Olight S2R Baton II

I used to complain about olight using the cheapest junk batteries they could find, and making them proprietary. But nobody would believe me. You used to be able to use quality non-proprietary batteries, but the charge function wouldn’t work. Don’t know if you can still do that or not.

Maybe try switching your dad’s battery into your light.

Did you ever pick up a multimeter so you can check voltage? I'll have to try this and observe but I wonder what these chargers do when cell voltage is pretty low. There's always a period of initializing and pulsing with any smart charger before it settles into a charging rate...I don't suppose that would show in the indicator led but maybe?

If you never open/remove then yeah, it should stay clean inside. Personally I usually take mine out and charge it in a normal charger because I'm not terribly fond of the charging rate the mag charger provides the little 16340 cells I have (over 1C charge rate, I think...measured at the wall and on the mag cap, but I can't tell what it's actually doing in the circuit when the battery is involved. I think it's a bit too high, though, for my liking.). But it doesn't hurt to clean it anyway. The plunger is the spring loaded nib on the mag cap itself. One of those threads linked above talks about a malfunction there where some cleaning (and lubing, which I don't think is necessary) fixed his situation with a plunger that stopped traveling freely I guess.

When you clean, give it some good pressure. Sometimes you can't see oxidation like you can some grease or schmoo. Q-tip with alcohol is fine (or a clean cloth even). With the other usb charger of theirs, I was somewhat surprised when a legit cleaning fixed it because they really didn't look dirty and I'd already wiped them. This may not be your solution but it's the first place to start, and it seems as though you've ruled out a couple other possibilities including (I assume) power source.

I'm a little curious how the bits in the tail of the light are set up. When I measure voltage on the mag cap the plunger is negative, ring is positive. But in the light, that center post that the plunger contacts looks like it's straight through to the positive contact on the battery. Hard to see in there and there could be some swapping by via on that little board. It'd be interesting to see how they're assembled.



As far as I know you still can. I'm not particularly fond of any of the onboard mag charging setups but I think the way Rofis did theirs was a better idea...no question about cells or orientation, just need the prissy charging cable. I don't see any advantage in reinventing the wheel with tailcap mag charging other than being able to more easily stand the light upright on its face when connected. Interesting exercise for the engineers/designers I suppose...gives some extra bullet points for the marketers to use...hopefully ensnares at least as many customers who will be locked into buying your proprietary junk as it does drive away others who don't want to be locked into it. Someone probably enjoys patent awards and accolades, too.

You un-wrapped a brand new battery? LG cells are good cells, but these MH1’s along with the F1’s are LG’s cheap line of cells. I think the MH1’s are rated at 10A, and the F1’s 6A, something like that.

That disk on top of the cell is the charge and protection circuit, and looks like it adds considerable length. Therefore, a standard 18650 samsung or sony, probably wouldn’t work like they used to on the older Olight flashlights.

Most likely that battery circuit is your problem.

This is a LG F1 flat top. No protection or charge circuit

Ah, got it. Try taking the battery out of the new light and testing your old light with it to see if the battery was the problem. There may be nothing wrong with the flashlight itself

These are the newer olight proprietary cells with that huge circuit. It’s probably more like an 18700+ size and may not fit in a standard charger. Also, the positive and negative are on one end of the cell.

I’d bet the main reason Olight does this is, to sell $2 dollar batteries for $15.

I thought you said you just tried the charging cable. Why did you peel the wrap it when you knew it wasn’t a problem with the battery? oh well

Gotchya. So, did you swap the battery with a known good one on your new light or not?

btw, the @ symbol doesn’t tag or do anything on this forum. You can hit the quote button, and edit anything out irrelevant to the reply.

So I wasn’t confused after all. That was exactly the point I was getting at in the first place. You never ruled out the battery as the problem.

Notice how I edited the quote?.. lol

Convoy S2+ with a simple off/on switch and 4 modes. IMO, a better flashlight than the Olight and 1/3rd the price. And you get to deal with the owner who’s a member of this forum.

