I’m not sure if this is the correct place to post this but today I grabbed my FW3TI/CU to use it and it wouldn’t come on. This one has given me fits with the tailcap so that’s what I thought it was but then I remembered that I had gotten the tailcap perfect and locked it down last time I was having an issue.
The fact that I was getting nothing was very strange because I was 90% sure that the battery had been nearly full when I had last put it away.
Well, I pulled the battery and put a new one in and it came right on with no trouble so I figured the tailswitch had been pressed against something in my doorpanel (where I keep it) and ran there battery down. I lock it out electronically wherever I put it in there to prevent that but maybe I forgot. Well, the strange thing is that when I brought the battery in to put it on the charge, it wouldn’t register on my charger.
All my 30Qs have come from Illumn except 1 that was purchased with my BLF A6 from Bangood. I should have marked that one but I didn’t so I’m not 100% sure that this isn’t it. There’s a pretty low probability but it’s not zero.
First question – Is it possible that a genuine Samsung 30Q could go bad so fast (a few months max)? I don’t think I’ve charged that battery more than once as I don’t tend to use that light very often for very long as I typically use a headlamp.
Second question – Is it possible that this is a counterfeit 30Q? I guess I can pull the wrap since it’s basically useless.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Chris
What is its voltage?
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It’s not a protected 30Q is it? Like this one? . If so the protection circuit might have tripped.
Locking out an FW3A (or Cu or Ti) is not the same as a mechanical lock out with some “simpler” lights. With those lights, locking out is almost like taking the battery out. The FW3 has two separate conducting paths. After being locked out, you stll have the opportunity to use it on moonlight with a momentary switch. And mine has a hair-trigger switch. Maybe that’s what happened.
A few chargers have a revive mode, also called a 0-volt mode. Try one of those. Warning, (too) low voltage can cause irriversible damage to the battery, if the “dead phase” lasts too long. It’s a chemical process (read about dendrites).
You are a flashaholic if you are forced to come out of the closet, to make room for more flashlights.
Did the police question the other flashlights and batteries you own? I suspect foul play.
I’m guessing 0 because it doesn’t even register on my charger – Zanflare C4.
I will set the battery aside until my BLF charger arrives or bring it to a Vape Shop if I get impatient but I have at least 20 good 18650s (30Qs and GAs) left so no big deal I just want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
No. It’s a regular 30Q with the pink wrap.
I understand and that’s what I’m thinking happened – that the switch got held down in momentary and it ran the battery down. There’s a bunch of stuff in my door panels that could have pressed that button, which is a hair trigger like yours.
I just thought Andruil had LVP but maybe it doesn’t work in lockout mode. Maybe @ToyKeeper can give us some insight because I’m stumped.
I’m going to use mechanical lockout from now on when it’s traveling and electronic lockout when it’s in my pocket.
I’m glad you got the joke.
You can measure the standby current with a multimeter if you have one? E switch lights will always draw current even when of but generally should last longer than a few months.
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I used the light less than a week ago and I’m pretty sure the battery voltage was right around 3.9 – 4.1 volts. I love the blinkies on my Andruil lights so that’s usually the first thing I do when I turn them on.
On closer inspection today, I found my glow gasket and Carclo Optic melted and fused to the MCPB/LEDs.
I must have forgot to lock it out and the button got held down. It must have an older version of Andruil because I believe TK made that impossible with the newest version. It ramps down if the button is held.
This was an expensive mistake as not only did it kill the battery but it also ruined the optic which has 3 trit vials and the glow gasket.
I’m going to order those Crown Caps for all my FW3x so this doesn’t happen again.
At least the mystery part of this has been resolved, though. A lesson to all to learn from.
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I found my FW3A on in my pocket after hanging up my pants at end of day, several times, on low, before I developed the habit of unscrewing the head a half turn every time I put it away.
“Why are your pants glowing?” is not the best question a flashlight fan can hear from a stranger.
Fw3a has no lvp?
I guess not. Is there a way to tag someone in a post? I’d like to ask TK
‘oogled that:
Interesting that the LVP failed here
From the heat?
should measure that bat with a DMM
if there is an issue with the LVP, thats pretty inportant
so whats the standby current drain
How do I do that? It’s a mule right now so I have access to the LED terminals. Just put my multimeter on them?
If the cell got hot enough the internal safety cutoff could have been triggered.
CSI Florida??
Unscrew Tailcap and meaure current between tube and negative cell terminal.
But it’s unlikely this drained the cell imo.
Smile, you cannot kill them all.
Yeah, the melted optic and glow gasket tell a different story but I’m curious to test it though.
I messaged ToyKeeper with the hopes that she might be able to tell me if I have a bad light.
It seems to be working now but maybe I will keep it mechanically locked out as I thought I had electronically locked it out last time I used it.
That light can’t be mechanically locked out. All that does is cut off the switch control, but the rest of the light (i.e., the mcu) is still powered and functional.
Maybe it’s just me, but if this light melted down on you, I’d want to make 100% sure that it was something careless I did, and not something the light might decide to do on its own again.
I recall there was a “melting down” problem with the Emissar D4v2 in muggle mode, which runs the same firmware. Perhaps this is related? Let’s hope not.
Whoa. Good thing it didn’t catch fire and spew toxic chemicals all throughout your entire house!
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It was in the door of my truck. I’m still not 100% sure of what happened because I think I locked it out.
I’ve had that switch get stuck before but it was usually right when the battery went in. The LVP or thermal stepdown should have prevented what happened anyway though so I’m worried about that light now.
(@Watermanchris – inside joke)
Smile, you cannot kill them all.
Like the man said:
and the question is thrashed in more than a few subsequent comments in that linked thread, including a warning about having a loose sliver of metal in the wrong place cause a rapid battery discharge.Wellp, I’ve certainly had a few incidents of hot-pockets before…
I’ve also had lights that perfectly locked-out with the slightest turn, suddenly have “gaps” (ano probably worn through) where it’d still make contact at various points of unscrewing.
What I tend to do is put the light on, then unscrew to where it just turns off, then give it a further fractional-turn unscrewing, and wiggle to make sure it doesn’t turn on, then switch off at the switch. That’s with mechanical switches. All bets are off with eswitched, as they might be reconnected to power, just not automatically turn on.
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A multimeter will be needed to get any useful details for diagnosis.
First is measuring the cell voltage to find out how far it was discharged.
If the cell got below ~2.8V or ~2.7V or so, there’s probably something in the light bypassing the driver and allowing current to flow even while the light is off. This has happened a few times that I’m aware of, with a stray bit of metal connecting parts which aren’t supposed to touch. Basically, if the factory didn’t keep things clean enough, this can happen.
So next would be putting in a good cell and measuring standby current. This can generally be done at the tail end with the tailcap off. One probe goes on the back of the cell, and the other goes on the body tube’s threads. Standby current should be 0.030 mA or lower.
About the melted parts, that could have happened while unattended if the button was pressed, or it could have happened during normal use in a turbo mode, without noticing until later. It’s hard to say. I don’t actually have any glow gaskets, but it may not be a good idea to use turbo with one of those installed.
Whatever happened though, it’s not at all related to the issue the D4v2 had with muggle mode. That was never relevant to anything except one specific batch of the D4v2.
It would still be nice if Lumintop used newer firmware though. As mentioned earlier, a stuck-button protection feature was added, and it might have been helpful in this case.
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