BLF Edition ThruNite Saber 1A Group Buy - $19.99

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!

As Bort said, I wouldn’t expect them to read every thread, but maybe they will read this one on their own Forum.

There is no reason to totally slam Thrunite yet. As someone who got a bad light, I’m just as disappointed as many of you are, but I’m hoping Thrunite will come through with some great customer service and replace the malfunctioning lights as quickly as possible, at no cost or trouble to us (which will mean they will have to pay return postage for the bad lights).

As I wrote above, it may simply be that these were early lights from a new producer. My original T10 box indicates production in Dongguan City, but my BLF Saber 1A was made an hour south, in Nanshan. I wonder if the BLF Archer lights being discussed on the other thread were also from Nanshan?

Whatever the case, I’m willing to give Thrunite the opportunity to do the right thing and replace all of the bad BLF Saber 1As. I think that would go a long way in restoring confidence. Now if they could only change the emitter tint, too…. :wink:

I got mine today, I was shaking waiting to see what happened. I had charged up my Tr 14500 in anticipation, and put out a new AA….gulp, fired it up, and wahla it works. Great little torch, mine had clean treads, did look like it had been tested … works on all batteries from 1.2 to 4.2, I love mine…not dark yet, wanna try it outdoors , but worked fine in the house…good luck…love mine…Edit: After playing with it, the threads could be tighter, does have a tendency to fire-up in my pants, but everyone thinks I just have a bright…head…

Thrunite has contacted me and offered to send a replacement light and return the first one. That sounds fair as long as the replacement works as described and they will pay for return shipping. Have other people with bad BFA Sabers been promised replacements?

Thrunite also requested that I return the original light to Illumination Supply’s address in California. I thought I had read somewhere that IS had stopped being a reseller for Thrunite, but maybe not. At any rate, if both the return and replacement could have been handled domestically it would likely have been faster (I’m assuming a 2-week wait for the replacement, but if it’s faster I’ll post). I’ll keep my fingers crossed that there are no problems with the replacement.

I thought that under closer inspection all the main QC issues raised in that thread were found to be false.

The lense is actually AR coated, but not with one that lets the most light through in the green area of the spectrum (purple reflection). Also the o-rings in the head are present under the lense, but over one side of a rim in the reflector (like the SC600) and obscured by the bezel.

I bought a Saber 1A a while ago and it works fine, the only issues I have is that the threads could be tighter (though they are still better than my Quark Mini AA and iTP A3 upgraded) and efficiency on moonlight and max isn’t great. I really hope others get their issues sorted soon because otherwise it’s a nice little light.

The design and execution of the tailcap O-ring inter alia are the prime issues with the Archer. The AR coating is marginal at best as well. I find I much prefer my L3 Illumination L10 and am sorry I went for the Group Buy.

Ditto.

So I emailed them about my never ending flicker story…I think I have to solder a drop on the contact like someone mentioned here, but a light which is advertised as “durable Strong reliable” should light up without modifications….
The customer service has done nothing until now.

April 15th:
Hello,
I have received my light last week and it makes problems more often than i thought.
I had to clean the threads several times because it doesn’t lit up anymore. I thought it was healed after adjusting the negative spring but yesterday evening it flickered again… I am sad, this is a light I can’t trust.

My order number is:
Order #1….

With kind regards

………………………

I got this email two days later:
Hello customer,

We are so sorry for inconvenience caused!
could you let me know the details about the problem?then we will evaluate the light and report back the findings .
W’d like to resend new one for you.and we’ll improve our products.what do you think of this proposal?

Waiting for your reply.
………………………………………………………

So I emailed them the problems again, …wtf and thought they would send a new one. this was on April 17th

Hello,
I have mentioned the problems in my last mail, almost every time I use the light it flickers or doesn’t light up totally. When I clean the threads and everything it turns often on again but just now it doesn’t light up…this is a light I can’t trust.
Please resend a working light.

Kind regards

……………………………………

Yesterday I checked the account and no shipping confirmation or else so I wrote a short mail that I am waiting for reply
…….
This mail came today:
ok,we resend a new one today.
and could you return the original one later?
Best regards
Grace

Customer Service
ThruNite

……
i mailed them this message just right now, yep not to kind I know but I am really pissed off because I thought they would handle the situation

I don’t understand, where should I send the light to?
I won’t going to send the light back to china as it would cost more than I paid for the whole light.
I am sad that you have done nothing for the last week…seems the customer service is crap like the light.

Without kind regards

………………

Have I something missed in there mails? Never heard a single word of sending back or getting even an address?
This is far away from a satisfaction……especially if it is a common problem.

You don't send it back unless they provide you with a prepaid shipping label to ship it back with. I was talking with David, from Thrunite, on Monday about this whole issue. He told me he plans on replacing them but they will not have the BLF laser etching on them as they will be standard Saber 1A. Personally I think this is better for us because I am convinced that they will be better quality than the assorted randomness we all received with the "BLF Edition" of the light. I mentioned that I would just remove the pill from the new one and use it in the BLF head so I have a working special edition and he said nothing about returning the original.

If he plans on replacing the defective ones and wants them shipped back then he will have to have all the replacements relasered as it was the whole point of buying them. I still haven't heard anything from him about when he would ship out the replacement.