Lights you have that don't work?

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

I have two:

1)Trustfire F15, my biggest disappointment. Driver was not soldered firmly to the base of the pill, resulting in intermittent light. Tried to fix it and made things worse, now it is a basket case. Wires from the emitter to the driver are shredded, need to be re-soldered, then the driver needs to be re-soldered to the pill as well. <sigh>

Maybe that is why this light is not sold anymore on DX of MF. Ordered the KD C8 to replace the F15, and some soldering supplies, maybe I can resuscitate it later. My soldering skills are non-existent.

2)Trustfire A20 (Same as AkoRay 106) No idea what is wrong with this thing, as nothing appears to be able to be removed. Pill is soldered in place, tailswitch is not accessible either. Worked fine for awhile, then died on Eneloops.

One of my two Stainless Steel C3's was also inop, but I managed to fix it by shortening the tailswitch spring. Something about having too much pressure against the switch it did not like.

So what lights do you have that are currently (ha!) inoperable?

2

Ultafire C3 ss, the switch seems to have a problem, seems to work at first but now It wont. looking for a place to buy a replacement switch

3

These were before "budget" was used as a term to describe flashlights.

I have an Inova X1 UV thats got acid damage. :(

I also have an ARC AAA that has acid damage!!! :( :( :(

Both have stuck batteries.

4

That's the reason I quit using alkalines. I have a flashlight and headlamp destroyed this way, good thing it's way back when I only have plastic and cheap lights.

5

Yeah, that was before eneloops existed. They were once in a while used lights so reg nimh would always be discharged by the time I used them.

6

oh and Mabuhay! :)

7

Thanks, where you from?

Yeah me too, Wish I have known about eneloops earlier, just got them for less than 2 years. Now got all variants.

8

I have a Mini Maglite AA that came in a 2 pack years ago that never worked and since the other one worked I always assumed the broken one had a bad bulb or something but I never bothered with it. Recently after I did a TLE-5EX upgrade on the good Maglite I checked the bulbs and spares on the bad one and found them all to be good. Next step is sending it back to Maglite for the lifetime warranty probably via priority mail.

9

Same here, flickers after modding a R5 there. Somewhat reliable though...

LedLensed David?? 1 x AA Li-Ion rechargeable. Switch was not good.

Couple of 1$ eBay lights (out of 30).

Akoray 106, I put it to pieces for driver, didn´t end up good.

10

Romisen RC-29. I guess the driver is bad. It gives a flash when the switch is pressed and then nothing. I know if I try to fix it I will order the wrong driver at least twice and when I do figure out the correct one I will destroy it trying to put it in. A skyray SR5 with a bad tailswitch. This seems to be some kind of proprietary switch so I don’t know what to do with that. The DinoD promotional 2XAA zoomer.

11

I have a Solarforce L2r 2xAA that i cannibalized for parts as i dont care much for NiMH cells much anymore, Its missing the drop-in and taicap switch. I ordered a new SF L2 18650 body and tailcap and building an XML drop-in for it.

If i have an inoperable light it drives me nuts until i get new parts ordered as i hate seeing a useless non working light.

12

On the SS C3's, try unscrewing the tailcap a few turns and see if it works. If it does, then trim a turn or two off the spring.

13

Ive done that and solve the problem temporarily and after a month it flickers and suddenly it flashes only and don't work. After reading this tread and posting issues on my c3, I opened it up again and disassembled the tail switch and tried something I thought might work. I removed a black round plastic that is in place between the switch and metal to have direct contact and assembled it again and screwed back the switch. tested it and it solved the problem, tried shaking the light and still it don't flicker anymore. Really happy with the result.

All the trouble fixing the light with one hand and two feet is worth it (broke my left hand).

14

Davis

Just do this! https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/1282

Or this! https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/1513

I have a mini mag with acid damage, I am planning to do one of this mod.

15

Hahaha. I've only done this twice, tried to transfer my akoray k106 driver to my Romisen Rc29, successfully transferred the rc29 driver but destroyed my k106 driver.

16

SKY Ray 3X XM-L T6 from manafont- DOA: Already sent it back after emailing by Jim.

Ultrafire C1 200mw green laser from Best Offer Buy- 54.60 USD + 12 Euro for returning : very low output, not discribed as on the webstore, came with 16340 instead of the 18650 mentioned ( they now change the announce to 16340) Returned item on 05/30/2011, still waiting for replacement, they tell me they are still waiting for the repaired item from the factory.

I think they are fooling me and I will avoid this Best Offer Buy in the future!

17

Akoray k109. Liked it, driver died second day due to shoddy driver soldering. Once I had it open, something fell out.. turns out it was one of the SMD resistors, never to be seen again.

Oh, and my dinodung special. Dead driver, smoke, stink, anger.

18

I have one good Uniquefire L2 XP-G and one that friend the emitter the minute I put the battery in.

I have one Romisen that came with a intermittent switch.

Those are the only ones I can think of where I didn't contribute to the problem :)

19

Very cool thread. Hope this one stays around, it has already provided some usefull info.

20

Good ideas. The broken Maglite’s problem appears to be in the switching mechanism and when Maglite returns it repaired or replaced it looks like there’s a couple modification opportunities for it. The Terralux upgrade on the “good” Maglite produces 140 lumens (or so they claim) and I added a button on/off tail switch. I didn’t need the tail switch mod with all the extra features.