The led on my first one came off. Sofirn sent me a new one no questions asked. Didnāt want the old one back. Gave me a good opportunity to learn how to reflow an emitter. Now I have 2 . They are nice little lights with nice neutral even beam patterns.
Frankly, unless I do it up myself, pot the driver, seal everything up tight, I donāt count on any claims of drop-resistance, water-tightness, etc. Some bozo at the factory could run short of O-rings and keep assembling lights without them anyway, yāknow? So even if everyone elseās is perfectly water-tight, you might be one of the lucky 0.1% whose light is missing a critical O-ring. And unless you take it apart first, or give it an unfortunate dunk, youāll never even know.
Iām impressed with Sofirnās attention to this thread. :sunglasses:
It sounds like their light has a problem, but they are taking direct action to address it. Hopefully, theyāll figure out what is causing the problem and fix it for future manufacturing runs.
I bought an SP10A and a SP10B. They both arrived today. The SP10A failed with the same symptoms as reported in the OP. The difference is I didnāt drop it. I just swapped the AA NiMH for a 14500 and the flashlight flickered and quit. It tried to start a few times but is now inert.
Iām thinking bad switch or flaky driver. This one will be going back to Amazon for replacement.
ahh, you guys are gonna make me regret my decision to order blue sp10b :person_facepalming: i am thinking maybe better choice was to get another sf10, it is cheaper and looks more reliableā¦
Check to see if the emitter is attached. The head has to be removed because the spacer will hold it in place with reflector in it. Mine flickered before it died. Iām guessing cold solders.
Both SP10Bās have arrived and how nice they are!
But I promised a drop test, I want to know too if my units are prone to failure. With the kind assistence of my 7-year old son, here it is. Iām happy to say that although the drops did cause mode changes and switching off, both lights kept working fine.
A couple days ago, only a day or two after I received it, I accidentally knocked my new Sofirn SF14 off the counter onto a bath mat. It stopped working. I ended up taking it apart and noticed that the LED was no longer attached to the MCPCB. I did a sloppy half-assed āreflowā so I could confirm that the disconnected emitter was the root cause, and not something like an inductor breaking loose. I confirmed the diagnosis, and in the process did an accidental dedome mod. I wrote sofirn via aliexpress. I havenāt heard back from them yet.
Sometime in the interim, I dropped the red SP10b Iāve had since ~December onto a harder surface. It still works fine.