Please use the “percent” setting for the size of your images so they don’t appear huge viewed in line.
People can always click on them to see them full size.
I’m with you, but it is almost funny how after almost every groupbuy we suggest better QC, and for the next GB we only care about the specs and totally forget about the testing part.
Next BLF GB will be the Q8, wouldn’t be a bad idea to insist for a better QC and ask them to test before shipping.
It’s not likely.
“Trust, but verify.” — some Hollywood actor named Reagan
NOTE — each group buy has a few people who really knew what was happening, in detail, from the beginning.
Each group buy’s folks get piled on, crapped on, abused, and criticized and eventually shut up and don’t pass on the lessons learned.
Look, folks, the few people trying here are facing a huge business for whom we are just little people with money that we are easily convinced to spend.
Don’t blame the organizers.
Do: encourage the organizers to TALK to those who did this before, about how they get manipulated and fooled and rushed.
We rush them. All the time. Over and over, there’s this last-few-days push to say CALL IT GOOD AND TAKE MY MONEY.
And that’s wrong. It’s gullible.
How to do quality assurance (during production) and quality control (on delivery) is no secret.
How to avoid it, from the seller’s point of view, is also no secret.
…
Sounds familiar.
Hank I am not blaming the organisers of this group buy in fact I have specifically stated in a previous post that the problems have nothing to do with Cyberescudo.
BG sold me the light & the problems lie squarely at their feet.
I know that my problems will be sorted out by either BG or paypal.
The postage to ship this Cometa back to China from the UK tracked is about £70 or about $100 (non tracked is about $45 but I would not be prepared to do that as there is no guarantee they would receive the light or of me proving that they had received it).
I can”t see BG wanting to pay for that & I am certainly not paying for it so I suspect that my resolution will be that BG will replace the light ?
In which case I will attempt to find out what the electronics problem with my original one is & possibly buy the parts needed plus a lens & attempt to repair it myself.
I am certainly not trying to repair this current Cometa as I am not a modder & have no idea if I can or can”t.
At the end of the day I paid for a light in one piece & working & that is not what I have received.
Yeah, my friend, those chinese people are really hard to beat!! I often think they want to ‘fool’ (please take a much harder word for ‘fool’!!) oneself when speaking to them in cases like this!
It’s a neverending story … :rage:
> those Chinese people
Hey, they learned from the masters — your country and mine have their histories of doing the same thing.
http://archive.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/08/26/a_nation_of_outlaws/
Hank, love the input!
And will take the advice for QC to heart and gonna email the Q-team about incorporating it in our list.
I’ve been keeping up with this thread as members report their Cometa experiences. My neutral white Cometa arrived today.
Before powering it up, I made two washers out of a thin, clear plastic from a food container. One fit between the emitter PCB and concave anodized ring, the other around the driver’s spring.
I installed an unprotected button-top NCR18650B using the included plastic sleeve and the tailcap lit up.
When I turned the light on, it appeared to be stuck in one of the higher output modes. No amount of quick presses or long presses did anything but turn the light on and off. It acted like a single mode flashlight.
I removed the cell and carefully touched the springs. They were not hot. I reassembled the light and tried again—same result.
While aiming the light at a wall and turning the zoom ring, I noticed a slight flicker. I shook and tapped the light but could not replicate it. On a whim, I further tightened the head and suddenly I had multiple output modes and was able to enter programming mode. I was happy but not satisfied, so I took the light apart again to do more investigating…
The concave ring was making contact with the negative solder joint on the emitter PCB, and the anodizing was worn enough to conduct current.
Luckily it wasn’t contacting the positive solder joint. My washer wasn’t helping because it did not cover the angled surface of the concave ring.
I will attempt to reduce/flatten the solder joints a bit with my iron and use some gaff tape on the underside of the concave ring instead of my plastic washer.
Also, the o-ring around the lens was not seated correctly in its groove and would have certainly let water in.
