The battery compartment as a whole (head, spring, tube, spring, tail), not the tube itself. The tube is the same as for the A6, and the S41, making a change to the tube creates a new part and potentially creates more problems. Not least of which is that the 18650 tube presumably would ALSO need to be lengthened to support those cells. How does the S41 use the same tube and have more room? Is the S41 lacking the head spring? The addition of a retainer ring in the S41? Did adding the charging board take up more space that didn’t get accounted for in the design?
Missed this. Pretty sure the thermal silicone glue stuff is only on the wire connections - makes sense so as not to break the wires off when manipulating them. Tight space in there with the 4 wires for the switch. Many lights come this way - I know Manker does the same thing, and its justified - I've broken a few wire solder joints using their typical stiff wires. I got real nice soft 30 AWG multi strand wires for doing this low current stuff - much less problems.
The white stuff is also used to glue the driver down in place in the head. Don't need electrical conductivity there because the tube contacts the driver ring directly.
If you can fix problems. Change the user interface. It is way too crazy! Makes it a crappy light because of it and people won’t buy it!!!
Exactly.
I don’t think it’s designed to have a driver spring.
Plus the tail spring is too tall.
On my S41 (and S1), the battery compartment does have springs on both ends but they seem “kinder, gentler”. Also spanner-screw retaining rings on the head and the cap. The S42 has neither, presumably a design choice to reduce production costs. Have never damaged any battery of any size in the S41 or S1, including protected 18650’s. A seeming advantage of the 2 springs design is the ability to accommodate a wide variety of variations in battery length; a feature that is obviously lost in the very poor implementation of the S42.
Assuming (also from a business perspective) that BG is not going to exchange all sold S41’s with a redesigned model, there would be two levels of correction. The first would be a “quick fix” to easily address the issues with those already “out there”; such as adding a retaining ring behind the driver board, and the redesigned, deeper USB port cover. The second would be a redesign/retrofit for unshipped/unproduced lights in the future, in which there may be fewer/softer springs, different battery tubes, etc.
Banggood will rework their Stock (S42, S42S) so they work as intended when teh customers does receive it.
the already shipped units will get parts every customer can exchange without soldering to get a functional unit
thats what i understood
That is encouraging. Thanks for tracking down this message.
I think the hole in the tail cap where the spring sits in is deep enough, but then they used a spring that’s too tall and apparently too stiff too.
And it reduces the overall length of the flashlight.
As mentioned they then add length to the tail cap for the life hammer thingy. Strange.
Meh, i think it will take all flat tops without protection PCB anyway.
Yeah, that’s probably the only way to solve it.
You can not expect your average customer to have to desolder springs.
The improved USB cover can be shipped to the buyers.
They could send a better suited tail spring too.
Either way, still looking forward to mine, which has shipped, but not yet arrived.
I’ll probably hate the user interface of the driver…
Something i can not solve by reprogramming it, because i have no reprogramming stuff / knowledge / skills…
! Dunno how the logistics will work out, but guess we'll wait and see. I'm sure if we contact BG CS now, they won't know bout it and pound us with the usual video requests, etc.
Hopefully they can send out the better USB cover replacement and dunno wut can be done easily bout the UI. If at least they made the press&hold time shorter, it would be a big help in my opinion.
The delays on the single click is because they are timing out detection of a double-click. To me, the priority would be on quick click timing, and not as important getting flashed with a single click effect (mode change) prior to the 2nd click of a double-click.
Been there, done that.... wondering if I can take down my YouTube video now....
What they’re going to do with the customer that already received the light or still waiting for delivery? Will they send the new improved parts like new tube/tailcap and usb slot cover? What about that UI? At least give us the option to turn off the light when in moonlight.
Forgot bout that, but it needs a more major re-work, re-thinking of the UI design. Their intent was obvious - to do a BLF A6 UI on an e-switch, eliminating the timing issues associated with dependence on the cap (heat effects the timing, etc.). But they did not consider all things, or made some trade-offs we don't agree with.
If it was me, I'd do it like Narsil does mode sets:
- fast click to next mode
- press&hold for previous mode
- a mode locks in if active more than 1 or 1.2 secs, then once locked in, a fast click turns the light OFF - this works for any mode
- no mode memory because it operates so quickly
- no double-clicks because that will be unintentional action when clicking quickly from mode to mode
- to switch between the 7 and 4 mode sets, press&hold longer, maybe 4-5 secs or so. Confirm the switch to the user via couple flashes of the main LED
So, from OFF:
- fast click goes to 1st mode
- press&hold goes to turbo
From ON:
- press&hold always works going to a previous mode
- once a mode locks in, fast click is OFF
- press&hold to previous mode activates mode switching again, so you can fast click up to next mode again and again
I think a good solution is them going back to the drawing board and make it right, and send us a proper one once they get it situated. I’m kind of worried their temp fix for us will be hacked and make the orings useless. Fix the battery issue, fix the USB issue, fix the UI.
And let us keep the defective one to modify ourselves if wanted
I like this solution. The current flashlight has too many defects that any patch would just be a bandage, making the flashlight not suitable for EDC. With the current UI, I just would not EDC it.
Seems to be a perfect UI, if only this would make its way into the updated S42. To add back the tactical flash and battery check function into the UI, I would add this:
- Once in the Turbo mode (entered from moon), a fast click would advance into the next mode (tactical blink -> batt check -> bike light), a long click would turn off the flashlight. This way, you only need one fast click, one long click, and one fast click to access the tactical blink, about 2 seconds. That is, you have the flashlight in the “sleep” mode (or breathing mode, whatever it’s called), not “lock out” mode.
I think they need to make a “shortcut to turbo from off
”And mode memory…with that you always get what you want right… “on with one click or hold, just a way to turn it on consistently always… I just like control … simple is the way to go… there’s need for fancy
“Make it so Data” …….
I think this thread proves otherwise. Lots of people bought them.
Well, this light was just released, so I am sure now that people know the cons there will not be as many sales (or none at this moment)
I doubt the UI will change much, if at all, but here’s what I’d like to see it do:
From off:
- Short click for memorized mode.
- Long press for lowest level.
- Double click for turbo.
- Triple click for blinkies.
- Quad click to toggle mode group.
While on:
- Short click for off.
- Long press for next mode (higher level, or next blinky). Wraps from highest to lowest. Keeps going until released.
- Double click to toggle turbo. (if already in turbo, return to previous level or off)
The main down side here is there’s no action for stepping down one level. That could potentially be implemented by making long-press-while-on auto-reverse (like Narsil).
Or it could use a full ramping UI. That would probably be better.