Sofirn SP36 spewed toxic chemicals throughout my entire house

It’s time to find some cheap plastic or latex gloves, go outside and open the light. Dump the batteries and check the positive ends. Look at the face of the driver. Describe and/or take pics of what looks ‘wrong’.

Never. do. that.

Never leave a li-ion charger operating unwatched.

Worst case, NOT applicable to your experience, but for caution to others:

WARNING: if a cell vents with flame, that reaction can produce hydrogen fluoride, which is what you’d want to immediately tell an emergency room doctor as
the health effects of exposure to HF may not show up for several days.

You mentioned : The smell was so strong that simply plugging my phone into the same charger for 5 minutes has made my phone charging port emit the smell to the point where I can smell it from 3 feet away.

Do you even suspect your charger than to the light?

Okay guys I am going to work on this. This thing is seriously inside of a plastic bag inside of a tupperware outside because even the plastic bag was not enough to get rid of the smell so I’m not looking forward to it but I guess you’re right. Without taking the pics I’m not giving you enough info. So if I had a severe headache all day yesterday but I feel much better today do you think I’m physically okay at this point? What would an emergency room even do about hydrogen fluoride? From my understanding when you’re exposed to stuff like this there isn’t a whole lot they actually do for you.

The entire light smelled like this. I was using a 7-foot USB cable that was probably 5 feet from the charger. The charger has no smell whatsoever. Just the tip of the cable. Whatever offgassed and filled the entire house with a smell was bigger than a USB c connector

Pic of the top of the bats (positive), the inside of the head (where the bat + connects to) and the usb port (flap open)

That should tells us what we need to know

Also the negative bat terminal and the springs if u can

A respirator might help

- do it outside

- If there’s airflow, hold he light downwind of you

  • if there’s no breeze, do you have a small fan you can use to blow its smells away from you?

After a few days, there should be very little gas / smoke left in the light, but safety is always a good habit.

Ziplock bags aren’t scent proof at all, so that’s not surprising. If you can afford to, I would play it safe and ask a doctor.

Pictures are coming shortly. Just a couple of very interesting updates. The first one is the light still turns on and functions. The second is the cells look to be intact, but there is clearly burning on the board on the bottom of the head that the positive terminals contact. And the third is the fact that the smell is still exceptionally strong that even with fans blowing outside it was difficult for my girlfriend and I to tolerate. I really can’t understate how strong this smell is.

Album — Postimageshttps://postimg.cc/gallery/2bbhm4vz4/

Something defo went wrong there then, burn’t up alright - I’ve seen something like this before on here, now who was it?
If memory serves me correct, he went outside at night and it happened in his hand and there was smoke in the head. Was a different light though I think….

One of my SP36's threw a wobbly while charging and stank to high heaven of a chemical smell.

It was the charging circuit as far as I could tell.

The cells look okay right? Am I just dealing with a very smelly board? I’m assuming it’s the charging board in particular because the flashlight still functions, ramps everything

Just out of curiosity when a board burns up and start smoking and smelling what is actually in the air and what is the lingering smell? Is this essentially just burnt plastic, resin and solder and that kind of thing? I don’t really know what these are made of.

Sounds like exactly what happened to me. Did you have any physical symptoms? What did you do just throw the light away and throw the cable away?

Do you have a DMM to measure the cells?

Either way i wouldnt use that light, especially the charging

Amazon return

Put it on charge first time, bad stink came out of it, no smoke, still worked, but would not charge.

Stripped out userable bits and binned the rest.

Bought 2 more.

Burnt electronic stuff usually gives out that acrid odour, I think it’s just the burning board - if it were me, I wouldn’t trust any of it batteries or light - return the lot.

Some observations from a quick glance at the pictures you linked:

  • The batteries look intact. From your pictures the head of each cell looks completely normal. I think if a battery vented there would have been some visible damage or mark on the wrapper. That said, I’m not an expert on venting batteries, but I suspect that your cells did not vent. That could be good news since it may mean your house isn’t contaminated with lithium ion battery byproducts. Also if a battery had vented, the light might have exploded and burned your house down.
  • There is an obvious burn mark on the PCB on the inside of the head. This suggests something on the driver self-destructed. The driver and/or charging circuit is probably destroyed.

My conclusion:

  • Defective light probably caused by poor quality control during manufacture on Sofirn’s part.
  • There is a remote chance the problem is your USB-C cable. Are you using one from a name-brand manufacturer or that came with the light? or are you using a cheap generic one? However, my guess is the problem isn’t the cable, since if it was I think your light would have malfunctioned the first time you tried the cable in it.

My recommendation:

  • Contact your vendor and/or Sofirn to see about getting warranty repair. Also check your manual for warranty information.
  • Do not attempt to activate the light since something in it is broken and it is a safety hazard. Do not reload the batteries into the light.

@Jake257
For getting rid of the smell in that room get a pound of freshly ground coffee, put a bead sheet on the floor and spread the coffee on it, leave it for a day it should take care of that nasty smell. When we transport fish on big trucks that is how we get rid of fishy smell.
You can always try fabreze.