AstroLux A01 AAA Nichia 219B Review - Winner winner, chicken dinner. An excellent, Neutral tint High CRI LED keychain light!

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 :slight_smile:

Got my 2nd orange A01 in the mail today.
Awful flickers, not just a little bit, quite unusable — with a couple of minutes of use with a NiMH cell

I’ll try the usual everything. It will probably get better.

Arrrrrrr…. This stinks Hank. One member had a burr on the tube, chamfered it away and it worked well it seems…

Sorry to hear this Hank…

Let us know what the resolution is from Banggood…

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.

I’m interested in a GB for this one too!

There is already a code for all colors of the A01

Code: ReManGA01 brings the price to below $9

LINK

Sweet, less than £7 for a decent light, do I need it? No. Still want it though so the order is in :slight_smile:

Need is satisfied with two or three lights…

The rest is what we call a hobby… Mwahahahaha

Seriously, there are much worse things to have than extra light generators…

oh, no foam ring on my 2nd orange light either.

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.

Good enough, about what I’d expect.

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 :slight_smile:

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:

  1. two of six lights (orange) do not have a foam donut
  2. one light (gray) is DOA
  3. only one box has papers
  4. one light (black) had o-ring lube all over it
  5. 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.

None of mine has the foam donut. I believe that is a spec change, not a QC issue. Two of mine have off-center emitters, but they don’t affect output.

I had issues with one of my copper A01’s. The tube machining was off. The thread section was shorter than it should be, making an unreliable connection that eventually quit. But BangGood replaced my light after I showed them photos of the issue.

Bummer to hear about so many quality issues with the cheaper models, though. That’s pretty sad. DOA may happen as they don’t QC every single light. But noticeably offset emitters shouldn’t be happening. When a person puts the light together, it will be obvious just by looking at it.

Try code “deal531” in the U.S. warehouse… Or any other warehouse…

It still isn’t an excuse for shoddy QC, especially if they plan to charge the listed price.

Choombak,

How much QC you need on something that is just over $8? The high CRI LED alone in this light is $4 retail at Mtn Electronics, Illum, etc. The light has three modes and a strobe after two mode cycles. It is available in half a dozen colors… Please find and submit a link to a light with all of these features and output levels and runs on an AAA battery, then you can talk about shoddy QC if the one you find is better.

The dead one, of course Banggood should take a look, but you outline no attempted fixes like making sure the upper part of the tube is bare like it is supposed to be. It could just be this, but no sense making an attempt to fix something that traveled all the way from China. Also check the board in the head that there is not too much O ring lube on the contact there or something, I know Qtips are heavy, but try at least…

The Oring lube issue is about 2 seconds with a paper towel. Good thing it wasn’t corroded or worse yet, had no lube…

The no foam doughnut IS a spec change, they had more issues with it holding the battery off the board than rattling, so it was apparently eliminated… If you bother to read threads or do a search, you will find several members had this issue, it was addressed.

If you need papers these days to be able to figure out a twisty light, I do not know what to say… Its not like you would gift these to people and not be able to tell them the way to use them in a few seconds…

The non centered emitters is an easy fix, pointy tweezers in the holes in the back of the board, unscrew (counter clockwise) about 3/4 turn. Look in from the front and tap the side opposite where you want the LED to go, and tighten the pill back down. 2 minutes tops, on each light…

I get the fact that there are problems, I do not get the apparent TOTAL lack of motivation to mitigate the problems. Go back to CPF if you want to bash a light for less than $10

Yes, that’s the way they all seem to be produced now. I’m not sure if it’s an issue or not. Anyone want to try putting in a battery the wrong way and let us know? :wink:

Obviously a real issue. I had that with one of my light. Easy fix was to take out the spring and stretch it.

I didn’t even read mine. I don’t think it’s needed.

Okay, but easily wiped off, no?

That won’t affect the beam.

It must be very difficult for the manufacturer to apply these mitigations before the lights leave their facility, since now the buyer is expected to implement them. In my book, any mods to a “brand new” light to make it functional is a definite indication of lack of proper QC. So let’s see:

  1. Off-center emitter - little to no attention to the assembly process.
  2. Missing papers - little to no attention during packaging.
  3. Lube all over the light - little to no attention to how much lube is being squeezed.

Okay, so now let’s mop up the mess they created, because one cannot expect reasonable quality under $10 (something that I only heard in this thread). Looks like your worldview is way different from mine.

And why drag CPF into this thread? How is it even related? My remarks were not personal, I merely stated observations and expectations. I am firm on my opinion: Astrolux A01 from Banggoods is very poor in quality. You don’t have to agree with it. :slight_smile: