FW3A Troubleshooting / FAQ

Are they identical? can you swap out parts and make the other work? Pulling my hair out here -_^

I have a short alu tube I could never get to work right. Maybe due to tailswitch change—I’ll have to get it out and try it again with various iterations of tail switches.

None of my switches has the lock ring in it.

Am I the only one who has never had the tailcap off of either of the two FW3A’s that I have?

Could be - can’t do any of this without taking off the tailcaps

Are the thread lengths and inner tube lengths the same?

Also, did you try without the clip? Sometimes the thickness of the clip is too big preventing the cap from screwing down all the way.

The clip is not on it. The threads are the same. After fiddling with it some more I have come to the conclusion that the inner tube is not making good contact with the switch ring in the head, I can’t make it longer so I am sol I guess.
C
thanks for the help guys.

If no other way, buy a (cheaper) aluminum short tube and use the inner tube out of it

I tried changing the tube I have, no joy.
C

You can make the inner tube longer by making the outer tube shorter. Did you test for continuity with the head removed like in the video I showed? I’m guessing that the switch does work and that’s why you’re thinking the inner tube not making contact with the driver ring? Assuming you have a little bit of a gap between the head and the battery tube when they are fully tightened you should be able to remove a little of the battery tube length on the head side.

Get you some sandpaper that’s about 400 to 600 grit and put it on a flat surface and then you can hold the battery tube on top of it and slide it back and forth making sure to rotate the tube every now and then so that it takes material off evenly.

Do I need to calibrate the temp(ambient) on the EDC18 like I did on FW3A? Just checking cause it’s a little harder to do the multiple clicks with the side switch & not sure if these are set up already.

Just let it set for a long time so its fully cooled down and do a temperature check. Then you will know.

Thanks Jason, I got a good deal on it from amazon, came with a Samsung battery and glow gasket for about $36+tax…couldnt resist even though I’m pretty happy with the FW3A….one more flashlight can’t hurt right? :wink:

I’m hoping someone can shed some light on my driver issues.
I own about 10 x FWxA lights, all various custom leds.
I’ve ended up with 2 with the same driver/grounding issue.
1 came like this from banggood, I got a refund. The other was OK until I swapped the led board one day and it was broken since. I’ve since removed the driver, run new emitter wires, tried two different sets of mcpcb and leds, and checked the driver ring 100 times.

Basically, the lights are always on. It’s not a switch issue, even without a driver/switch ring installed, the second the battery touches the spring when screwing it in, the leds light up, somewhere above moon.when the switch connected, I can still turn it on, ramp and turbo, but once it’s off there is still power running to the leds.

The one that started doing it by itself I have tried everything within in knowledge/skill base.

Anyone seen this issue before? Only time I’ve had it was a badly sanded e21a board where the mcpcb was grounding in the light. This isn’t the case.

Are the drivers just screwed? I wouldn’t know where to start if I needed resolder components on the driver board.
Anything I should be looking out for?

I plan on buying a number of the buck/boost drivers that Neal apparently will be making in coming months, so eventually I hope to have spare drivers. That said, I’ve got new leds in the way I want to Install, as well as I want to try and fix them to improve my skills - not much to lose.

Thanks in advance!

A potential small short sometimes happens under the led when too much solder is used. If the negative pad of the led develops a tiny bit of continuity to the thermal pad next to it, you can get what your describing.

Have you tried swapping that mcpcb for one in another light? That would tell you if the problem is with the led or the rest of the light.

On the light that “started doing it on its own”, yes I’ve changed the mcpcb and leds entirely, as well as new emitter leads from the driver.

The “factory broken” one I haven’t removed the mcpcb. This light had evidence it had been used in some manner prior to arriving, I got a refund but its a Fw1a and I want to fix it and swap the emitter!
I might remove the board and hook up the emitter wires to a multimeter if I suspect it’s not the same issue on both lights.

Okay, so you’ve narrowed it down to the driver. It can be tricky finding a short in a driver. First thing I’d try is clean both sides with a toothbrush and alcohol. You can look over it with a magnifying glass for any solder that looks out of place. Most likely it’s one of the 8 current regulator chips. A tiny percentage of them can short a little. You may have to unsolder them and replace with new ones. It could be the FET leaking, but it’s a harder job to remove it. You typically need hot air.

I bought an FW3A on Amazon a little over two months ago. This is a new type of light for me and I love it. Everything works except I noticed that now it always turns on at Max Ramp. I thought it was supposed to (and used to) turn on a whatever level it was at when I turned it off. I’ve gone over the Anduril UI (thank you ToyKeeper) and can’t find any reference to setting or locking in the level that it turns on at, although I thought I saw a YouTube video recently that made reference to it. Anyways, I couldn’t find anything in this thread about this problem. Should I just try a Reset? If so, which one, press and hold the switch while screwing the head on or 13 clicks and hold on the last one? Will either, neither or both work?

If it has the reset feature, it would be 13H. You have manual memory enabled. Turn the light on and do 5H to disable it.

I opened the first one I had, from the original GB run, just out of curiosity. Never carried it because I hated the switch so much, and traded it for a knife.

For my purple, it was a shelf queen until I opened the tail to do the o-ring mod. Now it sees use and carry time.

Also, it feels like half the FW3As out there need to be opened and fiddled with just to get them working right to begin with.