Wuben C3 flashlight: built-in charging overcharges?!

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
41

Positive Amazon review left for my C3. Good products and customer service should be supported.

Thanks Wuben

42

Howdy Wuben,

don’t let the whiners get you down— from what i have seen here on the BLF you are ★★★★★.

43

Thank you flashaholic from Florida.

WUBEN will be stronger with your guys support

44

Yay, still smiling.

Just upset what he has done and misleading the customers. Well also got he want, that is to let my sales dowm.

AMZ customers like to read the reviews, a none verify purchase 1 star review is powerful to scare people away.

45

Don’t worry, people are smart enough to qualify a lone dissenter among the many positives and believe your improved product.

46

Any discount for us who can’t order from Amazon? I’m not sure if I’m one of the first to report the overcharging issue on the Wuben C3, and would like to get the non-overcharging Wuben C3 to compare…

47

I had a bad battery a couple months back and Wuben took care of the problem promptly. 5 stars for CS.

48

I will suggest to order from aliexpress wuben store

Here is the link: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001223787484.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.774d6e7cFuegIc&algo_pvid=6fe28133-3b1f-4726-a35c-eebf67f1111a&algo_expid=6fe28133-3b1f-4726-a35c-eebf67f1111a-0&btsid=0bb47a1a16093834592548555eae6f&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

49

So, now that this has been resolved, will someone please do a tear down? Maybe with the problem model so we can see the optic size, LED, and potential mods of the driver. You know, crazy stuff that's done on BLF! ;)

50

Woo, that's a cool idea.

Anyone with the old version C3 interesting? I'm definetely love to sent you a new C3 to make this awesome idea coem ture.

PM me your ideas. Let's do something cool

51

Hello Experts in electronics

How does the light with mechanical tail cap switch is able to charge the battery? Negative battery end is physically cut off with the mechanical tail switch, so how does charger current gets completed through the battery? If you notice, most of the lights have electronic switch just near the charger port except this WuBen C3 (or their PeetPen line) who have what looks like a good old style mechanical reverse clicky.

I tried to put DMM on the reverse clicky. I never got it to show open circuit whether the switch was “on” or “off”.

Something magical is going on here. Is there a diode in the switch?

I also just realized that this light could be overcharging too and I purchased a whole bunch to gift to my friends :frowning:

52

Yes, there is a diode on the switch PCB.

53

Thanks! Can you comment on the parasite current drain with this setup? I am thinking that there will be quite a loss of power in the switch and the overall it is not the most efficient way of doing things.

54

Only 20 µA on my flashlight.

The diode is only relevant for charging. When the switch is on, it is completely bypassed.

55

Good to know! But the charging circuit needs to compensate for that diode voltage drop. I also believe that voltage drop is not constant but has a relationship to the current flowing through it which makes stopping charging when cell reaches 4.20 tricky. I suppose everything can be taken in to account when you have a tiny microprocessor controlling the charging.

56

The overcharging issue has been corrected on newer stock.

57

I’ve also wondered why the Wuben C3 can charge the battery even with the mechanical tailswitch in the Off position. So the explanation is that there is a diode in the switch (I’m not well-versed in electronics, but understand a little bit from reading here and there…)

(For comparison, some earlier flashlights that have a mechanical tailswitch and a USB charging port, will require the tailswitch to be switched to the ON position, for charging to occur — this has sometimes stumped me because I forget to “turn ON” the tailswitch. Actually I rarely use built-in charging, but often forget to “turn ON” the tailswitch in the rare instance I was trying the built-in USB charging.

Flashlights I’ve tested that require “turning ON” the tail button switch to start the built-in USB charging, include the Eagle Eye X2R and the Zanflare F1 models, where the tail-button needs to be “switched ON”, otherwise, plugging in the USB port does not start to charge the flashlight… There may be some others I forgot… tailswitch flashlight models with built-in USB charging)

The “overcharging” issue appears to have been fixed in all later batches (seems like those released some time December 2020 or later thereabouts).

58

FWIW, My old Anker LC90 does not require the tailswitch to be ON, but it does require the tail cap to be completely removed before accessing the charging port.

59

Somehow I missed the overcharging issue.

I have two C3's bought at separate times:
SER.# C316806959 - this one has the 'square' hotspot.
SER.#C317504712 - this one has a round hotspot.

I very rarely use onboard charging on anything, preferring to use my Opus 3100 v2 for all charging purposes. However, if either of these lights ends up in the hands of a muggle, I don't want overcharging to be a risk, regardless of the cell used.

I there any info identifying what SER.# was the cutoff between overcharging and not overcharging?

slmjim