I finally received the first of these lights I ordered, a green one. Nice!
I notice that mine has no foam ring over the driver on the + end of the light. I thought I read somewhere that these lights are supposed to have one, for reverse polarity protection. Is this a concern, or can I just ignore it as long as I’m careful to always insert the battery the correct way? The light seems to work fine, all modes are easily activated, so the lack of a foam pad doesn’t seem to affect the operation.
Okay, well, it sounds like mine is not unique in missing the foam ring. I’m always careful with batteries, so it shouldn’t be a problem. I might ask Banggood, but I doubt their customer service would know how the lights are designed, so probably not much chance of getting a proper answer.
Anyone else with a recent color of light (green, orange), missing a foam ring? Anyone actually have one in a recent run of the lights? I’m wondering if it’s supposed to be without a ring, or if there’s a quality control issue.
When I get the rest of my order, I’ll see what they have.
In any case, I love the tint of the light. A nice somewhat-warm clean beam, free of any of the ugly green that Cree is so famous for.
I will ask Neal about this issue as well. Once I get an answer I will post it here…. This seems like either something forgotten (foam ring) or something changed (reverse polarity protection) ether way w we need to find out…
I got my A01 today and played around a little. Soon I noticed heavy flickering issues when changing modes. ANNOYING! After a close look I noticed that the inner edge of the body tube was ever so slightly elevated and felt sharp! If this little burr made a wobbly “ground” contact first it would maybe explain the uncertain switch behavior…
So I cautiously deburred the body tube inner opening with a countersink. Voila: The flickering is gone and mode changes work perfectly fine!!
At least for the moment
The first one cleaned up to ‘good enough’ by doing “all of the above” so I’m going to do the same with the second light.
Odds are it’ll be the same sort of problems and clear up with enough fiddling.
Just posting for the record, basically, at this point, so I don’t forget what I noticed when.
I just received 8 lights with at least one of each color, and none had the foam donut. All worked well with no major issues. The green one did act funny at first, very touchy when changing modes and quickly going past a mode like a “double tap”. This was resolved after a tear down. The pill was slightly loose compared to others, and the tube had a burr or flake of ano that I scraped off.
Love the little lights and will have a problem deciding which I will be OK gifting.
Flicker problem solved by “all of the above” treatment. Little metal fragments were the main problem on this one, ragged edge where the threads on the body were cut flat at end of tube.
I’m assuming that one flash when going into the low level (fairly soon after it’s been bright) is normal.
That seems to go away if it’s set for a while off, before the next time it’s turned on.
They really should chamfer the sharp edges around the lanyard hole too. On this light they’re not just sharp, they’re ragged and the orange paint flakes right off at the sharp edges when I run a fingernail over them.
I’ll smooth them down (like the first orange light) so they aren’t sharp enough to cut right through a piece of string.
My black A01 came in yesterday. Took about 10 days, not too bad. Cute little light with impressive fit and finish. Beautiful tint; I’m in love with Nichia.
Immediately deployed to EDC duty, pairing up with its buddy, a Fujitsu AAA LSD
Now I’m waiting patiently for its cousin, the Cu A01, to materialize.
Code is not working now because it's on "promo" for $9.95 from China Warehouse. Also the code doesn't work for the US warehouse where the price is higher, at $12.95.
I got 6 lights, two each of orange, gray and black. There are several QC issues:
two of six lights (orange) do not have a foam donut
one light (gray) is DOA
only one box has papers
one light (black) had o-ring lube all over it
two lights (gray) have off-center emitters
Honestly, I am disappointed - at this pricepoint, they certainly have a good room to improve. They work fine now, but given the QC horror, I am not sure how reliable they would be. I’m waiting to hear back from Banggoods on the DOA light as well. Let’s see.