I just sent an LT1 to my boondocking friend for a birthday gift and for whatever reason hers will run normally for 7 seconds and start automatically stepping down the brightness at about 1 second intervals.
I can’t replicate it on mine and I’m trying to troubleshoot this long distance via text and phone. Does anyone have any suggestions or should I just chalk it up to a defective product and start the return process on it? It’s brand new, fully charged, and she’s already tried a factory reset multiple times.
Peacenik, sorry for not answering your question, and we’re just having some fun.
If anyone knows the answer to your question, hopefully they’ll answer you.
Personally, I’m stumped, but I don’t even own a BLF LT1.
I have several LT1S lanterns, though I haven’t used them very much.
Peasenik, same apologies as the raccoon. I don’t even own (any) lanterns.
My wife buys shiploads of beauty products. And there is always a container (made of opaque synthetic material) from which I can use the bottom as a makeshift diffuser.
Just to be precise: did you order it and the seller sent it to your friend?
Or did you send it yourself after you have opened the parcel, put in some batteries and tested the light.
Maybe the light is running on only one battery, and the other batteries are blocked in some way.
Might there be some plastic foil on the ends of the batteries that someone forgot to remove?
Voltage check with all 4 batteries in was 2.2, 2.8, and 2.7. (ran 3 times)
I had her check each battery individually and they all read 2.7 as well.
And yeah I sent it via Amazon to a locker. It’s the easiest way to send things to someone without a fixed address. So it’s fresh out the box for them.
Going to have her give charging another chance. It took the better part of a day for the initial charge so I would assume the actual cell voltage would be adequate. They don’t have a meter to check the cells manually. If it can’t either charge or run the lantern properly I might as well chalk it up to a crib death and try again.
re LT1 built-in battery check. below 3.0v is basically empty, so it’s normal that the light will start to auto-dim and shut off, because that is the intended/designed behavior.
I think the 2.2v reading might be turning ON the flashlight and then doing a voltage check, battery voltage may sag a little bit.
(better is to have a voltmeter check the batteries while outside the LT1 lantern, but since there is no volt-meter on hand, the built-in battery check will make do for now).’
regarding battery draining = could it be that the batteries were put inside the LT1 lantern, and there was no ‘insulator’ to prevent the batteries from making contact to the lantern, and thus the lantern turned ON, OR the LT1 button-light indicator is in the High brightness state, which would then drain the batteries to empty too.
2.7v-2.8v should still be recoverable, so just allow the batteries to get charged first (that will take quite many hours for 4pcs 3000mAh 18650 using the built-in charging (I think the new LT1 can charge up to almost 5v/3Amp when plugged to a USB charger that can give that amount of USB power. Otherwise, charging will also work with slower USB power adapter.
Are you able to update the firmware? There’s a bug in some multichannel versions that caused instant thermal stepdown (only happened if the MCU’s thermal sensor read higher than usual instead of low so needed a negative calibration factor), was fixed a few days ago.
It was also introduced a few days earlier and has never seen a factory before.
The batteries are completely empty. After charging they must have 4.2 V while 3.0 V is the lowest I would go. When you plug it in for charging, does the button light switch color to red?
