This thread is about FT02 problems, right? :slight_smile:

I have bought 2 FT02’s for friends before and now finally got one for myself, a cool white one because I wanted to change the led anyway.

Yesterday I swapped the led for a 4000K one and noticed something that made me sigh: the pocket that is machined in the head for the ledboard to sit in was way off-center, like almost 2mm. The screw-holes for fixing the board are however in the correct position. So the ledboard was screwed in with one of the edges slightly over the side of the pocket, so it was just not flush with the shelf, airgap under the board! I already noticed that the output s#cked, got 1600 lumen out of the cool white stock led, and just 140 kcd throw.
So I sanded a mm off the side of the ledboard so that it now fits centered on the shelf and reflowed the 4000K led. I now get 1830 lumen and 153 kcd throw. So what should have been less performance made it better.

My conclusion: Astrolux is getting better and better with their designs, qua design quality I think the FT02 is a homerun, but the quality control shows that they are far from a high end manufacturer: to continue assembly to produce a crooked light when the workers find a major flaw in production is a very bad sign. It is a bit sad that when I receive an Astrolux flashlight (50 dollar!) that like in any crappy budget light before using it I need to disassemble it first to fix it.