My review of the tiny but insanely powerful AA sized LUMINTOP FWAA with Anduril II and 3 x high CRI LED’s,
again close but no cigar…
Easter egg found!
No, it’s a listing for both flat top or button top and the measurement is only given for the button top as the flat top is circa 47-48mm
Just out of curiosity, what has happened that you started to feel so angry about BLF and its members? I noticed that your thread about the Lumintop FW3X was deleted - something that happens really rarely over here. So far, I really like watching your video reviews and I appreciate that you are unbiased when it comes to shortcomings of a flashlight. However, I would not go that far to say that there are no other honest reviewers on this forum. Maybe you are just having a bad day, I don’t know. Anyway, best of luck to you and I hope things get straightened out anytime soon.
Wow your fw3x and fwaa are both lemons
MascaratumB found that a couple of his cells were too long.
My Vapcell H10 and Vapcell gold button tops both work fine in mine.
Did you add an extra O-ring to the tube or something? I don’t get it
I do not understand some of these comments. His review clearly shows 3 different batteries that fail to cut off. If the light is not defective, that is unacceptable. I have at least 10 lights that use 14500 cells and they all work with any brand cell installed. Lumintop sent the reviewer the light for the purpose of the review, and could have sent the battery as well. Lumintop should have checked that light for function, since they knew who they were sending it to. I think that light is probably defecticve, and if not, I wish I had seen this before ordering one. Lumintop accidentally sending a reviewer a defective light is a fail, but if every one of these lights work on just a few 14500 batteries…that is a huge fail. In either case I applaud the honest review, and do not understand those who attack him for this review. I wish all reviewers would highlight faults they find. It is a service to the consumer. I suffered a certain amount of attacks recently when I pointed out the Thrunite TN42 V2 had proprietary cells as shipped. I found a fix for it, but it was still a stupid design.
All the negative waves…
Maybe the light was just confused, and thought it was in lightning mode. 
Damn, all the pretty pictures, now I’m hangry.
Given the above & the hand written comment in your review I’m going to guess you aren’t posting in good faith, but if by some chance you are it might be worthwhile to become reacquainted with the forum rules:
BudgetLightForum.com Site Rules
That being said I will make a couple of points. First, people on BLF have no issues with negative reviews. They’re an important tool in weeding out bad products. Second, your behavior undermines any actual criticisms you are hoping to make. Who wants to waste their time listening to someone behaving like a child?
Enough said.
I just finished watching The_Flashaholic’s review in the original post of this thread.
My take on your review
- Good review. I really enjoy your video reviews and this one, while short, still showed off many features of the light. I hope you have a long future at BLF and continue doing reviews here.
- As others have mentioned, name-calling and personal insults are not helpful. First, they’re against the forum rules. Second, they detract from the message you’re trying to deliver. They make you seem biased. In this particular case It seemed very out-of-the-blue and uncalled for. Especially so for the handwritten note in your review that you posted before receiving any comments in this thread. I get that you were frustrated and disappointed upon receiving a defective light … as you should be. However, you should also realize that others who purchased this light might not have received defective copies and might be pleased with their light.
A bit of trouble-shooting on your light
- I do not believe that the problem you experienced with your light was because of your cells being too long for the light, because of the following:
- In a properly functioning FWAA, the LEDs should flash once the moment the battery tubes are screwed in enough to connect the battery. This occurs long before the tube is actually tightened enough for the switch-inner tube to make contact.
- However, this didn’t happen in your light. In yours, the light turned on at a low level the moment the tubes were connected enough to power the driver. And this low-level light stayed on no matter what you did with the light.
- With the 3rd battery you tried, the switch actually functioned. You demonstrated using it to turn up the light to higher power settings. For the switch to function at all means that both the inner and outer tube were pressed firmly enough against their respective pcbs to make connection. If the battery was too long, pressing the switch button would have done nothing.
Some possible causes of a light staying failing to turn off and staying in low power mode. I’ve had this same problem in lights I’ve modded. Two possible causes that could be the cause in your FWAA:
- Bad solder job between the LEDs and the star - too much solder might cause a short between one of the negative pads under an LED and the central heatsink pad. This would create a ground connection through the star, which could then travel through the screw that prevents the star from turning and into the head of the light, bypassing the driver. If the amount of solder bridging is minute there could be a lot of resistance in the connection resulting in the light staying on at a dim setting when it is supposed to be off. This can be fixed by reflowing the star and checking for excess solder.
