Hello,
I have a problem with my brandnew M21E.
First i charged the cell.When the cell is fully charged, the switch is green. Thats good. The cell has 4,1V after loading 100%.
But the lamp can no be switched on. It make crackle sounds at the end when i put the batterie in.
Here is a short video: Youtube
Thanks.
Crank the head and tailcap down as hard as possible…
Take it apart, charge the battery in a real charger, reassemble. Try again. Don’t give up so fast. Remember, this is a hobby.
Is that crackling noise electrical arcing…can you be certain? Or is it just the end of the spring scratching the - end of the cell?
Do you have another battery that you can try? Or…is that battery known-good condition, never been overdischarged, etc?
Other than that, it would be time to inspect the solder joints and wire insulation, which requires a little easy disassembly. You can carefully remove the bezel, glass, and reflector (keep it clean and don’t touch the inside…and I’m sure there is a little plastic washer (“gasket”) at the bottom hole of the reflector that fits over the led emitter to help center it…don’t lose that. With those removed you can see the two wires that come up from the driver inside and are soldered to the copper (probably white-masked) board that the emitter is soldered to. Check that those wires have red on + and blue/black on - , and that there isn’t bare wire touching the edges of the copper board or the metal of the body (i.e. wire insulation stripped too much and allowing metal to metal contact).
If you ordered it from Simon directly (his aliexpress store) then he will take care of you if it’s defective, one way or another. If you can’t solder or don’t want to, he might just replace all or part of the light for you, or if you’re up for soldering then he can send parts if you can’t fix what you have in hand now.
The battery is new , but i can try another soon.
Yes it is electrical arcing.
The flashlight worked for a few minutes at first, and during operation it went off and never came back on.
Curious. That’s an ugly sound, though…never heard something like that in a light even with ground shorts. I don’t know enough about driver circuits to guess about what could cause that in a component failure but there several here that do, maybe they’ll see this thread and have good input.
Simon has his ali store shut down completely right now because of the covid lockdown, so I don’t know if he’s checking there for messages, but you can message him here, too: https://budgetlightforum.com/user/30339
Ah, I was wondering why Simon hadn’t emailed me back about an order. I’m on holiday and have been notified the order turned up yesterday, so that’s all fine.
Contact Simon thru Aliexpress or here… Thou his shop temporarily close due to lockdown in Dongguan, he still read and reply messages…
Humh…
I got a similar problem just so recently. The light worked a few minutes, arcing sound then dead. A faulty solder connection in the driver whereas the LED + would just slightly touch the inner wall of the cavity, at the seating of the driver and being the negative of the battery made for a short. But fortunately, a simple re-solder and everything is working. BTW, it’s a Convoy driver.
For what it’s worth, a picture of the culprit (don’t know if the M21E has the same driver so YMMV).
Depends on your electrical skills, else do call it to Simon’s attention. His Customer Service is second to none.