BLF A6 FET+7135 Light Troubleshooting and Mod thread

I want to thank Banggood and heyanqing1.

As I described in post #184 of this thread, moonlight mode was not working in my BLF A6. There was also a tint shift that seemed to come and go, making the beam yellow.

Without any fuss, heyanqing1 made arrangements to send me a replacement head. It arrived today. All I had to do was unscrew one, and screw on the other. All is now working well, and the 3D tint on the new emitter may be even better than the nice 3D tint on my other A6.

Thanks, guys!

The easy fix aside, this really worrying with all those BLF-A6 lights out there, you really must know what you're doing with this light. It happened to the minus-wire in your light but it could just as well have been the plus- wire

The one I fixed the loose retainer on did not have silicon wire but something much tougher. That was a black ano unit.

Sorry guys… I’ve been pretty busy lately…… I think I need to take some of the great knowledge given here and get it into post#2. That way if you need to direct someone to your advice you can link it. I realize some of you had great ideas that have not yet made it to the original post. I will do my best to review the thread and get that updated as time allows. Thanks for all of your input thus far and if you have something that you’d really like to see in one of the first two posts let me know!

I'm having waterproofing issues with the new head... Water seems to be coming in from the body side where the reflector portion screws on to the head.

Copper ring looks a bit tarnished, is that okay?, it's in a bag of rice now drying up

“Long tap: Do a long (longer than 1.5s) half-press to reset to the first mode (if mode memory is turned off).”

My version (latest batch) takes about 5 seconds to reset to the moon mode with a long press. Conclusively, turning off the light then on within 5 seconds registers as a medium half-tap so goes in reverse rather that straight to moon.

Just a thought regards the centering ring de-doming and the cut wires. While we’re likely (compelled?) to take a light apart, most flashlight buyers will not be so if there are no problems with it as shipped, then we must bear some of the fault ourselves when we take working things apart without need. It does however point to something to be considered in future builds and anytime you can learn something you gain.

Could just be luck, but my centering ring behaved well both times I had it apart, no problems with the lens o-ring, the clip is fine, and the tailcap bottoms out perfectly so I reckon I got one of the best ones in this GB. I should have bought a lottery ticket the day I ordered it :bigsmile:

Phil

Is there a workaround centering ring/reflector insulator to replace the one that clips onto the reflector?

One that will stick down to the emitter base and stay put there?

Did it get wet from rain? Or did you drop it into a puddle, etc? Just wondering to gauge how water resistant it is (or isn’t).

If you’re in to high amps I would polish the ring some how.

Light rinse under the tap to clean it off after doing some soil work in the garden.

For the record, this only happens with the new replacement head. The old head didn't leak at all even when submerged in a bucket. Old head had low mode problems.


Another observation, I tried to lego the reflector portion of the old head to new head, it wouldn't screw tight. If I had to guess, I would say that the erratic manufacturing tolerances is not only affecting whether light turns on or not, in some cases like mine, the manufacturing tolerances affects waterproofness as well.

You might check the O-ring — notoriously a bit too snug in the early ones so it would slip out of the groove and apear behind the lens.

But if they substituted a thinner (cross-section, like 0.5mm or 1mm) rather than wider (inner diameter, something under 20mm) O-ring, it might not slip out of the groove, and yet, wouldn’t fill the groove so wouldn’t keep water out.

Just speculating, of course. Sometimes fixing one problem causes another problem elsewhere. It’s one of those QA/QC checklist items.

I could be wrong but I think xzel87 is saying that it’s leaking where the entire head screws into the body and not from the lenses side. Checking the O-ring where it screws into the body is a good idea. Maybe it’s missing, damaged, etc.

That’s pretty unusual. First time anyone has mentioned an issue like that, I think.

If you have tools to flash the driver it should be relatively easy to investigate and fix, but without those tools it likely won’t change. There could be a driver component out of spec or something, like maybe the big and little capacitors got swapped. Hard to say by guessing though.

Correct. To be more precise, it's the reflector portion that screws on to the head. Checked and relubed the orings, no damage to them whatsoever. Still leaks. I just don't risk it and submerge it in water anymore. I'm sure it would be fine with splashes (rain) but submerging is a big NO.

Abit dissapointed with the waterproofing of my unit but nevertheless still a good deal considering what it is.

Tried adding some conductive lube/bulb grease?

Of course if it’s hot when it gets wet and cools off, it’ll pull a lower pressure and suck water in unless it’s really tightly sealed.

Maybe a thicker o-ring would help? Sounds like the current one is slightly too thin.

Currently Bang-goods is going to be shipping me a new tube, since mine is shorter than spec, but by bypassing the tailcap to turn on the flashlight, I just noticed that I also received the wrong LED tint. I ordered a 1A (cool), but I think I received the warm light version (5a). It took me 2.5 weeks to convince them that my flashlight was defective and since I have the wrong LED, would it be worth trying to get another LED, or would they just assume that I am trying to scam them out of a flashlight and cancel my replacement tube. I don’t have another flashlight with a known LED tint, but I have a no-name flashlight in comparison on a white surface to try to show the different tints. Left is the A6 and the other is the cheap one.
Image

Can't see your pic.

Do any of these work, if not any place where I can post them for them to see.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByG0qQW\_\_8R1aW91TE9UNHVGcE0

Image

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByG0qQW\_\_8R1aW91TE9UNHVGcE0/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByG0qQW\_\_8R1aW91TE9UNHVGcE0