Nobody here attacks you. We're just trying to help you, Sofirn and all of us to find out what happened and why it happened. However, this requires all of us to rely on facts and not on wild guessing or ranting about non-related things like cardboard box designs etc.. You seem to be quite frustrated and worried about the incident and I can fully understand that. But please be fair and let all of us focus on how to find the root cause of the problem.
So far, Sofirn offered you to pay the shipping costs to send it back to them. They also offered you to refund the broken light AND to get another flashlight free of charge as a sign of goodwill and to compensate you for the hassle you and your girlfriend have gone through. Seriously meant question: What else do you expect them to compensate? How do you expect them to know what you are asking for without telling them?
I guess that's me, the guy that called you biased. Well, sorry I did not mean to offend you but you are always pointing out Acebeam and Fenix as "golden standard" while both manufacturers have had broken devices in the past, too. Only because you have been fortunate to not have any defective Acebeam flashlight does not necessarily mean their quality is way beyond Sofirn's. In fact, Acebeam's entire first batch of the EC65 had a design flaw causing the driver to die instantaneously once you put a high-drain cell into it. Acebeam did only exchange the broken device by a new one - nothing more. Sofirn took immediate action about your problem, offered you a full refund + a new flashlight even though you did not contact them directly. Still, you are ranting on and on... (sorry, that's what seems to me being "biased").
Seem to be true or are true? If you had taken a look into the manual you would have discovered both a phone number and at least one e-mail address to reach Sofirn. You are saying they do not have a long warranty period. Did Sofirn tell you how long their warranty was? Even if it was less than Acebeam's two or five years warranty, they would have certainly taken care of your case since it happened right after you bought the flashlight. Moreover, I'm sure a burning Acebeam or Fenix flashlight would cause the same kind of smoke and smell in your house. They use similar components in their flashlights. That's again, what I call biased and not being objective.
If you have bought flashlights for more than 20 years then why did you expect a "cheap" brand like Sofirn to have North American local dealers? If having a local dealer was so important to me, I would inform about my options before I actually buy and I would probably buy from a local dealer and not order from an Amazon FBA warehouse. Personally, I would also prefer to buy a $ 500,00 Acebeam flashlight from my local dealer in Germany but we are not talking about a $ 500,00 flashlight here and local support is expensive and will need to be included in the sales price. You expect a local 5 star 24/7 customer service for a $ 50,00 flashlight that you called a "cheap brand" before. How is that supposed to match?
Once again, you are ranting on and on. You state that you are not part of R&D but at the same time you are 100% certain about poor quality control and R&D being the reason for the defect. Please do us and yourself the favor to return the flashlight for proper investigation to Sofirn. Then we will know for sure what happened based upon facts. But this seem to become impossible because...
Well, that figures...
Now, you hold a pistol to Sofirn's head. Either they compensate you (without telling them what and how much they should compensate you for) or they will not be able to find out what really happened to your flashlight. I will stop judging your true intentions from here on...
Well done, Jake! Now that you achieved to let everyone being afraid of buying the SP36S you stop cooperating to help Sofirn and the community find the problem. I really hope you will change your mind about not sending the light back to Sofirn.
