Sofirn SP36 spewed toxic chemicals throughout my entire house

Jake257 · 2019-11-22T07:48:19.000Z

I never said anything was the gold standard. I even pointed out what I don’t like about those brands. I’m simply saying that after collecting dozens and dozens of those brands as well as others this is the only one that is failed in any way shape or form. There is some kind of toxic contamination that is still affecting me from this incident. At this point the main thing I would like to do is understand what that is and what to do about it. When we breathe it in it gives us a metallic taste in our mouths. we threw away everything that was directly involved in the incident but my phone and desk still smell of this stuff.

I don’t really care what happened with the light or what happens with future lights as long as people understand what they are getting into with this. Your posts honestly make me want to throw this thing in the trash and never come on this forum again. You clearly have an agenda and I have clearly struck some kind of nerve with you or you wouldn’t spend 45 minutes dissecting and quoting my posts that I voice typed in about 4 minutes.

if they were based in the United States they would be looking at damages of thousands of dollars. I’m not asking for that. I’m asking for whatever they’re willing to give me, but I’m not interested in being poisoned by a second low-quality light. Honestly they seem like nice enough people. I’m not here to bash them, but biased silly fanboys with an agenda make me want to do just that.

Unheard · 2019-11-22T08:00:23.000Z

I find it absolutely ok to warn about such problems and wait until things have been clarified. I also understand that someone who suffered from such an incident cannot simply keep calm. It’s human.

Henk4U2 · 2019-11-22T08:06:23.000Z

Jake257:

………

if they were based in the United States they would be looking at damages of thousands of dollars. I’m not asking for that. I’m asking for whatever they’re willing to give me, but I’m not interested in being poisoned by a second low-quality light. Honestly they seem like nice enough people. I’m not here to bash them, but biased silly fanboys with an agenda make me want to do just that.

Interesting now you come to the heart of the matter. Though denying it (till later). You have been a member since 36 hours (atm) and have written 1 thread and 39 posts in that time. All about the same thing. More knowledgeable people than myself have responded with questions and answers. That you choose to ignore or respond slowly to. It’s about time you do something yourself, not only blocking every solution you are offered so far. I’m glad I did not make any suggestions. It would have been a waste of time.
Your charger is still smelly. After all this time? Come on! Ever heard of evaporation? Live long and prosper.

rngwn · 2019-11-22T08:08:27.000Z

Well, at this point I believe it’s probably a good time for everyone to step back and think. This bickering and finger-pointing has seems to last way longer than I would have liked.

Who wants to be called biased?

Who wants their brand they love and enjoy be apparently called out to be something totally against what it’s stand for?

Who wants to have their actions questioned for seemingly no real reason?

Who wants to have their intentions misinterpreted in a way they found totally abhorrent?

No. One. Ever. — well, at least that’s what my feelings tells me.

California_Prepper · 2019-11-22T08:14:22.000Z

Lux-Perpetua:

Jake257:

[…] Sofirn has not offered to do anything for me other than make the return process more complicated than Amazon makes it. I’m honestly not surprised that some of the people here are attacking me. I understood that sofirn worked closely with members of this form before posting here […]

Nobody here attacks you. We’re just trying to help you, Sofirn and all of us to find out what happened and why it happened. However, this requires all of us to rely on facts and not on wild guessing or ranting about non-related things like cardboard box designs etc… You seem to be quite frustrated and worried about the incident and I can fully understand that. But please be fair and let all of us focus on how to find the root cause of the problem.

So far, Sofirn offered you to pay the shipping costs to send it back to them. They also offered you to refund the broken light AND to get another flashlight free of charge as a sign of goodwill and to compensate you for the hassle you and your girlfriend have gone through. Seriously meant question: What else do you expect them to compensate? How do you expect them to know what you are asking for without telling them?

Jake257:

[…] To the guy calling me biased you can think whatever you want. I’m not selling flashlights for a living. I’m honestly wasting my time on here at this point just trying to help other people. I don’t expect that anyone will be able to help me any further than they have so far. I went into all of this having no biases whatsoever. I point out that the finish, the machining and the packaging of sofirn are the worst of any brand that I have bought simply because it looks like you get what you pay for when it comes to internal build quality as well. I honestly don’t care about a box, but it seems to reflect the quality of the product when you look at the packaging of some of these top-shelf brands. I have been buying high-end flashlights for more than 20 years. This is the first time I’ve had a problem with any of them. That is not bias that is just the objective truth. […]

I guess that’s me, the guy that called you biased. Well, sorry I did not mean to offend you but you are always pointing out Acebeam and Fenix as “golden standard” while both manufacturers have had broken devices in the past, too. Only because you have been fortunate to not have any defective Acebeam flashlight does not necessarily mean their quality is way beyond Sofirn’s. In fact, Acebeam’s entire first batch of the EC65 had a design flaw causing the driver to die instantaneously once you put a high-drain cell into it. Acebeam did only exchange the broken device by a new one - nothing more. Sofirn took immediate action about your problem, offered you a full refund + a new flashlight even though you did not contact them directly. Still, you are ranting on and on… (sorry, that’s what seems to me being “biased”).

