Sofirn SP36 spewed toxic chemicals throughout my entire house

I'm sure Sofirn will do whatever they can to investigate the problem and to compensate the customer by refunding him the broken device as well as any shipping costs (please keep the post office receipt ;-) ) that will arise. Apart from that I'm wondering what more Sofirn should compensate in this very situation. If I was Sofirn I'd probably send Jake some kind words of apology for the unpleasant incident (which I could image has happened already via PM) and maybe - as a gesture of goodwill - a voucher to get another Sofirn flashlight of his choice free of charge. That's it.

Everything else has been addressed by now to pinpoint and rectify this problem as soon as possible. I asked Barry to talk to Sofirn's engineering tomorrow. Maybe they can simulate a surge test with 20V input voltage on another SP36S sample to see what happens and if there's anything else that could make the charging circuit go nuclear. The most important thing to do right now is to get ahold of the defective unit for proper forensic analysis.

As far as I can assess the situation, nobody got hurt and nothing else is kaput except for some scared souls and some unpleasant odor on the USB-connnector and inside the room which hopefully will soon disappear. I always get the creeps when someone is asking to file a law suit against someone else. If this becomes the usual way how to handle things....good lord....we can kiss a lot of flashlight manufacturers or at least their contribution and collaboration on BLF goodbye for good. I now feel set back to the Emisar D4 V2 "muggle-mode gate" Hank and ToyKeeper have been dealing with. :-(

Sofirn’s hands-on approach is better than any other flashlight manufacturer I’ve seen yet and Barry is often “walking among us”.

Of course it’s Jake’s call but I think it’s in Jake’s, Sofirn’s and our interest too to figure out what caused this.

My money’s on the charger too, somehow giving too much voltage to the unit for some bizarre reason. But if it is in the flashlight’s charging interface that could affect many other products including the LT1 possibly which is currently in production.

Full disclosure, I have an SP36 and LT1 on the way so, of course, I’m a little rattled! :stuck_out_tongue:

Where is the link to the pictures? I have had experience with various flashlight driver fires and tested various battery types overheating.

If I got the OP right, it was an SP36S light that malfunctioned. I have only used a USB-A to USB-C cable along with some USB-chargers that come with a USB-A socket. On the picture below you see a Blitzwolf BW-S5 QC3.0 (up to 22V) charger charging the SP36S with the USB-A to USB-C cable supplied with the flashlight. The light is being charged at its maximum rated specs, i.e. 12V @ 1.67A (= QC 2.0).

This is an excerpt from the Sofirn SP36S manual that you can also download from my sharepoint here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oZvw8Pybww_O198ynTl8yNXkUjUG9ohw

Sofirn never officially stated the maximum input voltage but I was told by them it is rated up to 12V @ 1.67A. Even though my USB charger can deliver up to 22V output voltage (if the right protocol was being used) my sample did not go beyond 12V. AFAIK, Sofirn never bundles USB-chargers along with their lights. We need Jake to provide the exact brand and model number of the USB-charger and cable he used on the SP36S. If it was a charger with a USB-C socket it's possible the PowerDelivery protocol (20V 5A !) was being used instead of the QC 2.0 protocol.

Dunno, wasn’t there.

Could’ve charged fine during the day and then gotten unplugged shortly after finishing the first few times, vs the last time when it was left to cook overnight.

Dunno if any electrolytic caps are there on the board, but when they “blow” from stress (vs just drying out over time), they can leak their electrolyte. No idea what that smells like.

Like I said, without a proper post mortem, it’s all speculation. I’m just saying what it sounds like to me.

Seriously — the power to damage the flashlight probably came through the wires from the charger.
Which charger? Look it up at HKJ’s page:

https://postimg.cc/gallery/2bbhm4vz4/

This is a picture of the original SP36 driver (not SP36S driver!) I found via quick Google search. I made a circle around the components that I think that could be located right underneath the burn mark.

Following. This is more gripping than a Hollywood thriller in ‘whodunnit’ fashion.

The µC can be ruled out (that thing with ATMEL written on it), as the light works. The other IC looks like a constant current driver.

ah ok. can definitely see the overheated charred spot on the driver board in the middle. Looks like an overheated/cooked chip, and the cells look fine. Just curious of that the voltage and amps of that charger being used was when it happened?

I’m not familiar with the USB-C standard. So, is USB-C charging something that we need to be concerned about? If I use a legitimate USB charging brick that supports whatever-the-latest-and-greatest USB-C fast-charging standard, is any USB-C flashlight I plug into it going to be okay? Isn’t the flashlight supposed to negotiate its charging voltage? Or is there a mis-match of charger and device that could cause a melt-down?

Looks to me like that chip or whatever under the word ‘RUBBER’ is the culprit.
If you look at the red/black wires(in the burn’t photo) and reverse it (turned over) in the next photo that seems to be where it burnt. Luckily both photos are together, making it easy to see.

Here're some more, I put some arrows to it to point to the location that could be the origin of the burn mark (not necessarily the source of the defect!). Please note this is NOT the SP36S driver but I presume the layout will not look very different. Left picture is from Wieselflinkpro and right picture from Djozz.