You could pick up one of these.

https://www.fenixlighting.com/product/arb-l18-3500u-built-in-usb-rechargeable-battery/

They are pretty pricey but if you just want to keep one cell and you don’t want to deal with external chargers, you can pick up one of those and an S2+ for less than what the Olight costs. It’s a long cell but I can confirm it does fit in the S2+.

Where is this coming from, BLF is good at welcoming those who ask for knowledge.
All you have to do is ask and ye shall receive flashlight wisdom



Nonsense. :) Stick around.

Interesting pic of the 18650...I'd seen (only photos) of theirs and the newer 21700 which has the plastic ring like my little 16340 and assumed the 18650s were kind of the same gig. Is there actually a charging circuit in that add-on gizmo, not just protection? Does seem like an awfully large add-on to a cell especially with how others have been able to shrink the pro circuits to take up much less space. A little surprised they use a cheaper cell like that, too, but it's probably fine-enough with their driver and regulation. I think I'm more interested in what appears to be going on at the tail cap interface with the charging.

CRC, not sure what to say about the baton...I think most people are aware that Olight is a very heavy dose of marketing on some mostly very nice lights, but it seems that they are definitely not immune to the common issues with "cheap" electronics from overseas. Cheap meaning design, not price. Most brands suffer from one thing or another, some repeatedly, and it's just part of the territory but sometimes you get big winners and they'll last problem-free for years of use. I'm just curious what's going on with the dang thing but I'm sure Olight will take care of you with another replacement.

When you feel like it, people can recommend some good cells to buy...might have to order those separately from one of our good battery wholesalers...and a light that has onboard charging and suits your needs lightwise. No problem to continue with the Olight but there's a lot to pick from and some are wonderful while still being cheap (most often way less money than virtually any Olight model). That would still keep the door open for you to pick and use high quality batteries, with or without protection (in addition to whatever protection might be in the light's driver), and if you want you can get a regular charger someday, too. No worries! Just stinks to have a defective light, doesn't it...twice. And since you're unsure of when to feel safe or worried, that doesn't make it any easier. But it's been a couple months and you know more than you did at first! I don't think you're as dumb-dumb as you yourself suspect, just frustrated...totally understandable. :)



Oh, I dunno. It's a big forum, a free open wild-wild-west forum full of mostly good people. All forums have the standard types/groups/cliques of people, this one is no different. Sometimes people inject sort of a mean or crass humor at times without actually offering anything helpful or constructive, but it's still just humor usually. Hopefully you haven't taken any of that to heart. I'm pretty sure most people would get a little tingle if they discover that you did become a newly-converted official bona fide Flashaholic, but in my observation there are a ton of people here who are not -holics and just have a passing interest or only want to find a good practical light and don't have interest in cutting-edge stuff or mods or various firmwares. And that's just fine, really! I fall somewhere in the middle although I've had an interest for many years now. I started nosing around here not long after the forum was created, then registered sometime around 2014, never said a word or made a post/thread, just read and followed along sporadically while using the lights I had and looking occasionally for new ones. Sometimes just reading gave me answers to questions or problems I had. Basically just the dreaded lurker and freeloader. lol. Anyway...all that time, all the people that have come and gone or been around and never said much....totally normal for a forum and you can choose how much or how little for yourself, y'know? When it comes to getting help, sometimes it's just luck of the draw. With most hobbies many people will behave differently as they move along their learning curves...sometimes the people who know the most or who have been around a forum for a very long time just get a little tired of repeating answers for questions, so they don't look at those threads anymore or let another member give their input. Or maybe they don't see your thread and happen upon it weeks or months later and give some wisdom then. And some just stay within their smaller circles of interest or friendships they've developed here. But there's room for everyone, absolutely. Or maybe I'm wrong and they'll ban me tomorrow. lol. But that's my take after years reading here, and experiences with other forums...basically just enjoy what you can for as long as you want, don't worry about it. Heck, there are some people here that after a decade or whatever still ask some very basic questions that one would supposed they'd already have learned the answers to...room for them as well. :) When Sb made this forum he wanted it to be welcoming to everyone and I must say that it's kinda remarkable that it ended up that way and mostly still has for so many years....pretty rare thing on the internet and wherever two or more may gather!

It’s probably the simplest light you can find other than a single-mode incandescent. It’s highly unlikely you will use it in a way that will harm it.

  • Insert cell
  • Press switch
  • Photons come out
  • Profit

Good choice, this place is full of good people and info. I’m not into the modding
But love my flashlights. We all started somewhere. Didn’t know about 16340,18650 and so on but it’s not a big deal. Just get a quality charger(which Are not expensive) and buy only name brand Japanese cells and you will be golden.
Best of luck and welcome.

When I had this issue with my Perun Mini / MCC 1A I was able to fix it by using a different higher quality USB power adapter. The light on mine would dim and flicker when the battery was really low but wasn’t as bad when the battery was slightly discharged. Now my light is fine though, haven’t had any problems since switching to a reputable USB power adapter.

The driver options just determine the max power going to the LED. The older models give you options to limit the power because they didn’t have temperature regulation.

I’ll make it simple. If you go with the first light, choose the 7135x6 option. If you get the 219b model, there’s only one option so there’s no problem.

Hey, good news on the Baton....always nice when it's something super simple!

For the 7135 drivers...those have been around a long time, generally do a great job. The 7135 chips are little rectangular 4-leggers and each one supplies/regulates some current to the led. The more of them you have, the more current you get...so more light and also more heat to dissipate.

It depends on the particular brand of the 7135 chip but for simplicity let's call it 350mA per chip (some can give more but right now with the chip shortages and issues you don't know what will be in there unless you message Simon).

So 350 x 8 = 2800mA....2.8 amps.

Fewer chips means lower amperage/lumens/heat.

2.8 amps is ok for many emitters. Most can take a lot more but the smaller thinner body of the S2 series can't really dissipate all that heat quickly, so that 2.8 to 3 amp is what Simon has generally limited it to.

The 7135x8 can actually get pretty damn hot if you allow it to run at max for awhile, so it's best to not leave that unattended or leave it with kids. But it can be nice to have that extra oomph available and just switch to a lower mode when it gets hot and/or use the lower modes most of the time.

The next step down with six chips (350 x 6 = 2.1 amps or so) is still plenty bright and gets hot but not nearly as hot to where you can't hold it.

Simon doesn't sell any himself but if you wanted to get into modding/simple soldering then you could actually buy similar drivers that have ten or twelve or sixteen of these chips...or you could even add some additional chips to the stock driver yourself...but that gets a little ridiculous in such a small host that has less metal to deal with the heat.

His stock drivers for these don't have some of the bells and whistles that other firmwares do, but they're pretty solid. The "100%" setting is like turbo, but it's just another mode and there is no double-clicking to get there like on many lights. But depending on which "mode group" you choose, you can get a full range from moonlight-ish 1% all the way up to 100%, with several modes or just a few. Not bad at all, just a little simpler old-school UI compared to all the fancier stuff now with Narsil and Anduril, etc, etc. Simon was/is an enthusiast like us, so he's always just kind of given us the useful specs rather than spelling it all out in lumens and run time, etc., like the advertising for most mainstream brands with their neat graphics. We can say, oh hey, eight chips, this many amps, and then figure out about how many lumens based on the emitter and other stuff. Just a different approach with less fanfare and he's never lying to us or trying to hook us in with marketing.

I am nearly positive that if you wanted that Nichia version with fewer 7135 chips on the driver, Simon would do that for you (usually for free). If you do, just send him a message before you order and once he approves then add a note on the item when you place the order and pay. He will also do nice things like swap a reflector from smooth to orange peel or whatever, or sometimes even add things like a spring wire bypass, etc.

Also, for the batteries.....with the S2 you can run whatever you want to, pretty much. Since they aren't pulling big amps, just about any battery will be able to provide what the light asks for, and length is no issue so you can use normal or protected, your choice (and I think all protected batteries will still be able to feed the amps just fine, too).