BLF Edition ThruNite Saber 1A Group Buy - $19.99

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 :open_mouth:
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.

It would be nice to know just what that proportion is. It seems more people chirp when they get a defective unit(rightfully so) than when they get one that works but maybe I’m wrong. I do think the BLF A8 was a better deal overall.

I suppose that could be the case, but as I posted elsewhere in this thread, my first T10 (from the Thrunite store on ebay - no group buy), my Ti and then this Saber 1A all had problems. The contact issues with the first T10 were helped by a complete thread clean and regrease with Nyogel, which damped the action enough to lessen head wobble and intermittent contact issues when going through modes. The Ti is damaged for good, as an eneloop AAA compressed the pil into the head just enough so my other AAA rechargeables, which are a fraction of a mm shorter, now won’t make contact sufficient for “high” mode when screwed in all the way. My T30S is still running strong, and appears to be better made. Maybe like many such companies, Thrunite has some design input but has their lights made for them by one or more manufacturers. The box from my first T10 lists a different address (in a different town) in China, and I only bought it in December 2012. It could be they are farming out designs to the lowest bidder, and saving money by forgoing QC.

I think the bottom line may be that, however they want to spin their identity, Thrunight is more on par with other inexpensive Chinese light companies than with better outfits like Olight, FourSevens, Crelant, EagleTac, etc, at least if you take into account their entire product line. At least that’s the feeling I’m getting having had issues with three of four lights.

I was talking to ThruNite about this thread and showed them.

If anyone is not satisfied with their BLF Saber, send a email to sales@thrunite.com with your order number and a description of your problem with the light.

They told me they will replace them.

One would have thought that Thrunite would already be aware of this Post and others and would have had a Representitive address some of the issues and threads that have been posted if they really cared about their product, or the people that bought them. To have so many failures in the same Brand, Model and Batch is a Disgrace for a Company that is trying to sell their lights for Top Dollar, like they are an Elite Brand.
The fact that they don’t have a Representitive on these posts trying to at least address some of their Clients issues and their Quality Control (or lack of it), speaks volumes to me about how they don’t care about after sales service or Brand Quality. It seems to me that they are taking advantage of the fact that most people on this site will try and repair the lights themselves, rather that have to ship them back and wait any longer. That way they can flog off all the crap and only have to replace or address the people that can’t fix their Lights. Way to save Money, Way to Lose Business.
I used to like Thrunite, but now i think it is all just overpriced Crap.

I’m not being an apologist for anyone but what company will pay for employees to check threads in every forum that caters to their industry?

I guess the same ones that read all the threads to offer suggestions and sell their Wares. I’d say just about all of them, they use the forum to sell what they want and read most things to know how to target their sales. How do you think they knew which Lights to offer in the first place, or are you a firm believer that they just had an Epiphany sent by the Devine Flashlight God.
I guess if you don’t think that Thrunite know all about this and every other thread about their product on this and every other Flashlight Forum then you will always be living in the Dark. Also one of their Favourite Customers.

Not sure if they follow these threads on or, but am I the only one who finds Saber’s design bland and cheap?
The rest of AA lights look good, but this one is just, well, cheap looking like some unfinished rough budget light from no name factory.

This was cheap….and bland of course it’s just a tube…but that’s like flashlights look a like :wink:

I have played around a bit and compared to other Chinese lights, this is no extraordinary quality like expected(I think that is the problem with all of us).
Mine has flickered yesterday too…and I am always happy to play and to mod with my flashlights but I guess that for a normal customer this light would be a even bigger disappointment…

The brightness on AA is really good and useful, the size is nice. Price was good for a thrunite flashlight(3good sk68 could be have for the same price).

Mine arrived with the same flickering issues and loose threads. I know that most of you like the easier turning but I was hoping it would be tighter than my T10. I don't have any issue turning it one handed off it's tight but all this will do is turn on in my pocket leaving me witha dead light when I go to use it. My T10 did that already and is had is much tighter.

The crappy connections are the worse part. I cleaned the threads and it worked for a while but quickly went to crap again. I will be contacting Thrunite about this.

On the bright side it is brighter than my T10 but instead of being more neutral than my T10 it is far whiter. This was a very disappointing light.

The Archer 1A, also recently offered in a Group Buy, evidences poor QC and design flaws. The O-ring situation is a travesty. Offering to replace with another having the same design flaws simply doesn’t cut it.

Like many here, I posted on the Archer Group Buy thread that Thrunite has lost me as a customer.

I’ll agree that its nice when companies do check into social media and message forums in an effort to improve their product, but i don’t expect them to be like big brother and be in every thread ever written. This would be a monumental task, it would take many hours a day to read every post made at BLF and the other forum and all the other forums. If would also be incredibly inefficient. Don’t forget there is more then just flashlight forums, theres an entire internet of people who might be talking about your product, it may be mentioned in comments on blogs about an unrelated topic, mentioned at unrelated forums, yahoo questions, personal websites, gripe sites, image storage sites (which may be in picture form and hard to search for), amazon and anywhere else on the information super highway.
If any company has people who read all the information added to the internet daily i will be insanely shocked. Even google spends a lot of manpower and resources to automate, organize and index whats new.
A market research team should be interested in what others are saying about their product, a large company would conceivably have focus groups, researchers, strategists, advertising ‘experts’ and hopefully product research divisions. However if you think they are personally watching everything you say and do then you should have far bigger concerns then flashlights.

There is hardly any of their workers that aren’t asked to join these Forums and push their Products, suggest their items and in some cases review them and or start rumours about other Company Rivals. I read it all the time. Doesn’t cost them anything, they’re already on the Payroll and members of the Forum. Anyway, Sounds like you might have more trouble than me with the Clown eating you en all. You have a nice Day in Cloudland or Clownland. Take care. One last Question, do you work for Thrunite of have you had any of their Free items to Review. just Curious.

No i don’t work for them, nor have i received or ever had the opportunity to use one of their products.
I’m not saying they cannot have people who visit forums and see what people are saying about their products, what i am saying is that you can’t expect that every time someone says their name anywhere on the internet they are there reading it, though in this case that would be helpful.

Agree with Bort. Go easy on the fellow members, Toph.

Yes, Kreisler, it f… works, stop using it already :D!