Bad Emitter on D4V2 & Poor Experience with Hank's CS

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
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Late Update: I emailed hank again and said something to the effect of “the LED has gotten worse, this clearly is a bad emitter. Can you send me a new head please?” and he said yes and sent me a new head. I’ve had the new head for like 9 months now and it’s great.

Hi BLF, after posting about this on r/flashlight, a few users suggested I post here as well. I received my D4V2 (SST-20 4000K) on 2020-11-02, six days ago. Initially I didn’t notice any issues, but later on in the day I noticed that when I looked at the light right after it had been on turbo, only three of the primary emitters were glowing.

I removed the bezel and took a look at the emitters. That’s when I noticed that one of them had a dark spot on it.

At this point I emailed Hank and includes those photos. He said this

So, I replied with the following photos illustrating that the emitter is dimmer not only on Anduril Level 1 but also on Levels 38 and 75.

He replied with a photo of a D18 to illustrated that emitters behaving slightly differently is normal. Based on his previous message about VF and from the photo, it looks like he’s still talking about moonlight.

At this point I was feeling frustrated, so I didn’t push the issue of whether the emitter works differently on higher modes. I just asked if the dark spot on the emitter is normal and sent a photo.

This was his response.

I decided to drop it, and if the emitter died I’d get in contact again.

Fast forward to today, I’ve been using the light and the emitter has gotten significantly worse. My phone camera won’t expose properly on modes higher than moonlight, so I’m using a lens to focus the light on the wall on higher levels so you can see how it looks. The emitter has gotten significantly more brown.

Here’s what it looks like on Level 1, Level 75, and Level 150, in that order.

And here’s what it looks like straight on on moonlight.

Should I contact Hank again and push harder for a resolution? I’ve heard that his CS is fantastic, but so far my experience has been quite poor. Surely this emitter can’t be normal.

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Looks like the LED got too hot due to bad soldering or not enough/uneven thermal paste. Yeah, write him again, this must be warranty.

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Welcome to BLF ‘tactical_grizzly’. :wink:
Definitely contact Hank again. Look at the sale agreement to verify responsibility.

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Thank you for the warm welcome! Where can I find the “sale agreement”? Is that the Product Quality Garuntee

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Right-click an imgur image and select “Copy Image Location”.

Place the link between exclamation marks (!):

The Advanced Post Editor makes it easier.

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Welcome to BLF! :beer:

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Perfect! Thank you!

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It’s worth asking him again and discussing the issue in higher modes, impact on beam quality etc. It may still be a misunderstanding about LEDs looking slightly different in moonlight modes.

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Could you take a video of a beamshot on a white wall in a higher mode and rotate the D4V2 around to see if one corner of the beam is duller/distorted?

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Here you go

https://i.imgur.com/q7f4orL.mp4

https://i.imgur.com/pqGPlNi.mp4

It’s really not noticeable from far away. You have to get pretty close to see the darker section of the beam.

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Perhaps send Hank the second video https://i.imgur.com/pqGPlNi.mp4 or some white wall photos of moonlight and greater than level 10 to explain how the defective LED is impacting the beam.

That clearly shows that it’s not functioning properly, at least on lower modes.

When I look at the initial set of photos, I think the complaint is about the LED looking slightly dull. Which can be normal up until a certain point. Photos of the beam rather than of the emitters may help distinguish this issue from “normal” discrepancies between LEDs.

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I have a FW3A where leds have mismatched Vf, but it is only noticeable on low modes when looking directly into the flashlight.

Something seems to be wrong with that led.

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sorry but that does not look normal or that u should accept such led difference from the others. should go under warranty.

it doesnt matter what mode its on all leds should be equal.

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Its bad customer service and bad quality control. End of story.

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yes but usually hank is good doing cs… im surpised the reply…

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It may have been a misunderstanding?

I noticed a similar issue with my Manker E14III NW:

I’ll be checking my D4V2 upon arrival. r/flashlight has set expectations high for this flashlight.

Expectation: double click while outside and giggle :smiley:

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I noticed the same thing on my Noctigon KR4. The issue seems to go away at higher brightness levels. There is a point where the LED snaps from being slightly dimmer than the rest to the same brightness as the rest of them. Your issue seems a little bit more severe. That LED got way too hot.

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^ This is what mismatched Vf looks like. ^

If you remove the optic and take the same pics with optics off, I bet your dimmer led will not look like the led in tactical_grizzly’s post.

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Are you sure it’s a non-issue? Doesn’t it mean when LEDs are in parallel like this that the lowest vF LED (s) will get more current? On a small constant current driver it may not matter but these super low resistance direct drive lights? IDK if I would call it a non-issue, but maybe it’s a “not worth worrying about” issue for most LED configurations?

Just another reason we need series config w/ boost drivers I guess.

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You are absolutely correct. I edited my post to remove that sentence.

Significantly mismatched Vf could cause problems. If it is the same type of led, and Vf is only slightly different, it might be a non-issue.