I recently ordered and received a HAIKELITE HK05 FAULTY from Banggood.
It will not turn off completely. it sill illuminates slightly even when off.
I have to remove the tail cap to turn it off completely.
I submitted the ticket with Banggood 6-6-24. complete with a video, asking for a replacement to be sent.
It seems they could not view the video. So I also emailed the video on the 12th.
They have confirmed they have received the video.
Since then I’ve just been told "We have urged our supplier and we will update for you as soon as possible, please wait patiently. "
So again I asked for a replacement, or refund, but again told to wait patiently.
File a paypal dispute immediately. BG is counting on you not doing so before time runs out to file a paypal dispute. They burned me once but never again. In the rare event paypal doesnt protect you, file a charge-back through the credit card you used to pay your paypal.
Damn, a really frustrating situation and especially since the HK05 isn’t exactly the cheapest flashlight either.
I almost ordered one from Banggood, but in the end I didn’t for some reason and stories like this make me happy I didn’t.
Good luck with the whole situation and it will get resolved in one way or the other!
Ps. Given the price of the flashlight and the high shipping cost (if you would ship it back), it might almost be worth it to find someone specialized in electronics to see if he/she can fix it. Given the description of the problem, it feels to me like it might be just a faulty component on the driver.
It would be a shame though to just chuck it in the bin! (If it weren’t for the fact that I live in Europe, I would even have offered you a couple of bucks for it, just to have a go at it myself.)
I just thought of this:
I don’t know how your soldering skills are, but maybe you could try to order a new driver from Haikelite and swap it with the current (probably) faulty one? It might be just as expensive as the shipping costs in case of returning it, but you might end up with a working flashlight instead.
In this topic: (Flashlight Manufacturers and Distributors on AliExpress (new layout)) you can find a link to an Aliexpress shop that seems to be the “official” Haikelite shop, or at least a shop that offers seperate Haikelite drivers. Just send them a message and ask if you can order a HK05 driver.
As far as I can tell Haikelite doesn’t have an own website through which you can order. Another option might be is asking Neal from Neal’s Gadgets if he can provide one, since he also sells Haikelite, but experiences with Neal/Neals Gadgets do vary a bit though.
Or maybe another member here on BLF might know of a way to directly contact Haikelite?!?
Have you checked with Banggood where you have to return it to? I have a vague memory of returning something once and they had an Aussie warehouse location - but I could be wrong. (Perhaps it was DX I’m thinking of?)
I agree they can be very hard to deal with. I’ve usually ended up with a “partial refund” where something doesn’t work as advertised or they’ve made claims about features that the product doesn’t have.
I was also thinking of this, but because I’m not completely sure if this behaviour (i.e. not turning completely off) can be explained by a poor battery connection, I didn’t mention it.
As far as I know the HK05 uses 3x 21700 in parallel, so I assume that there is a (brass) positive contact ring on the driver side. If that’s the case, then it might give problems when flat top batteries are used. So trying out button top batteries or using a battery adapter like Convoy sells, to make good contact, might rule out a battery connection problem.
Might not solve the problem, but it wouldn’t harm trying it out, to rule out this possibility.
The return address they gave me is:
Return shipping address
CHINA,Guangdong Province,Dongguan City,Huangjiang Town
Dongguan Chuanjing electric machinery factory, No.20 Qinglong Road
523750 Dongguan City Guangdong Province 523750
The Positive contact ring seems to sit quite a bit proud of the PCB. So it looks like the batteries are making good contact.
It certainly lights up to full brightness when it’s on.
Unfortunately I don’t have any button top batteries in this size.
But I did try to test it by adding some small Neodymium magnets to the top of the batteries. Same result.
I really want this torch, and as I was sick of waiting for any action, I actually went ahead ordered a 2nd one a week and a bit ago. While it was still on special.
I was assuming they would just refund the faulty one.
Maybe when the 2nd one gets here is can do some comparison testing.
I hope the 2nd one you ordered was at the same price it currently is now on Banggood, because it currently is cheaper than what I have seen it for in the past 6 months. I don’t know what it costs in AU$, but it currently costs € 71,81 for the EU (3000K or 5000K), which is significantly cheaper than I’ve seen it for so far.
Even I get tempted for that price, but having recently bought the Q8 Plus, I think I will stick with that one and maybe save up for when the HK08 is on sale.
Nonetheless, I hope that your new HK05 works flawlessly!
I neglected to update this thread.
After a lot! of correspondence back and forwards…I finally did get a replacement (around the end of September I think.)
