Yep. It’s definitely not a gift for non-flashaholics or even absent minded ones. It sucks that a light can be damaged so easily.
Well if it’s lost the blinkies then it’s an improvement. 
It didn’t have any! I know, that sounds hard to believe. 5 modes and no blinky!
Looking forward to the review, it will have real data
I know it’s your thing, so Thanks! At least I didn’t pay for it.
Hope its not- Fenix PD35-. I screwed my PD32 once while unknowingly inserting the battery the wrong way round the last time.
It’s a 14500/AA light with 5 modes. But since it’s a headlamp, I figure runtimes are very important. Especially since the manufacturer doesn’t say whether or not the runtimes are for 14500, Nimh, or alkalines.
If anyone really wants to know the brand, you can PM me. No it’s not Fenix.
A non-budget light not meeting manufacturer stated claims is a red flag for me.
To be honest, I looked inside the battery tube and noticed no raised ring on the positive end, just the flat PCB… so I was like hmm… wonder how they do reverse polarity protection? Oops.
pmed for more infor. Thnks!
They can use diodes for electronic protection.
Considering this one is electronic too, let’s call this a MISSED opportunity!
Well the manufacturer never responded to the reverse polarity issue, but expect a full review of the Spark SG3 and SG5 next week. You know, minus runtime and tailcap current tests on the SG3. Maybe this weekend if I can finish up my runtime tests. The good news is, since the light wasn’t working correctly I decided to do a freeze test, and an extreme impact test on the SG3. Then I tried to take it apart and it finally died. Guess there’s nothing I can do about that.
Anyway, if anyone has purchased either one of these lights, I would not attempt to put the battery in backwards.
Tailcap readings would not show something really useful on a boost circuit (SG3) the current draw will be much greater than the output current. Then if there is a bit of extra boosting to keep the light constant you will see a higher current at a bit of a lower voltage, not to mention you already cut some of that voltage with the leads and dmm, those are very low voltages (1.45V-1V) and can be very easily affected.
So, you’re saying it’s variable and really not relevant on this particular (or both) lights? Because the SG5 maintains a constant output on 14500s up until shutoff, on all modes. There is no stepping down, as far as my photos and eyes can tell. There is some on the eneloops, but only up near the end of runtimes and ever so slight tapering on super/turbo mode.
For the NiMH especially is quite easy to affect it because you have such a low voltage and pretty high input currents around 2A, for any light that work with 1*AA Alkaline or NiMH.
That is why the best things are how many lumens and how does the runtime curve look like. Lumens, runtime and the graph tells me how useful is the light in comparison to another light. Let's say you have a buck driver then a buck driver will have a lower input current than the input because the Li-ion cells has more voltage than what the LED needs at a specific current, let's say 2.5A.
Gotcha. I’m not set up with a light meter yet, but I’m going to include quite a few comparison beamshots between a few different lights so it’s gauge-able maybe. But I do have extensive and accurate run time tests. These take time though, because I do full runtime tests and not to 50% or some estimate.
I froze it. Threw it against the side of a building, it bounced, then hit the concrete. Threw it against a tree. Dropped it out of a two story window onto the sidewalk- and got it all on video. I’ll release the text portion earlier next week, and the endurance tests will be in the video review I add a few days later. The videos always take a long time, because I don’t do tabletop reviews. None of that stuff killed the light. What made it not work was me trying to get to the driver (which is nearly impossible). You know and it not liking the whole reverse polarity thing (which will also be detailed in the video and the text/picture review).
In case one or two people didn’t make the connection, here is the review for the light this thread was about.
Both the video and text review describe the reverse polarity problem. The video has the light performing with all 5 modes, and then later you can see it’s down to two modes during the stress tests late in the video. I never heard back from the manufacturer.