Jake257:

[…] The fact that I bought a cheap brand and it filled my house with fumes and gave me a massive headache is no coincidence in my mind. If you want to pretend like it’s a coincidence that’s your prerogative. Hopefully most people reading this have a little bit more common sense than that though. All I said about the support is there’s no one I can call and it does not have a long warranty period. Both of those things seem to be true. […]

Seem to be true or are true? If you had taken a look into the manual you would have discovered both a phone number and at least one e-mail address to reach Sofirn. You are saying they do not have a long warranty period. Did Sofirn tell you how long their warranty was? Even if it was less than Acebeam’s two or five years warranty, they would have certainly taken care of your case since it happened right after you bought the flashlight. Moreover, I’m sure a burning Acebeam or Fenix flashlight would cause the same kind of smoke and smell in your house. They use similar components in their flashlights. That’s again, what I call biased and not being objective.

Jake257:

[…] With acebeam I can call a reputable dealer with fenix I can call a reputable dealer and back when I was buying novatech and surefire I could call reputable dealers as well. What north american based reputable dealer can I call about sofirn? The shortest warranty of any of these other brands is 5 years. How long is sofirns? I’m posting opinions based on objective facts not based on biases. I honestly don’t particularly care what’s wrong with the light at this point. […]

If you have bought flashlights for more than 20 years then why did you expect a “cheap” brand like Sofirn to have North American local dealers? If having a local dealer was so important to me, I would inform about my options before I actually buy and I would probably buy from a local dealer and not order from an Amazon FBA warehouse. Personally, I would also prefer to buy a $ 500,00 Acebeam flashlight from my local dealer in Germany but we are not talking about a $ 500,00 flashlight here and local support is expensive and will need to be included in the sales price. You expect a local 5 star 24/7 customer service for a $ 50,00 flashlight that you called a “cheap brand” before. How is that supposed to match?

Jake257:

[…] Poor quality control and R&D caused charging board or charging chip to burn up. That’s good enough for me. I’m not going to buy another one of these products. I’m not part of the R&D.[…]

Once again, you are ranting on and on. You state that you are not part of R&D but at the same time you are 100% certain about poor quality control and R&D being the reason for the defect. Please do us and yourself the favor to return the flashlight for proper investigation to Sofirn. Then we will know for sure what happened based upon facts. But this seem to become impossible because…

Jake257:

[…] If sofirn and wants to do something for me to actually compensate me for the damages and inconvenience I have incurred here then great I will figure out how to send them the light. Otherwise I’m going to do what’s easiest for me and send it back to Amazon and get my money back. I personally used to sell through FBA, so I can tell you that if sofirn wants the light back they can get it from Amazon. If they want it back from me they can compensate me at the very least for all of the things I had to throw out because of this incident. […]

Well, that figures…

Now, you hold a pistol to Sofirn’s head. Either they compensate you (without telling them what and how much they should compensate you for) or they will not be able to find out what really happened to your flashlight. I will stop judging your true intentions from here on…

Jake257:

[…] I’ve done my part. I can move forward with my life with a clear conscience knowing that I at least tried to warn people about this. I will do the same on Amazon. Like I said before I would have gladly paid three times the price for a light like this that was built properly and safely. I have no problem paying $200 for a good light. I only bought a bottom shelf low quality brand because they made the triple cell high CRI that I wanted. I won’t make that mistake again.

Well done, Jake! Now that you achieved to let everyone being afraid of buying the SP36S you stop cooperating to help Sofirn and the community find the problem. I really hope you will change your mind about not sending the light back to Sofirn.

Jake mentioned Sofirn offered him double the cost of the light and he will probably return it to them.

You say you aren’t attacking him but yet your tone is condescending throughout.

Clearly you are a Sofirn fanboy and that’s absolutely fine. But it definitely seems you are taking this way too personal. So what if he mentions other brands he prefers more. Keep in mind this was his 1st ever Sofirn light.

Pretty sure if you are a Ford guy and decided you liked the new model Chevy and the engine blew on you the 1st week you would be saying Chevy makes crap.

Jake came on here to warn people of his concerns. This could happen to someone else that has kids in that room. But your primary concern is he hurt your feelings by saying something negative about Sofirn.

Jake- Send the light to Sofirn so they can inspect and investigate. That is the best way to ensure this doesn’t happen again to anyone else. You can’t expect them to fix it if they aren’t given the chance to find the problem. Great job on giving members the best info you could regarding your experience and the light itself. And thank you for taking the time to warn members of this issue. With that being said, a huge thank you for all of the members who spent time out of their day to research and tey to help determine the cause of Jakes problem for the good of everybody. lots of great people in here!