- Bad 7135 chip - when 7135 regulator chips go bad they sometimes cause lights to stay on at very low settings when they should otherwise be completely off. This can be fixed by replacing the 7135 regulator chip.
In either event it means you got a defective light. That doesn’t bode well for Lumintop’s quality control. Hopefully they will get you fixed up with a replacement.
This is what LUMINTOP told me about the flicker issue
“I confirm with our engineers, it’s a malfunction fwaa, the negative wire connected with the mcpcb and result in it.”
It is frustrating when I get asked to take down reviews, and it happens a few times, I did contact Lumintop about both issues a long time before the reviews went live hoping there were easy fixes I could mention on the review but I didn’t get the reply until after it went live, which is often the case. I’d like to think I’m more a reviewer than demonstrator.
My FW3X was unusable with yet another sticky FW switch, my Geek gave up the ghost last week and this FWAA has gone bonkers out of the box so I just feel I need to warn you guys instead of just giving you a showcase, group buy offer or discount code.
It looks like the FWAA has worked fine for reviewers on here so far and my switch hasn’t stuck yet or become misaligned. I noticed someone also got the same 1830 lumens turn on result as me too so it’s a genuine powerhouse.
Ah yes. That’s another possibility that would create an effect the same as the first I described in my last post.
The negative terminal from the battery is supposed to go through the body tube then through the driver and then to the driver wire to the LEDs. The driver is what controls the action of the LEDs.
It sounds like Lumintop is saying the negative driver wire connected to the main part of the star. This connection bypasses the driver completely and could explain the malfunction.
This likely happened due to the negative bondpad on the star being close to where the wires from the driver pass through. A bit of that exposed metal wire likely bent downwards and is touching the bare metal inside of the hole through the center of the star. That is then causing a short through the bottom of the star or the star’s anti-turn screw.
The problem could be a defectively manufactured star. But more likely, the solution is simply to re-solder the negative wire to the star taking special care to avoid a short.
I do not think you should take down any reviews due to a malfunction in the product. Nor should manufacturers or sellers ever ask you to do so. It’s bad form.
I think it would be ok for Lumintop to invite you to do a second or supplementary review of the replacement or fixed light they send you. You would not have to take up their invite. But if you chose to do a second review it would be perfectly fine to point out this is a second review as the first copy you received was defective.
I just hope it isn’t like the IMALENT MS series red light Turbo issue. (Which other youtube reviewers never seem to experience! *sorry) The last 4 lights IMALENT have sent for me review have all had the dreaded red light issue and the last 3 have all been “personally tested” before coming to me. Basically I’m a liar in their eyes now.
The FW switch and IMALENT red light phenomenon have never been rectified.
The switch in my FWAA works perfectly. No issues with connection or it getting stuck.
Only problem is I find the action too easy to depress…. same as the FW3A.
I tried the o-ring mod on my FWAA. It made the clicking action much louder, but still seemed far too easy to depress. I’m not too surprised at this. I’ve done the o-ring mod on maybe 5 or 6 FW3 series light and the results seemed a bit random. On one end, it made almost no difference. On the other end, the switch needed 6 lbs of pressure to active. Most were in-between. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if others find the o-ring mod works great on their FWAA.
Since the o-ring mod didn’t seem to help with my particular FWAA except to make it noiser, I removed the o-ring and reverted it to stock. I’ll just use the electronic lockout during pocket carry until I come up with something better.
I can tell that’s can authentic response from an engineer where the light was made due to the funky English :person_facepalming:
The ‘max’ lumens you tested over 2000@turn on is quite a bit more than the factory spec, actually an amazing amount of light for such a small 14500 cell even if it steps down fast. I’m interested in this light, my FW4A has been good so long as it has the correct flat top. Good to know others have have properly functioning FWAA’s. I appreciate your reviews & the efforts that go into them. Everyone has opinion/criticism some is helpful some not so much.
Just saw video and wasn't reading above posts.
Light flickers on low and won't turn on properly due to bad solder contacts on MCPCB.
It was the same case on mine but i solder everything again and now it's perfect.
Also helps if you loosen the bezel a bit