Pretty frustrated. I saved for months and splurged on my “dream light” for showing off LED capability, the Imalent MS12 mini, the brightest light you can pull out of a pocket.
Loved it when i got it! Pretty basic UI, but well made and unbelievably bright (around 70k lumens for a few seconds).
I probably charged it 5 times this past fall, then put it away for the season.
I got it out a few weeks ago to go on a hike and plugged its sealed battery pack into the charger…nothing. No charging lights, no increase, nothing. The charger was putting out 19 volts, and the pack still powered the light…but now no way to charge it.
Dreading it, i contacted Imalent to see what they could do. I had to send a video documenting it, but they approved a warranty replacement!
And surprisingly, it arrived in about three weeks! However…
This pack is also faulty. I plugged it in and it lit up…for about 10 seconds, then went dark. Upon messing with it, i found i could haul the charger plug over hard in one direction and it would light up again, at least until i let it go.
This tells me the pack and internal electronics are good, but there is a connection issue somewhere with the battery input plug. If I put about two pound of weight attached to the cord to haul it over, it works. But for how long? And who wants to worry with that while camping??
So basically, I now have a $400 dollar paper weight. Its still under warranty, but its making me crazy to think about going through that whole contact hassle, video, fill out forms, wait three weeks yet again.
Live and learn, sometimes the hard way, I guess.
No way of getting the cells out to charge them? I’m not familiar with that light. It would be a bummer to have a battery pack that you could never change the cells in. Hopefully you can get those packs apart.
That makes me wonder if you have a mismatch in the barrel jack or perhaps a defective one (either side). I don’t usually recommend buying-to-return, but you might consider ordering one of these to test out, and if it doesn’t tell you anything or solve the problem, amazon makes it easy to return things. If it does help you could keep the cheap solution or pursue the issue further with Imalent.
It seems the majority of Imalent’s quality control challenges lie in the past - the example stated are from 2019 and 2021 (fans not programmed to turn on @ 10k lumens is not good) and 2018, respectively. I’ve owned and sold or traded several Imalent lights since late 2021 and still own a couple of examples - no issues with them, even with high amounts of use.
Toddcshoe, I wish! That thing is sealed up tight and i think glued. There are two tiny screws on each end, but taking them out seems to do nothing.
If someone has seen a video of disassembling them, id love to hear about it!
Correllux, exactly my thoughts. Ive scoped out a few 19v chargers and will order one tomorrow.
I will probably also contact imalent. I feel bad for them though, as shipping the pack is probably more than their cost to build it. Also, they didnt ask for the dead pack back, so i could easily be seen as trying to scam them, and i would hate that.
I know i will never buy a light with a sealed, dedicated battery pack again.
I’m with ya. I had one of their lights fail. I did get a replacement no issue. The replacement failed just sitting on a shelf in my bedroom like 2 or 3 months later.
Neo, yeah, that was sort of my experience. Light was working great on a late october campout, and again on a neighborhood walk in November. Then it sat in the shelf for four months, not touched.
I thought i’d top of the charge for this recent walk…but nothing going in.
Weird.
Im thinking it has to be a barrel deformation, either on the charger plug or the jack on the light. You would THINK that would be an easy fix, but there is NO WAY to get into the pack, at all. If i could somehow get just one of the ends off…but nada.
I wouldn’t worry about them thinking you’re trying to scam. It’s an expensive light, so you have every right to expect it to work and this doesn’t look like a “expected wear and tear” sort of failure…not to me anyway. Just tell them what you find and see what they do. If nothing else and a new charger works, then at least you’re only out $25 or whatever and can keep the $$ light going…plus an extra pack. Let us know what you find, though…curious!
Not what I was suggesting! I mean maybe he’s got a Radio Shack or Hobbytown store to try the same thing locally. Actually, some old monitors used a similar brick but it seems like most of those were 1.2a or 1.4a, maybe still enough to make the light happy if the smarts don’t complain. I guess the trick is the pin diameter.
if two packs behave similar it might very well be just the charger not making a proper electrical contact. Let us know when your other chargers arrive.
I bought the MS06 and loved it, until I dropped it and broke the glass. I contacted Imalent and waited for their reply on how to order a new glass and clip. Nothing.
Tried again. Nothing.
And again…
After 7 attempts (over about 6 months) I finally got a reply saying that they can’t help.
Absolutely ridiculous for a £200 flashlight which is also now a paperweight.
I will NEVER buy another Imalent torch as their customer service and after-sales service absolutely sucks donkeys. I do not recommend this company in any way.
DT-70 : works good only the overtemp doesn’t work in strobe mode. Mine got up to 86c before I noticed as I wasn’t holding it. Had to use gloves to turn it off.
DX-80 : head shorted out internally and let the smoke out. Had to mail it to imalent in China. They sent me a replacement that was used and didn’t work. Never bothered to try to get another one.
MS-18 : works good other than the fan issue, as long as you’re aware that the fan won’t work on the lower brightness settings and monitor the temperature it’s fine.
I wouldn’t buy another imalent but I still like the ones that I have, even with their issues. Except the dx-80, that one is trash.