Sofirn · 2019-11-22T10:01:14.000Z

To all BLFers,

Thank you guys all be nice and helpful here. Jake sent order ID and refund was applied for him. We will fix this via PM.

Egineer told there was no need to send back the defective unit because it’s apparently dead.

While egineer will do more tests on SP36S lights to find out the risk. Sofirn is trying best to avoid this issue happen again.

Sorry for all the inconveniences caused by sofirn. sofirn is a small brand and a small company but always want to listen to customers and improve the products.

Different people have different thoughts or perspectives. That’s why we want to communicate and exchange thoughts. That’s why the world is full of vitality. We hope everyone don’t take this case personally.

Once again, we apologize for issues caused by sofirn. Sofirn is taking this case seriously. We will tell when the engineer give outcome of the test. This will be the last reply in this thread by sofirn.

Regards,

Sofirn Team

Henk4U2 · 2019-11-22T10:04:17.000Z

Sofirn

raccoon · 2019-11-22T10:15:36.000Z

Excellent response!

Unheard · 2019-11-22T10:22:45.000Z

Sofirn:

Egineer told there was no need to send back the defective unit because it’s apparently dead.

Is the cause known or is there no chance to learn from the defective unit?

Propeak · 2019-11-22T11:10:41.000Z

Sofirn:

We will tell when the engineer give outcome of the test. This will be the last reply in this thread by sofirn.

Regards,

Sofirn Team

Thanks Sofirn, we really can’t wait to find out what it was.

Since Sofirn won’t do the autopsy, is there any chance anyone else would be interested in doing it independently? Unfortunately my understanding is pretty limited so I can’t offer to do this but I do think that if an autopsy isn’t performed on the light we’ll never know for sure…

Cheers to everyone for their feedback and to Jake for reporting the issue in the first place.

Nooner · 2019-11-22T11:22:51.000Z

^ I’ll second that last sentence.

Lux-Perpetua · 2019-11-22T12:14:09.000Z

Thanks a lot for your immediate and professional support Sofirn!

djozz · 2019-11-22T12:37:35.000Z

Sofirn:

Egineer told there was no need to send back the defective unit because it’s apparently dead.

A very strange response. If I were an e(n)gineer I would at least like to see a good detailed picture of the damage on the component side of the driver (like DBSAR’s picture of the Imalent driver), or better receive the light back to see what happened. Apparently being a flashlight enthousiast is radically different from being a Sofirn engineer

Propeak · 2019-11-22T13:14:36.000Z

Exactly. Their support is great so far but the thing with any manufacturer is that even if they do check a flashlight, there’s no guarantee you’ll get full disclosure of the cause (could open liability issues too). An independent reviewer could be brutally honest.

pennzy · 2019-11-22T13:21:56.000Z

Let’s hope it was only an isolated incident because many of us have this light. I have used the built in charger only once on mine and it was fine. Components fail with any product. So far, only 2 bad ones have been reported out of probably thousands out there. Anyone hear of other failures?

Jack_Kellar · 2019-11-22T13:24:05.000Z

So is this an all-clear to autopsy the stinky carcass?

Oli · 2019-11-22T13:35:41.000Z

Sofirn:

To all BLFers,

Egineer told there was no need to send back the defective unit because it’s apparently dead.

While egineer will do more tests on SP36S lights to find out the risk. Sofirn is trying best to avoid this issue happen again.
sofirn is a small brand and a small company but always want to listen to customers and improve the products.

Different people have different thoughts or perspectives. That’s why we want to communicate and exchange thoughts. Sofirn is taking this case seriously. We will tell when the engineer give outcome of the test. This will be the last reply in this thread by sofirn.

Regards,

Sofirn Team

Where should we be looking for the outcome of the engineer’s further testing of this model? Apparently the spec is listed as 5 volts for charging. This is wrong or incomplete. USB C device charging is clearly a complicated situation for all flashlight and or device manufacturers. So listing specs that are wrong or incomplete or misleading or not listing specs all have consequences. I don’t see an easy solution moving forward. I will try to avoid devices with multiple removable batteries.

Propeak · 2019-11-22T13:53:30.000Z

Jake, if Sofirn doesn’t want the stinky unit, would you be happy to send it off to any volunteering BLFers for a thorough analysis?

It would be great to get to the bottom of this as we all have flashlights that may carry the culprit cause… Just so we can take our measures and perhaps figure out exactly what evaporated in your home?

Many thanks!

pennzy · 2019-11-22T14:39:05.000Z

One more point, I think anyone using onboard charging should pick up a USB meter to keep check of voltage and current. My Sp36 terminated at 4.23 volts, a little high but not terrible. The current was about 2 amps or a little less and it decreased slowly. That doesn’t mean it can’t self destruct next time but so can any charger for that matter.

bushmaster · 2019-11-22T15:45:28.000Z

As I posted on BLF in the past, my SP36 charged to 4.25 the one and only time I used the internal charger. I didn’t consider it unsafe, just not conducive to long battery life.