For shipping to the U.S., I was given a USPS tracking number on February 28th, a day or two after ordering. That number STILL does not register in the USPS system. Three contacts to Sofirn and no response. I did not bother playing the waiting game and filed a Paypal dispute. If they would have gotten back to me and tried to explain what was going on, I’d have been more patient. But simply ignoring my emails (while posting coupons for the batteries still on sale here) is just too poor of a business practice to me. I love their lights, but I cannot order from them anymore, either on their website or on Aliexpress.
@ longuylander;
They (Sofirn) seem to outsource the shipping, a broker of sorts. They sometimes ship direct which has a working tracker (as ChinaPost) and sometimes ship to their warehouse/remote location (where the tracking doesn’t show up). Then is re-shipped with new label, and then the tracking may work, to a domestic address. Their front end reps at the website have very little knowledge or hide that information. It’s very devious and not very transparent.
My 2 orders (from Jan. 13th) which never showed anything till the 5th of March (“logistics order created”) and now (March 10th) was processed at a way (aka customs) station in Canada, one which is on it’s way with Canada Post and can be tracked.
I’m not praising their shipping methods, as batteries are in the orders, they found a work around to ship Canada. This should not be so with US as there is air freight from China to USA. Perhaps Sofirn is under the customs radar for not divulging LiIon cells in the manifestos?
I just ran into some of their shenanigans with the new ‘re-designed’ website*. It really is mismanaged and they don’t seem to have a clear working strategy to capture a credible store. It’s a pity as some of their lights were top notch and very affordable, plus could be ordered with different LED variants and included batteries.
*Imagine re-designing a new web store and not testing out prior to launch!
On the forums they ask for patience till things get sorted out and then offer some discounts / better deals only to have the shipping refused to US / Canada / Germany (and maybe many other?). Losing people’s account and re-submitting as a new user would indicate a virus affected their database and everything is either compromised or non-retrievable. They would lose face (respectability) if exposed or worst, they may have a rogue employee that screwed things up.
They’ve got problems…
Update: You now can actually choose the 5000K version (although currently only 2 left):
And then there were none. 
Thanks for the heads up, smvs!
How about making this light available on Amazon? Then shipping problems, and especially the wait, go away and problem solved.
It is on sale now till 1 april 2020. Lamp + battery for 28.07 euro. https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/4000283536927.html?spm=a2g0z.12010612.8148356.3.454727b9rvQwFf
Anyone tested this light of it have PWM?
Do you mean good PWM or bad PWM? Seeing as it is a FET based driver and no one has mentioned slow or visable PWM, it must use good PWM.
Any kind of PWM. And in what condition is they are detectable. It will take a very bad pwm before anyone comment anything usually.
And different people have different sensitivity to PWM
Well I use mine as bike lights and they don’t have any strobe effect on the spokes in my front wheel the way bad/slow PWM lamps do.
Also when I take beam shots at various settings the pics come out fine, without any bars across the screen.
Hope this helps.
Most flashlights have PWM. The question is, as JasonWW said, bad PWM or good PWM. The PWM frequency in SP33 v3 is approximately 16 KHz (16000Hz). This is a good PWM.
Has this driver been looked at yet? I think someone posted pics, but I can’t remember.
Yes
I thought that was the thread, I just didnt look back far enough, thanks. How do you know the PWM frequency is 16,000 hertz? Did you use an oscilloscope?
Thanks everyone. I think it’s good enough. My SP33v3 is on the way already though.
Sorry for the late reply.
The exact frequency is 15.96 kHz. For measurement, I used a solar cell and an oscilloscope.
Cool. 16 kHz is about what the NarsilM and Anduril drivers use so I doubt anyone can complain.
SP33v3.0 has ‘good’ (fast) PWM. Can detect it only when pointing the light through a portable fan blades.
Here a positive story: I ordered my SP33 V3.0 (5000K + battery version) from China on march 29 and I received it on april 10 in the Netherlands.
Ordered a couple of the new 5000K without batteries on 13 March and tracking still says
“Despatch from Sorting Center
2020-03-25 20:06:02”
Also, AE has moved the goal posts. Originally was supposed to arrive before the end of this month, then suddenly they added two more weeks so now says
“Your order will be closed in: 20 days 8 hours 2 minutes”
@#$%&!