My gray Sipik started giving me trouble. It needed to be “persuaded” to turn on. Once it was on, I could turn it on and off but if left it off for few minutes, it would not turn back on. I checked all the connections etc. I determined that the problem was with the pill and not with the switch by shorting the tail-cap. What I discovered was that if I short the pill (without the battery in it), next time I put the battery in, it will not turn off until banged. Eventually, banging stopped working and I had a dead Sipik on my hand. I had used it for couple of years and had paid about $8.00 and I considered it to be an excellent light. I now could buy a colored Sipik without any guilty conscious!
But I wanted to find out what went wrong. So popped the pill out and there I found the coil rattling inside freely. I was not sure if crazy gluing it back would be good idea or not. I was afraid of glue seeping in the contact point. But I had already given up on the light, so I went for it and put a plastic clamp on it for an hour.
IT IS ALIVE!! I wish I had taken pictures. The correct way is to re-solder that coil but I would have most likely burned it as I am pretty bad when it comes soldering gun. If anybody has a dead Sipik, you might be able to recover it too.
I’m not actually sure. According to this we only have to pay VAT on non-EU imported items if it’s worth more than £15. The thing is if Customs get hold of something (they usually do >.<) they also charge an £8 handling fee. In the end it can cost quite a lot, but some goods are marked up so much here one wonders where the money goes…
It’s funny, one of the links said 5-mode and included the zoom in/out as two. :bigsmile:
Unfortunately they always leave a card and hold onto the parcel at the sorting office. There is no way to refuse; they simply won’t release it if you don’t pay.
Our Customs can be pretty horrible too. I read one rather scary account of someone’s local constabulary being notified over importing a perfectly legal knife. >.< Something like that on the system can cause you to lose your job, if it requires a CRB check.
The ones I have, 3 Sipiks, 2 UltraFires and a brand X, all fade out slowly on alkaline or Ni metal hydride AA cells. They go for at least half an hour on about full and then fade but still put out useful light for at least 1.5 hours more. Apparently the driver makes use of whatever is there. The cells recover when rested, to some extent. Near the end they won’t come on immediately when turned off, but come back on after about a minute.
This is as good as the way old 2D dry cell lights worked. The battery’s output drops off faster, but the led’s efficiency doesn’t drop off at low current like the incandescent’s.
|In my experience alkalines are not very good in this light. They start nice and bright but drop off rapidly and they cannot maintain the current demand. NiMH are much better and stay brighter for longer. Alkalines will cut out eventually and need time to recover, well before a NiMH would.
Put a 14500 in though and the brightness increases about 2.5 times. Best to use a protected cell though as you dont want to run them dry, and therefore they will suddenly cut out.
Sorry, I might have missed this, but what is the MCPCB & Driver size on the original SIPIK SK68? I believe the driver is 15mm & MCPCB is 16mm? Can anybody confirm this please? Thanks!
Bought my first one a few months ago, not an XRE so certainly not Q5 and single mode only. Was using it for about 15 min when the led clone dimmed with a blue shift. I’ll be pulling the star and replacing it with an xpe torch emitter on copper from RMM probably dedome it and see about improving the pill and boring and lengthening the tube for 16650.