Another Sunwayman FAILURE!

Well, this thread is pretty much the tipping point. I’ll remove the C22C from my Battery Junction cart. Didn’t need it anyway—not as though that’s ever stopped me before.

There are lots of reports of their crap lights, this video of a C22C is a good example of their junk:

The only Sunwayman I have is a D40A I bought years ago. It was my first decent 4xAA light. I used it quite a bit when I first got it, but I don’t like the user interface, nor the tiny buttons that are almost impossible to find in the dark. It still works well, and seems fairly good quality. I haven’t ever been tough on it, though. Also, I heard there was some issues with the buttons, but I haven’t seen any problems on mine. It was over-priced when I bought it ($79), but I got it anyway. I wouldn’t pay more than $30 for it now, even if the UI was something I liked.

I don’t really see much difference in quality between Sunwayman, and cheaper budget lights. Perhaps the Sunwayman has better efficiency (compared to my other 4xAA lights), but it’s not a big difference.

Zebralight is my go-to for expensive lights. Otherwise, I generally stick to budget brands like Convoy, Astrolux, or the many BLF designs. I don’t see value in Sunwayman at their price point.

I have one of these and love it. I use it every night as a kitchen light. No problems. Hard for me to resist not getting another from Battery Junction for $21 and change and free shipping!

Well, too late for me. I already ordered it. If I had seen this thread a few hours earlier…I guess i will enjoy it until it dies.

I love Sunwayman and had an early V10R stop working on primaries, so I sent it back to Battery Junction along with a form authorizing a $20 trip on that ‘slow boat to China.’ The light was sent in just under the 2 year warranty.

A couple of months later, I get the new V11R in the mail stating that SWM couldn’t fix the light and had no spares and I didn’t owe them for shipping.

Pretty good CS if you ask me, from both of them?

I still have two working V11Rs, an M11R and two D40As.

I like SWM, but they’ve slowed down over the past few years.

Chris

That’s been my experience also. The last few years they just can’t seem to get it together.
They use to be top notch in this hobby but not now. The SWM V10Rti to me was the best light they ever made and the aluminum version the V11R.
The D40A was a highly liked light in it’s time also. I still have one and it’s shining right along.
Some where after this is were things went down hill in my opinion.

Let’s face it, with all of the quality budget lights available to us like Convoy, Emisar, et al., the days of the $80+ pocket lights are dwindling.

Chris

I have only ever had a few V11R’s. No issues, though if there were, I opened the light for an emitter swap so no warranty, great or small would help me anyway. Never really saw any of their other lights that interested me. The emitter or UI normally kept me away from them.

I do think there is still and always will be a market for more expensive lights. Say $50 to $100 for example.

I don't use them often, but both my C22C and C12CC are still working fine.

I’ve been eyeballing the C22C for some time, but never pulled the trigger. Glad I did not.

My first grown up led light was a SWM M40A with an XM-L, and that still works fine.
I got my wife a SWM V10RTi^², and also that stills works like a charm.
Very good, considering I could make a fortune if I let people hire her as a mini-mobile test-center. No need spending months in Finland or on the Pole or in the Sahara. Just give her a(ny) car, tell her to be careful, and within a week she will call you to inform you which parts suddenly will fall off in the next 100,000 miles of normal usage. And if somebody please could come over and give her a lift home?

Back to SWM, I used to download their brochure and gloat over all the goodies I could not afford.
Lately it seems they are just crancking out bad copies of bad copies of lights that once were top of the bill.
I think they should reconsider entering the budget light market. After they cleared out their warehouses.

The problem with the V10R and the V11R is that they used grease in the variable control ring and that grease will eventually dry up and create a ‘hitch’ in the movement.

It happened to my V10R and it has happened with my V11R. The grease in my NIB V11R is no doubt dried up a bit, but I’m OK with that.

I love my V11R and wish I could have gotten another tan V10R, but no dice.

The lights have flaws, but back in 2011 and 2012, they were state of the art, but times keep on changin’.

Chris

I don’t watch Luke’s channel anymore, but I’m happy to see his content is still relevant all these years later. This video in particular turned me off to all Sunwaymans, and Battery Junction too (heard through the grapevine that they backend Sunwayman, and I’m tempted to believe them with how convoluted it is to contact BJ’s own customer service).

Thats why you dont buy from companies that dont have proven customer service

Unless its a light you can easily fix yourself

yes have same contact problems with V11R and is very hard unscrew the AA tube extension for check the problem and access on the driver,how you have do?
Today there is no reason for buy expensive light with propietary drivers and not support

You are so right. (sorry this is a bit of a read, feel free to skip it lol)

I won a Xtar light on here (TC28 1500). Granted it was free, but it should have still worked. Bear in mind this is a £100 light - not a $5 one.
1st one arrived (this was a couple of years ago- you’ll see the relevance of this in a second) didn’t work. Took a whole load of wrangling, over a long time, but eventually a replacement arrived.
This worked, fantastic! after about a week (sparsely used) it started doing this ‘drop’ in output, so you’d have it on highest, after a second or less it would drop by about 50%. There is a guy on youtube who highlights this and I have read about it on several forums etc, so it isn’t isolated.
I asked about it direct to Xtar a few times and got completely ignored, so it stayed in my drawer unused.

Now we get to the relevance of it being years ago…… ok so I get a FW3A, the second (unknown to me at the time) with an internal isolating tube……. My FW3A worked fine, but I started reading about this tube causing FW3A’s not to work, then thought I’d have another look at the first Xtar light, it has this tube. Now I realise this, I have made the original light I got work, it was that tube not long enough/making contact.
NO ONE at Xtar even suggested such a thing, despite like 20 emails back and forth.
Fantastic I thought, BUT within literally days it’s doing the same drop in output as the replacement………… wtf!
Says to me this model was never fit for sale, let alone for £100 - more shocking was the service, and complete lack of knowledge of their own product and it’s faults. Either that, or they just didn’t want to admit their £100 light is a sack of poo. I ended up pulling the led’s out and binning the lights, they had odd dual switches on the tail and the heads would not come off rendering them useless for modding/replacing parts.
To say I wasn’t impressed was an understatement - I saw the brand, and the pricepoint as about as premium as it gets (without getting silly) and to date is it the worst light I ever owned, even a $5 one was better - it may be cheap tat, but at least it’s reliable cheap tat!

Sunwayman used to be my cup of tea. I liked their lights for a long time.

I also know that DBSAR has less luck with them for a long time. It's sad their lineup isn't as fool/bulletproof as they should be.

I do hope however, that SWM will start producing some new interesting lights...

Yeh man, I remember a thread about this some while back. I chimed in that I had terrible luck with Sunwayman. I also said never again. Guess what? I never agained…. :smiley:

Sunwayman is not good IMO Terrible customer service also. :confounded:

On the other hand:

Sunwayman’s anodizing and overall build quality is pretty nice even if the electronics fail. At $20, if it craps out on you at least you’ve now got a nice host. :heart_eyes:

I agree there, their host quality is good, but their electronics & QC of the internals are junk. I will likely try to shoehorn in a much more reliable better 105C Q-Lite driver in the C22C body, add a 2-way switch, and a tail clicky.