[Honest Review] insanely powerful AA sized LUMINTOP FWAA with Anduril II and 3 x high CRI LED's (Nearly epic)

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

On the one hand it is certainly good for consumers when a reviewer highlights QC issues in such a brazen way. It does not surprise me that Lumintop asked you to take it down, however I am pleasantly surprised that you refused and made their request public.

Lets be real for a second - many consumers received FWxx lights with similar issues so finally we have a video representative of the experience of many people. In fact many Chinese flashlights - Astrolux etc - have terrible QC issues at launch and yet this is rarely disclosed in reviews. Some reviewers are very fond of their stream of free flashlights and affiliate revenue and do not want to bite the hand that feeds them.

On the other hand the name calling and hostility detract from whatever good you are doing. I suggest to take a step back and reappraise your approach.

I just tried a bunch of 14500 in my 219c version, Shockli, Vapcell, Klarus, Nitecore, Sofirn, and AW, protected and unprotected, button and flat top, and they all worked. It does sound like a contact issue.

I am sorry that you got a bad working sample, The_Flashaholic. :zipper_mouth_face:

As far as I can tell from the experience of my 2 samples, the batteries you used are not the issue as they don’t seem “too long”, so, as many others mentioned before, it is a driver or contact problem, which I hope you can solve in some way (even getting a new one).

Also, and to refer to The Auditor post above, only my 2 unprotected button top Vapcell batteries didn’t work, as they probably compress the driver spring too much or constrain the inner contacts in a way that the flashlight didn’t turn ON. Maybe the inner tube is the issue, I don’t know.

I would also like to say that you did an honest review concerning the flashlight you got (as with other lights), and if it is not working well, you portrayed it that way. That doesn’t mean that you are the only honest reviewer, it means you make honest reviews about the flashlight samples you get, either they are damaged, malfunctioning or not.

I did an honest review about my 2 FWAA working samples (1 bought, 1 offered), and I expressed what I like and dislike about them, even if it isn’t the same as you or others like or not.

I guess that doesn’t make me a dishonest reviewer, right? I do have less means to make a complete review with numbers, etc, but that doesn’t mean I (or anyone else in the same conditions) am dishonest! I don’t feel personally touched by your words, but I wanted to point out this aspect to level out some ideas. :+1:

Again, I hope you can solve that issue and get one or more functional pieces.
And I hope you can make a full review, as you normally do, when you get that working sample(s). The way you portray how the lights work and their range in open spaces is quite unique and useful to see what a flashlight does: illuminate. :+1:

:beer:

I’ll give it a go thanks.

Lumintop are asking me to remove the 2 reviews again this morning saying they’ll damage the brand

What is the point of reviewing?

I’ve blocked Victor Zhou and will never review a Lumintop flashlight sent directly by them again.

I didn’t appreciate the slight against the whole forum but I can certainly respect you for sticking to your guns against lumintop

I just tried a Wuben protected and a Skilhunt protected. Neither fit. The Skilhunt is 52.8mm in length and the Wuben is a couple of mm longer.

Cheers mate.

Don’t laugh, this is probably going to be one of the most valuable threads on BLF. I like that we finally are seeing reviews that are not only honest but bring out the real negative characteristics in lights and in companies. I am real tired of seeing the overwhelmingly positive reviews that talk about foolish things like “well greased threads” and how the “style and finish is nice.”

As others have mentioned, thanks for the integrity and the honest review. I just need to remind everyone that name-calling and personal attacks are completely off limits on this forum. Please go back and edit or delete your posts if they have anything that goes against these rules:

On mine loosening the head a couple of turns or taking the TIR out and going mule/commando mode removes pressure on the MCPCB and allows the light to be in an off state.

My favorite burger lately is the onion smash burger.

jon_slider, I made some new tests and put them here regarding the batteries I mentioned that didn’t work.

Take a look. They worked now, maybe due to less tension on springs, but I still wouldn’t use them in this flashlight.

There’s a thread on TLF where one user was able to fix this problem by recentering the driver PCB.

Of course, such problems shouldn’t be there, and one other manufacturer seems to not have them with his lights using an inner signal tube. A few dollars more expensive, but a whole different class quality-wise. So thanks for the review :beer: . And for this easter egg: Not again, please.

This is also expected behavior when you have a short to ground caused either by bridging solder between the negative and heatsink pad under one of the leds, or when you have the negative driver wire touching the side of the star which also creates a bridge from negative to ground.

In both cases, you get connection that bypasses the driver through the star. But in order to have a short, the star must then have an electrical connection into the head of the light. Without pressure on the star, the star tends to ride up on its thermal paste and not create a good electrical connection. But when you apply pressure to the star by screwing in the bezel completely the star is pressed through the paste and an electrical connection is achieved.

I haven’t tried removing the star in the FWAA to see if the shelf is anodized or not, but even if so electrical connection could still be achieved by the star touching the head of the screw that is installed to prevent the star rotating during assembly. The result is the same… pressure is needed to create the connection.

Had this same problem in a DQG Tiny III I modded a few weeks ago.