The USB-C specification looks like a minefield for circuit builders. Apparently the circit board in the device being charged can elicit up to 20V from the charger.
And it looks like the charged device can ask for more voltage than it’s designed to handle, and get it.
Ouch.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q="USB-C"+charging+voltage+negotiation

Wellp, the green-arrowed thing is a 7135, so I doubt that’s the problem.

Yup.

The 7135 is used in Anduril for regulating moonlight and low modes and is not part of the charging circuit. OP reported that the light still works so that’s probably not the problem.

So, this could mean either a different driver layout or some other component burned up and all the heat on the other side could only leave traces on a very distinct spot (around these small holes in the driver's surface).

So as it stands now I have thrown away a couple of USB cables. I am not exaggerating at all when I say my phone omits such a strong horrible smell that I am unable to use it without feeling nauseous unless I put tape over the usbc port. I have spent a lot of time cleaning. I threw out everything that was edible in that room, and there is still a strong smell that made both my girlfriend and I pretty sick. Sofirn has not offered to do anything for me other than make the return process more complicated than Amazon makes it.

I’m honestly not surprised that some of the people here are attacking me. I understood that sofirn worked closely with members of this form before posting here, but I thought that would make it a good place to post. I wanted to get as much info as I could about my situation, and give people a heads up on what is possible with this light. I appreciate you guys encouraging me to take pictures of all of this. I honestly might not have touched this thing again otherwise. I will be sure to post them on Amazon with my reviews.

To the guy calling me biased you can think whatever you want. I’m not selling flashlights for a living. I’m honestly wasting my time on here at this point just trying to help other people. I don’t expect that anyone will be able to help me any further than they have so far.

I went into all of this having no biases whatsoever. I point out that the finish, the machining and the packaging of sofirn are the worst of any brand that I have bought simply because it looks like you get what you pay for when it comes to internal build quality as well. I honestly don’t care about a box, but it seems to reflect the quality of the product when you look at the packaging of some of these top-shelf brands. I have been buying high-end flashlights for more than 20 years. This is the first time I’ve had a problem with any of them. That is not bias that is just the objective truth. I’m not saying that reliable brands like Fenix or acebeam are perfect. I personally don’t like the UI or the color temperature on most Fenix lights - heck I will go as far as to say that I strongly dislike the UI on most of the modern Fenix lights. I don’t like the fact that most Acebeams start flashing when the battery goes low and don’t have any good indication of battery status before that. Nothing is perfect, but those brands have been reliable for me. They work exactly the same way they did when I bought them, and they certainly haven’t poisoned me. The fact that I bought a cheap brand and it filled my house with fumes and gave me a massive headache is no coincidence in my mind. If you want to pretend like it’s a coincidence that’s your prerogative. Hopefully most people reading this have a little bit more common sense than that though.

All I said about the support is there’s no one I can call and it does not have a long warranty period. Both of those things seem to be true. With acebeam I can call a reputable dealer with fenix I can call a reputable dealer and back when I was buying novatech and surefire I could call reputable dealers as well. What north american based reputable dealer can I call about sofirn? The shortest warranty of any of these other brands is 5 years. How long is sofirns? I’m posting opinions based on objective facts not based on biases.

I honestly don’t particularly care what’s wrong with the light at this point. Poor quality control and R&D caused charging board or charging chip to burn up. That’s good enough for me. I’m not going to buy another one of these products. I’m not part of the R&D. Frankly the R&D should have been done before I bought this thing. I was buying a finished product. I was not signing up to be part of a forum project to develop a flashlight that doesn’t work properly yet which is I think what some of you expect me to be doing here.

I am going to stick the quality brands moving forward. If sofirn and wants to do something for me to actually compensate me for the damages and inconvenience I have incurred here then great I will figure out how to send them the light. Otherwise I’m going to do what’s easiest for me and send it back to Amazon and get my money back. I personally used to sell through FBA, so I can tell you that if sofirn wants the light back they can get it from Amazon. If they want it back from me they can compensate me at the very least for all of the things I had to throw out because of this incident.

You guys can call me biased, you can call me ridiculous, you can call me sensitive, you can say I am having psychosomatic issues. You can really tell me whatever you want. I don’t care. I’m not part of the flashlight online modding community. I’m simply a guy who owns some nice flashlights and wanted to give people a heads-up about this particular brand while hopefully getting some advice. This thing spewed toxic fumes all over my house. It made me sick, and it made my girlfriend sick. I still smell all of this stuff. I would say this particular flashlight is probably not a good one to give people for Christmas because if this happens to them they will remember it.

The charger is whatever charger is included with an LG v30. The cable is an anker cable. Both of these items still function fine. They have been used for over 2 years to charge multiple other lights and many other devices without any issues. To blame this on the charger is absurd. A fast charger will provide more current to devices that have that capability, but if a brand name top-shelf charger like this causes an incident like this and you want to blame it on the charger then what charger should I have been using? And how should I have known what charger to use when the instructions don’t say anything about this? This is a dangerous low quality product. If people on here who have an agenda want to pretend something else that’s totally fine with me. I’ve done my part. I can move forward with my life with a clear conscience knowing that I at least tried to warn people about this. I will do the same on Amazon.

Like I said before I would have gladly paid three times the price for a light like this that was built properly and safely. I have no problem paying $200 for a good light. I only bought a bottom shelf low quality brand because they made the triple cell high CRI that I wanted. I won’t make that mistake again.

Ahhh the search for high CRI …