2 months ago I bought the excellent FandyFire UV-S5 from f/t, I yesterday received the black SRK from f/t.
The SRK was dead on arrival, it had been tampered with prior to my getting it, presumably in an attempt to fix it, the issue wasn’t immediately obvious.
The seal pops out when doing up, the end cover was loose, the switch surround was unscrewed about 2 turns, the mashed up screws showed some ape had tried with a pitch fork or similar to undo the screws holding the battery plate to the main body.
The issue on mine was the machining was duff, the lip the driver board sits on was made too deep, with the result that the battery compartment when screwed on wasn’t touching the outer negative ring of the driver board, it runs out of thread before making contact, I rolled up a bit of tin foil to try my theory, which works perfect bridging the “gap”, but will now make up a ring using SS TIG welding wire for a permanent cure.
The thing that pees me off is that it was taken apart before and very obviously sent back as faulty, but just resent when I ordered it, though I have no way of proving this, despite assurances this light couldn’t have worked due to pure physics, the negative circuit could not be completed!!
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Have you informed them yet? Sounds like a bag sh. . . rubbish to me. Tell them it’s crap and it looks like it has been put together by Bobo the chimp!
Marc.
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Hi Marc,
Yes I informed them, they did respond very quickly, as always with them, they are of the opinion it got damaged in transit!!
This is after I told them about the machining issues, so unless someone intercepted the parcel took the light apart and did some machining before parceling back up and sending to me, then it was already like it.
There was not any way this could have worked, but me tin foil is holding firm till I get some TIG welding rod to fix permanently.
In f/t defence they did say send it back and they would cover all costs inc shipping, it showed marks on the board where batteries had contacted the ring, so had been tested, couldn’t possibly work but was still sent out, that what pees me off.
It’s just easier to mod it with the resistor mod and TIG wire though.
tabs
Thanks for clearing that up, they should have that labeled on the site. I did take the isolator for the brass plunger off and it gave it a few more mm that let the light work on unprotected cells with just the spring. I soldered the plunger onto the spring and it works like that too (So the spring doesn’t wear as much).
If anyone needs a compact light that takes some long cells then the S2 w/105c would work well (with small spring).
Markone:
I have also got some rips on cell wrappers. Not Nitecore / Fasttech but on Xtar and one local brand (sanyo inside).
On most cells, wrapper will eventually fail. Some sooner, some later.
It is good to have some heat shrink wrapper at hand to fix them. Very easy and fast to use.
PM me and I will send you a piece to test with!
Anyway i should have somewhere a piece of 3M heat shrink with proper diameter, as soon as i find it i will give a try, maybe after taking a glimpse to PCB circuit
Looking at FT website i can see the following SKU :
i’m wondering about its quality; if you are using this one, your feedback will be welcome.
Some time ago i skipped a XTAR protected cells buy from Amazon because i was aware about their wrap thickness and additional anode insulation absence, thanks some photos spotted on the web.
For some reasons i thought that NiteCore ones were better, but i was wrong, they seem made almost in the same way.
What i consider unacceptable is the used wrap fragility; trust me, very poor quality.
A couple of insertion in battery charger was enough to bend the wrap in both cell sides, whereas other batteries i own do not suffer by no means.
I guess that the two remaining cells will not last much more, so i shelved them right now, awaiting for wrap exchange.
I have tried the AA/14500 size from FT (and I have AAA and 18650 sizes too). It works well. I cut it about 1.5mm too long on the negative end and 2mm too long on the positive end. I used a lighter under the cell about 4” away at first to apply heat, moving closer and quicker to avoid meltiness. Some say a hair dryer on high will do the tick too; sounds safer, but I like fire
Placed my first order with Fasttech @ 02/17/13, shipped next day via Singapore post I even got a picture of the package
Now let’s see how fast it will travel
Thanks GottaZoom, that’s pretty much what I did. Saved me from doing pics
I tried an 18650 last night too. I left the Neg end too short but it still worked fine.
Great stuff for repairing cells with damaged wrap.
I recently ordered an EA4 and received it in 7 days. This was my first item purchaced from fasttech and all I can say is that I am very impressed. I have never gotten anything from China that fast…it even had a tracking number.
Finally received my EA4W today, about 10 mins ago. Fasttech mailed it out the same day as my order with tracking and a picture of the package (Kudos to FT ). Tracking says it hit the HK post facility the first business day after on Feb 4th…. where, perhaps as a sign of the low volume of mail to Canada, it proceeded to sit around for the next 9 days :_( (till there was enough stuff headed this way?). It apparently hit my shores on the 16th and cleared the customs in an amazing 1 day (almost on the level of there being an alien conspiracy where our customs office has been replaced) before being delivered today.
Package itself was annoyingly slightly crushed, but not enough to effect the contents. I’ve heard a lot about the compact size of it, but once in hand it’s really something to behold given what I expected from 4xaa.
There was a slight anomaly in that my light was packaged with the old version of the instruction, as evidenced by the instruction to press the button 3x fast to exit lockout. I heard they replaced these in lights newer than December (?) and my brother who bought one at the same time (linked it to him) got one with the new manual. Seens odd since it should be from the same batch, since prior to the day of our purchases they were oos (there’s a white sticker with with Jan 31 on it as well). To my annoyance he received his stateside the same day mine was leaving HK |( . I’ll chalk it up to them having excess older manuals and being cheap about tossing them (or I got old stock, psychologically I just prefer to hope its the former in case there were any tweaks or improvements)
The light itself has no sign of any external defects or damage, unscrewed the threads were well lubed but oddly gritty and the anodization had come off in spots along the leading first couple turns. Not serious, but I wasn’t expecting that; I cleaned off the thread and wiped off as much of the lube as I could then relubed it with pfpe grease. Seemed ok after that and from a quick test things seem to be functioning, but I can’t give it a real test till another time.
So far fasttech has done a great job. Fast to process and ship, tracking was sent promptly and there was a photo of the package (I think I might opt to upgrade to a box if buying an expensive item again, though might that cut both ways since customs might decide to waste time with it), and all at an unbeatable price. So long as no issue crops up with the light I’m happy with my purchase.
I got mine yesterday, very nice. Mine has the crooked bezel, aesthetic only. It is a very compact light. I was expecting bigger. Very bright though.
I upgraded my packing to the $1 box (it is still a $50 light after all). The light and its box were mint; no damage. I recommend the box upgrade if you want the original item’s package to be intact, or for higher priced items.
Here you go:
EA4W package wrapped in bubble wrap (center), most likely that way on the storage shelf (SKU sticker on the outside of wrap). Then an extra layer of wrap applied (left), then all of that inside the shipping box, which was completely covered in packing tape.
Basically a triple-layered waterproof package. For more expensive items, this is definitely the way to go. I think it’s $1 per item so best to break out those high-risk items as separate orders.
Looks like the most Chinese packages.
If someone posts a picture from a fasttech ea4 without this option it would be perfect to compare
Is it normally sent in a normal envelope?
