Sofirn SP10B - Impact resistance issues?

Too bad just order one :person_facepalming:

It is still a great light, despite this problem! But be sure to hold it well so it doesn’t fall :exclamation:

I would try to reflow led,maybe there is the weakness …

that was very kind of you, to share his pain…

try stretching the spring
Ive had that solve a problem with a dropped light before
I hope it works

Thanks for the warning, Im not going to test drop my TK05, (looks very similar to the SP10)…

Hum, just tried to change the whole board and led, didn’t work… :frowning: Thanks of the suggestion!!

Thanks jon_slider, but it also didn’t work… I think the problem may be somewhere in the switch!
Sometimes it works when pressing, but it flickers, and sometimes it is higher others are in almost ML mode…

I’ll probably replace the driver (again)! Or maybe I quit this one and wait for the next good AA/14500 flashlight…

About my question # 3 on post #1, does anyone have a clue about “warranties”?

Thanks in advance :+1:

Hello Guys,

Please feel free to contact us via Amazon or Aliexpress if you met issues about the Sofirn SP10A/B.We will do the related replacement or refund. We would like to make it right for all customers. Moreover, we will try to test this issues again that via video.

Hi Tracy!

Thank you for your message and for stepping in to help on this situation.
As I mentioned above, the damage inflicted on mine it was my fault, to test the resistance, despite it was way below the 1 meter resistance advertised.
However, the other member’s flashlight it was a small fall (35cm) and so I hope you can solve that for him.

I will pass him this message and tell him to contact you through AliExpress or Amazon!

Thanks for helping out! :+1:

Hello everyone!
First let me thank you @MascaratumB for helping me out ! Your support and dedication is amazing and you really help make this place even better. Obrigado :beer: :wink:

The SP10B is a light that I immediately felt in love with. Very compact, good NW tint, lightweight, nice moonlight ( 1 lumen with Ni-mh batteries ) and in my opinion a decent mode spacing. 1-20-70-270 was perfect for me (I just used it with Ni-mh batteries , I don’t have a 14500 with me, yet ).
I am really careful with the things i like (maybe a little obsessive sometimes :person_facepalming: ) and never let it fell.

But when exiting my car it felt from a compartment on the door of the car and hit the ground with an angle of 45º degrees . :rage: As you can see on the images it was between 35-40cm .

Initially i was not that much worried, it was a small drop and the floor is not concrete, it’s a tiled floor. And from my experience with flashlights , such a small drop isn´t enough to make a flashlight stop working.
But when I pick it up and try to turn it on it doesn’t. I change the batteries, use alkalines , other Ni-mh, nothing .
But externally I couldn’t , and still can’t understand what’s the problem. The glass is intact; LED in on place; the rings make contact ( i used a Multimeter to test it ); the side switch feels normal, it clicks normally and I can’t listen anything differente with it when shaking it ; the spring is OK as far as i can see ( Sofirn SP10B Spring - NT45 - Album on Imgur) .

On the manual, the rated impact resistance is 1 meter. It felt 35-40cm without spinning or rotating. And that made me thinking that it could be a design flaw or some other problem because i haven’t seen such a thing happen, even with an incandescent light!
I decide to tell this to my friend MascaratumB and he decides to risk his own flashlight (thank you !! ) to help me and give me some more information and the rest you know, he described it very well on his post. :slight_smile:

I contacted Sofirn on Aliexpress and after some talk (Qidong Yang) helped me and thankfully believed on me. He asked me to send them my flashlight in order to analyse what went wrong and meanwhile they sent me a new SP10B that is on his way.
I agreed and as soon as I can I will send it ( it’s my first time sending something Internationally and I didn’t knew exactly how to do it :person_facepalming: ) , I expect to ship it this Thursday !
I hope that this is helpful to other buyers of the SP10B and that helps Sofirn to find the problem and correct it on new generations of this flashlight to come.
@Tracy Wan—-Sofirn ,you have a amazing flashlight here, correct this problem and keep this attitude of standing solidly behind yours flashlights because on the long term with will be very positive for Sofirn and for it’s grow, on my opinion.

Thanks,

Glad you told the story in the “first person” NT45!!
And I’m glad that Sofirn - here and in AliExpress - stepped in to solve the situation! More points to them on my book for manufacturers :wink:

I hope you get your new light soon! I will probably buy a new driver for mine :+1:

Eep! I think switches may be the weak link in any light, ’cause of my recent experiences with a TK4A. Slap-therapy helped it, though, and it’s working fine now.

Other possibilities might be loosening the driver and breaking the connection to ground. Jiggling it, reseating it, tightening any retaining ring(s), etc., might fix it.

I had driver issues look like a switch problem, switch issues look like a driver problem, etc. Once I was kinda panicked that my trusty SF31W might be going mental, but it was just a loose retaining ring that was holding in the driver. (No ground, no light.) Snugging it up carefully fixed it and it hasn’t misbehaved since. Whew! :smiley: :beer:

The tough part about side-clickies is that you can’t just take the switch out of the equation by jumpering it with a key or screwdriver. If it doesn’t light up, it just doesn’t light up.

Thanks for the heads up. I was debating whether to take this light with me on my upcoming vacation. Now I know I am not going to. :slight_smile:

If I were Sofirn I’d want those drivers sent back to me to figure out what’s going on . Same with the UT01 driver that has so many issues. what do these drivers have in common and is there a overall better design used by someone else ?

Hello!

No news about this issue?
Just pondering about buying 2 SP10B ore not.
I had them in the cart when I found this topic which previously escaped my attention.

Thanks!

i have ordered blue sp10b and hope for the best…couple of days ago mine sofirn sf10 drop from my lap while standing up from the sofa onto tile floor and nothing happens…flashlight still works…not a scratch…

but, to be honest, sf10 looks like the sturdiest of ALL sofirn flashlights be it sf or sp series…it looks it could survive quite a good beating :slight_smile: sp series looks fragile to me in general…

Hi korfoto! Welcome to BLF!

Well, about this issue, the only things I can tell you is that my friend managed to get a new flashlight from Sofirn. He sent the damaged light to Sofirn as well!
About me, I bought a new driver for the SP10B host and I bought a “new” SP10A :smiley:

I wanna believe that these were all some “not so good” examples and that Sofirn managed to / will improve their design :wink:

Thank you!
Long time lurker, first time poster here. :slight_smile:
I reckon that I’ more concerned as I want one of them to be gift for somebody.
How is the “new” SP10A performing? I think you didn’t try to drop it as well. :smiley:

Eheh, glad you posted :wink:
Well, the “new” SP10A is still on the way as I ordered it last wednesday :smiley:
The old SP10A, I gave it to my girlfriend but never tried to drop it, so I don’t know how tough it would be :laughing:

But the new one…I’ll try not to drop it :stuck_out_tongue:

The led on my first one came off. Sofirn sent me a new one no questions asked. Didn’t want the old one back. Gave me a good opportunity to learn how to reflow an emitter. Now I have 2 . :smiley: They are nice little lights with nice neutral even beam patterns.

I’ve been EDCing mine in my pocket for quite a while already, and no problems so far, thank B’harni (pbuh!).

But you did not drop it, neh? :slight_smile: