I just did a quick comparison of my T10 and Saber 1A. The Saber box says “designed in USA,” the T10 box doesn’t. There are also different company addresses on the boxes (different cities), and looking closely at the heads they don’t quite match (knurling, groove width). My guess is that Thrunite went to a different supplier for the new light, and QC wasn’t as good as the original place.
I received my Saber 1A today. I had been looking forward to it, but instead of joy it was disappointment.
The light flickers on all modes, and sometimes does not turn on. Obviously defective.
Now what??
I should add that I am not technically competent here and am not faintly interested in doing any repair.
Jerry
I picked up mine thus morning and it also seems fine. One hand operation, smooth threads with nice positive feel but not gritty, no flickering, and a very low firefly. Works with both AA and 14500 efest imr and has a nice smooth beam. I’ll have to do a side by side with an RBD Solitaire.
Can anyone tell me how to contact Craig or Thrunite for either a refund or replacement?
Thanks,
Jerry
You should make some attempt at getting the light to work. The fixes people are doing are pretty simple.
As much as I was also disappointed with the lack of checking/QC out of the factory, I agree with brted that you should at least try a minimal contact cleaning. With tweezers or small needle nose pliers you can pull the spring out of the tube and clean its top and bottom contact points with a q-tip moistened with alcohol, then with the same q-tip clean the bottom tube contact, the inner and outer contacts on the bottom of the board plus the top rim of the tube. Put the spring back in and see if the flicker is gone. This can all be done in a couple of minutes.
If you are still having problems contact Thrunite at sabrina@thrunite.com. Good luck.
Thanks, Tweaks. It worked, and that is a lot better than the troubles of sending it back, etc. I don’t normally work on lights, and so did not know what to do. I admit I am not used to repairing new items I purchase, but this was worth it.
Thanks again for your and brted’s help. It saved me some trouble.
Jerry
That’s great you got it working. Definitely better than the hassle of customer service. Congratulations!
Just got mine, popped a battery in and Bob’s your uncle - not an issue everything looks good.
Thanks ezarc for organizing this buy.
Okay so I have been really trying to look at the positive things here…I got in 2 defective lights and ‘fixed’ them, but am already having more problems with one of them. The main one I have been using has lost it’s moonlight mode. I try to turn it on moonlight mode and it won’t even light up. eventually if I keep it in the on position it might flicker (tiny fractions of a lumen, hard to even see). the medium and high modes work fine, so it’s not contact issues. and I have only been using eneloops in it (batteries are brand new. have tried other fresh batteries and get the same thing). no 14500s at all, no overheating, etc…and the moonlight is what really sold the lights for me. I guess I am going to try and get a refund. even if the second one is working right now i wouldn’t trust it to last more than a few days. has anyone else had issues like this?
Sorry to hear about your troubles. I think it may still be a connection issue. The current on ml mode is so small that any additional resistance from a poor connection and the led wont light at all even though the higher current modes still work. The ground ring might need a small addition of solder or a q-tip with alchohol but I could be wrong. That seemed to be a common fix for the BLF Mini 01. Qc seems to be a bugbear for thrunite.
There does seem to be some serious quality control issues with Thrunite. Out of four lights I’ve bought from them for myself (aside from the “bundle” of Tis for Christmas gifts) I’ve had issues with three. (The T30S has run fine, knock on wood… 
)
the ground ring…so i need to take the driver out? I’m out of town for the rest of the weekend but I’ll look at it tomorrow night or Monday. I would really like these if they worked right. I just completely stripped both and cleaned/lubed them so I don’t see how it could be the threads or anything. if it is…then even having to strip it down and clean it every few days to keep it working isn’t worth it. especially times like now when I’m out of town for a week and don’t have my stuff with me to work on it. what a pain. if I can add a little solder to it or something for a quick fix it might not be so bad. thanks for the help though the current thing makes sense
Sorry for the poor quality but this is how mine looks and it works fine. That bit of solder on the right is where the - contact is made and needs to be clean and smooth. Can you take a pic of yours? My advise might not be worth squat if the issue is with the component side. One of my BLF minis had a shaving of aluminum from machining on the component side that caused inconsistent operation until I pulled the driver and it came out.
It looks from the two holes that the driver threads in so has anyone removed the driver yet? I would do that as a last option.
Quality control on these was absolutely shitty. Thrunite should be ashamed to ship out such shoddy half assed products. Threads on mine I thought were just gritty but they are sloppily cut and therefore loose. Teflon tape to cobble it over. Disgraceful.
I’ve made the decision that I’m THROUGH with THROUGH-Nite.
Thrunite should hang their heads in shame on these skeletons from their closet.
Now, want me to tell you how i REALLY FEEL?
This brings me to a thought that if there is no way to exchange or otherwise obtain satisfaction except to return a light to China, I am not going to buy that light. That seems to be the case with this BLF buy. For $20 I would not go to that much trouble.
Jerry
I got mine on thursday. Popped in an eneloop and it was completely dead. Not even flickering.
Well, then I took it apart to try and make work. Found nothing wrong on the led or driver on the outside. Cleaned the threads and contact spring, still nothing.
At that point I felt pissed off, my first doa light, and from a brand name manufacturer. I was ready to send it back but decided to give it another look yesterday.
I tried a different spring on the bottom and it lit up 
I took a closer look at the bottom of the tube and I think that when they machined the anodising off for the spring contact there was some ano left on sides of the tube and that causes the contact issues. Just cleaning the contacts wont help if that’s the case. I made a small bend on outside of the spring on mine and now it works with the original spring also. So turned out it wasn’t a big issue but it was enough grief that this is definately my last Thrunite.
yeah mine came doa too…then I ‘fixed’ them…and a few days later they’re dead again. I wouldn’t even expect this from cheap DX lights. honestly, at this point it’s not even worth trying to fix. these are unreliable lights and i don’t think anything will change that besides gutting it and building a completely new light out of it.
I need to email them but I’m afraid I am going to loose my ass on shipping for a refund, and I don’t want a replacement. really sucks because I have been wanting a tn31 to go alongside my tk75, but this has scared me away from thrunite altogether.
On one hand Im kind of disappointed that I missed this deal, but on the other, no matter how much I love my Ti’s out of 5 ordered 2 had problems and Thrunite had to reship two pieces to me, and its kind of sad to see that current production QC hasnt improved seeing that folks still receive DOA Thrunites.
Or am I wrong?
I didn’t get in on this one (I was away, or probably would have) so I really don’t have a dog in this fight. However, it makes me wonder if the whole “group buy” discount wasn’t a way to quickly unload a specific number of defective or questionable units. What I’m reading here indicates that this batch has a disproportionate number if duds for regular production. These might be the contents of the discard bin.