Trouble with my Folomov EDC C4... Switch blinks red!

AlexGT · 2018-11-24T17:57:57.000Z

Hi everyone,

I had been EDC’ing a Folomov EDC C4 flashlight I purchased on Amazon on April 28, 2018 and was happy with it until now. Yesterday the flashlight power button started flashing red fast, indicating that the battery was depleted. It left me wondering why since I haven’t used it much, so I plugged the USB cable and let it charge, after a few hours I noticed that the charging led was still blinking red so I decided to pull out my Opus 3400 charger to charge it, when I inserted the battery It showed 3.6v so my first worry was if the circuit was discharging the battery, I let it finish the charge. 4.2V 3150mah into the battery, I pulled it out of the charger and inserted it to the flashlight, still the red power button blinks fast in red.

Hmmm…. I measured the 18650 with a multimeter and it shows charged voltage (4.19v), so I decided to try other charged 18650’s I have on other flashlights and in storage, and no matter what battery I use, I only get the flashing red powerbutton and I can only use it on low or medium. What is going on here??? I suspect that the driver has gone bad Time to check on those warranties…!!!

I checked Amazon warranty for this product here and it states

“Please contact the seller directly for warranty information for this product. You may also be able to find warranty information on the manufacturer’s website.”

Amazon page here says the warranty is 2 years.

Ok, so I go to Folomov website here to check on their warranty, it states that their lights have 5 year warranty, OK but they also states

” Distributors will be responsible for customers. Customers can contact distributors from whom they buy Folomov products for warranty support with Folomov’s “Warranty Card” and a trade invoice or receipt.”

So who is going to take care of my problem?

What do you all suggest? Hope Folomov can contact me regarding this issue, I like this light and would be happy if they just send me another driver to fix it. I already sent BLF user Folomov Official a PM about it and sent an email.

AlexGT

Cereal_killer · 2018-11-24T18:11:58.000Z

I’d be willing to bet either a bad solder joint at one of the voltage divider resistors (likely the high side) or the vdivide input pin on the MCU.

That or the MCU itself has gone bad. Are you able to reflow the driver yourself?

AlexGT · 2018-11-24T18:28:49.000Z

I think I can do it, if I knew where exactly to touch the soldering iron to.

Cereal_killer · 2018-11-24T18:37:11.000Z

It shouldn’t be hard to trace out the voltage divider if you can get good images of the driver.

Again it could always be a FW issue (gone corrupt) but I’ve experienced similar symptoms in the past caused by missing / desolder resistors in the voltage divider circuit.

AlexGT · 2018-11-24T19:32:12.000Z

I am going to wait for Folomov’s response before I try to fix it myself, hopefully they will just send another driver and be done with it.

jimF · 2018-11-24T23:11:06.000Z

I had a manker light unscrew at the wrong end, taking out all of the wiring with it (insufficient glue). They were willing to warranty it, but the cost of shipping to China was high enough to where I just bought another one.

So, if there’s no local distributer I pretty much consider lights to be somewhat disposable. Don’t understand why it costs so much to get something sent to China when it costs next to nothing to get products out from there…

AlexGT · 2018-11-24T23:16:33.000Z

According to what Folomov site reads, Amazon should take care of it. I hope…Still waiting to hear from Folomov, I think I am going to send Amazon an email and see what they say.

Folomov’s website
“ Distributors will be responsible for customers. Customers can contact distributors from whom they buy Folomov products for warranty support with Folomov’s “Warranty Card” and a trade invoice or receipt.”

Amazon’s website
“Please contact the seller directly for warranty information for this product. You may also be able to find warranty information on the manufacturer’s website.”

And me,

Folomov_official · 2018-11-26T03:47:47.000Z

Hello AlexGT, we will offer you a new one instead. Let us talk separately.

AlexGT · 2018-11-26T03:48:28.000Z

Thank you Folomov, PM sent!