Exactly my thoughts too. Very ambiguous.
It’s been a long wait for this fix and it’s overdue for a resolution.
Acebeam has nothing to hide to BLF members and our valued customers, dealings from our side we’re always sincere and honest,
If members would like this we can also provide our messages, as we said we have nothing to hide.
We are sorry that this all lead to threatening and accusations towards our company and discrediting of our reputation.
Acebeam is Responsible Company and we are listening to all our customers, all recommendations as well as complaints.
Our engineers are working very hard, even at this very moment, to solve every issue concerning battery-carrier as well as
to make our products even better and raise their quality even higher.
We can only ask all our customers to trust us and be patient for a little bit more, solution is close once the 3rd party finish testing. We must perform thorough testing to be sure we have a permanent solution.
Here is my last post in this thread. Please wait for our new thread of an important announcement about the result of the new battery carrier tests.
I’m optimistic a solution is being developed and I’m grateful to Acebeam for their efforts.
It’s just unfortunate that so much prompting was required to achieve this result.
In their favor I should mention that they’ve replaced another of my Acebeam flashlights without question.
It seems to me they are making a significant effort to maintain their reputation.
Looking forward to the new and functional carriers.
Another week has passed and it’s again time to prompt for an update regarding replacement cell carriers.
Every time I visit here, I get frustrated. I want to understand the concerns here. I'm not saying they are not valid concerns, but I want to understand and hopefully learn the basis for the concerns. I don't need a strong reply saying how bad the light is. I need to understand and be able to recognize the alleged dangers. I'm guessing there have to be others wondering too, in silence. Why, for example, are:
- the cells that are at a slightly lower voltage are getting "beat up" by the other cells? How is this so? Say you have 4S cells. How does any one cell knows the other 3S are not contributing exactly the same voltage each and beating it up? Doesn't it have about 12 volts from the other cells flowing through it? This doesn't beat it up, but if every cell providing the 12 volts are not equal to it, it is getting beat up? I can't wrap my head around that.
- cells coming out of the light not exactly the same voltage bad? I've seen this happen in healthy laptop packs. Yes, in my early days I pulled apart some pretty young packs. In my mind, the important thing is that the pack shuts down before one of the banks is depleted. How are you determining that one bank is depleted and the pack should be shut down but isn't?
- does each cell need a protection chip? Laptops don't protect each single cell in a bank. Just the overall individual banks are protected in the numerous packs I have dismantled. Are you proposing that the protection should be at the individual cell level? The questions in the above posts seem to indicate that.
I apologize if these are naive questions, but this is the only thread that raises them that I am aware of. I use lithium cells in series in most of my lights. Answering the questions well help me and and maybe others be safer users of of lithium cells. Also, better distributors of safe practices to others.
Agreed 100%. were all waiting, and waiting…
in my case it’s charging till the green light comes on but one or two cells are being charged to the point of getting very hot, the other four are receiving no charge
The problem then is I was using the torch with 2 cells at 4.20 volts plus and 4 cells at 3.52 volts not good
To be honest the first time I charged the cells in the torch, I trusted the charging system and didn’t check the voltages and just used the torch, it was only the fact it had such a short run time that made me check it all the next time I used it.
Now before I used the in torch charging system, the first few times I used the torch I charged the cells in my bt3100, it was only when I charged the cells in the torch for the first time and had reduced run times that I decided to investigate why.
Now the problem is, what if I or someone else had only ever used the in torch charging system, they would not have anything to compare with and would just think the short run time is normal, it is a high powered torch after all, and would continue happily using the torch not realising that two cells were getting full charge but four cells were staying flat
One it’s not good for the cells, but two it’s well documented on here what could happen if you mix fully charged cells in with completely flat cells in series inside a metal tube
^ That certainly is bad and the manufacturer should correct that. Same with some of the other problems others have encountered.
I just don't understand why the things I mentioned in the bullets above are dangerous on their own. They don't sound unusual to me. Obviously, they beg the question as to the safety of the light and the safety should be researched.
The protection chip on each cell was implemented by Acebeam. However, given the manufacturing tolerance of the chips, they aren’t being charged properly. Some being overcharged and some being undercharged. Why is this an issue you may ask. For the same reason that it is advised to match cells in a light for voltage and resistance.
There is also the issue of cells being discharged unevenly.
The main safety implication for consumers is that the cells could reverse charge and have a “venting with flame” episode. The problem with that in a sealed pipe is that it can explode catastrophically as the immense pressure has no where to go. The pressure builds so quickly.
Do a quick Google search for visual results of what can happen. This is why the issue has been pushed as it is a safety issue.
That is my take on it.
Have people noticed significant issues in uneven discharge? I never use in light charging, but have been kind of lazy about checking voltage after use as of late.
Mine are always within .01 of a volt after discharge. I keep an eye on them and don’t run them down low
Good Day Bella,
One full month has now passed and we have all very patiently awaited your reply in resolving this issue.
Please kindly reply now with a detailed update so that we are aware of your remedy and when we will receive our new battery carriers.
Do not email or PM me. Please post here for all to read.
Thank you in advance for your timely reply. We are all looking forward to putting this situation to rest and moving forward. The more quickly you can prove to us that Acebeam will stand behind its products and promises, the more amenable your customers will be in rethinking their future purchases.
Still waiting, patience waning.
How much is ‘a little bit more’ please?
“Last seen: 2 weeks 2 days ago”
Hm….
The new, improved version of the battery-carriers is imminent, my crystal ball shows… hold on to your patience, guys!
and we wait… our lights will be old and obsolete before we get the issue fixed.
By the time they fix it, there will be no more interest |(
A boycott of Acebeam will be required then.
Every crisis is an opportunity. If Acebeam takes this crisis as their opportunity to show their sincerity and ability to resolve the issue in fast manner, then they will continue to exist and survive. Or else they will remain with bad reputation and hard to survive with so many competitors around. Of course they can change name to Triple Ace etc to continue to sell their flashlight again and we continue to buy.
Actually most products need to go through such improvement cycles. If the manufacturer spend more time in R&D, testing and improve, we as the customers will have less issue when the product reaches our hand. However sad to say that the flashlight market is highly competitive, I think most of the Chinese manufacturers will be more interest in producing new product to entice new customer.
This was exactly happened to my recent purchase of Olight S10R and S30R. The USB chargers are not usable, the tail cap has design fault, I spoke to Olight and they admit their product for the new S series have such problem but you still can buy it from various online store. They promised they will definitely fix it but not immediate as their Engineer has to spend time to design new product. The flaw “maybe” fixed by May 2015. So only God know when they have time to fix it or we probably have to live with faulty product. Of course, in future, no more new product from Olight.
Organizing a group buy is always not easy especially when the product has some flaws. But this is basically the trust or rather risk we have to take for both the organizer and manufacturer. It is too early to call this as failed GB or product, let’s allow all parties have some rooms to move. Perhaps Bella got to come in once a while to give a brief update.
My replacement carrier is on its way, have tracking number too! Thanks Bella, Acebeam!