Goshdogit, thanks for your post and pictures. Is your light working ok after the safeguards?
Excellent post goshdogit!!! I suspected something like this. Trusting anodizing for insulation is crazy in my book.
Finally, something definitive! Lilien caught the same thing in a post one page back (post #1085).
I was a “senior quality assurance inspector” in electronics for years and this was just what I was waiting to see.
Thanks for the great pics!
Mine works fine with King Kong 22650, the recessed pos terminal cannot contact to short as far as I can see. Tail cap reading around 3.5A but that’s through normal leads.
Mode change sometimes doesn’t respond, maybe I need to investigate the same as goshdogit…
“Also, the o-ring around the lens was not seated correctly in its groove and would have certainly let water in.”
I believe this to be the reason my lens is damaged.
My “O” ring was not seated properly so when the bezel was tightened up the lens was at a slight angle to the head instead of being square allowing the lens to catch on the inside of the head during tightening & causing the lens damage.
My concave ring dosen”t have a mark on it, no sign that it is making contact with either the negative or positive on the emitter PCB but I will strip it again & have another look.
No not a mark on my concave ring.
I guess it depends on how proud of the PCB the solder is on the positive & negative & my solder blobs do not look as large/high as those on goshdogit”s picture.
My light is still dead.
Ok since this post, went for a ten minute walk, I love the light, works great, all modes functioned fine when out. Beam is great at both extremes 
I have now disassembled after my walk, I have added the gorilla tape to the underside of pill and some slivers of insulating tape on the LED solder pads, reassembled and still works great.
I suspect the solder pads are more of an issue than the underside of pill if using compatible cells (like my unprotected kongs).
My main concern is heat, as per a lot of zoomie’s, even on turbo the head doesn’t heat up at all, you can just feel a little warmth down the battery tube. It’s pretty cold this evening here in the UK but I was bare handed.
Thanks for the kind words, I’m glad my pictures help. Here’s an update on my Cometa:
I reduced the negative solder joint and tried a layer of gaffer tape on the bottom of the concave ring, but the added thickness of the tape means reduced clearance. The tape showed wear from both solder joints.
I made two small washers out of the clear plastic from a food container to fit around the LED. Two layers measures 0.55 mm thick with my digital calipers. This will increase the distance between the bottom of the concave ring and the top of the solder joints. I replaced the worn tape, reassembled the light and it seems to work fine.
Some thoughts:
- Overall fit and finish is good.
- Zoom threads are a bit loose and rattle unless zoomed fully in or fully out.
- Lens has some small chips along the lip where it mates with the o-ring. Most are hidden when assembled but one chip is barely visible on the edge of the beam pattern during white wall inspection.
- I notice a slight difference in the brightness of the blue LEDs. Both resistors are labeled “682” or 6800 ohms.
- Light steps down in all modes in about 9 seconds. I’ve had this issue with all the X5/X6 family lights running Bistro UI. I have disabled thermal protection but I’ll attempt to recalibrate it sometime.
- Emitter PCB slides around while installing the concave ring. I used a bamboo skewer to gently nudge and hold the PCB in order to center the LED while tightening the concave ring.
Any other questions? I feel lucky to have a working Cometa among the DOA and burned up lights!
Does it have a little bit of (and not too much) thermal goop?
Seems to have a reasonable amount of thermal paste. There isn’t much excess visible in the notches of the emitter PCB. I did not lift the PCB to look underneath.
The hole in the concave ring does not help to center the LED as well as a reflector with a centering ring would, so I nudged it into center while tightening the concave ring. It was slightly off-center out of the box.
Does anyone have a code for this light. I cant seem to get a hold of cyberescudo for it. You can pm me if yoh wish. Thanks…
I just discovered that a thick o-ring just smaller than the inside of the battery tube does a decent job of keeping the battery from being able to contact the retaining ring while still allowing the spring to reach the battery.