder.
Glad this was brought up, I’ll be swapping the spring out on all my stock. It wouldn’t be ideal to drop the light and it switch off making it difficult to find
Maybe Sofirm will read this thread & use a better/firmer spring.
Since SP10R is in development right now, I will be glad to pick up these suggestions and let Sofirn know about it.
Thanks that will be great.
One other improvement - maybe a direct way to switch on Moonlight/Eco mode - by long press when off. Like the Sp33v3
Yes, that's also part of the plan.
Can anyone please clarify for me, for the SP10S, in which mode does it turn on? The OP says it comes on in low and you have to cycle through all modes to get to eco, or moonlight. However the product description on Sofirn says that it turns on in eco, like the SP10b used to. Is it possible they updated the driver since this thread was started due to the criticism? I’d like to get a driver to replace the one I mucked up in an older SP10b but I will wait for new developments if does not turn on in eco. I’ve looked for other reviews but they are all old or conflicting about this.
You’ll want to wait.
14500 - mode memory
AA - starts on low, not eco
Eco is too low anyway imo, it’s lower than anything else I have seen
Thanks for the comment. So if you are using 14500, does it come on in eco? We used it as a bathroom light on a trip to Iceland and eco was perfect for that. If it comes on in eco using 14500 it is just like SP10b. I probably will wait anyway, to see if the Anduril driver ever comes out.