What light have you recently purchased that you feel a real need to warn others about buying ?
I bought a few S A-2 trustfires from Dino direct thinking that their description superceeded the photo .
I got xpc emitters instead of Xpg r-5's like the description stated .
Don't like the light anyway .. too many sharp edges ,dim obviously , and overall just a dumb light .
what advice do you have that might help someone avoid a .."piece of junk "..?
Not the worst, thinking of all that Ultra Super Duper Bright $3 AAA lights but Ultrafire C3 Stainless Steel from Lightake were below my expectations. It was too dim with AA NiMH and burnt out the driver with 14500 battery (modes still work ok with 14500). The size and structure is good, but light may flicker if tightened too much, clicky switch can change modes with the slightest touch etc.
Ok, I still like it and carry around with me, with 14500 inside. But I've had much more reliable lights.
Not the worst by any stretch of the imagination, but I was pretty disappointed when I ordered yet another TR-1200, expecting it to perform like the others we own and it turned out to be the new, underdriven version. It's still a decent, usable light but it's sort of like trading in your Porsche 911 for a Toyota Camry. Yeah, it's perfectly adequate, it will get the job done and it might even be more reliable and, hey, it really is a good car but it will always feel like you got shortchanged.
The new WF-008 would be a close second. Definitely not the worst, okay on its own but downright disappointing compared to the old one.
I also bought a Trustfire S-A2.
I got a special 'buy 2 get 1' offer on DX, meaning that I paid for two lights and only got one.
The first light I ordered never showed up.
The only reason I continued to order from DX was that I made another order a few days after the first, which did show up.
Still trying to get my money back on that one....
Anyway, all orders I have placed with DX since that time have arrived ok, including the second Trustfire S-A2.
Thanks for confirming that it was indeed advertised as having an XP-G R5 emitter.
DX changed the description hours after I ordered it, and I thought maybe I had simply misread it!
I actually don't dislike this light as much as you do, but that's only because I made some modifications to it:
Sputtered the reflector to get rid of the horrible ringy artifacts
Made a spacer to put in front of the rubber boot in order to recess it enough for the light to tailstand
Replaced the hideous orange tailcap with a black one
So now, apart from the fact that the crenelations make the beam square, I actually like it quite a lot!
Quality seems fine, everything seems well machined and it has a real aluminum reflector and glass lens. I think I'm going to upgrade the emitter to an XM-L and see what that's like.
I like to treat these cheap lights as a 'kit' rather than a ready-to-use product, and that helps avoid a lot of disappointment :D
Gotta be this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260570879714&ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT
Where to start?
- bad anodising
- poor machining
- threads are laughable
- does not fit protected 18650 no matter what
- has strobe
- Poor driver and lack of regulation
- tailcap switch is press fit
- 18650 rattles inside
- no mode memory, and lacks a real low mode
Came with holster but is really the worst ive seen.
Emitter presumably q5 but comparing it to romisen RC-C8 Q3 falls a bit short. Might be the driver but is pulling enough to be as bright as the romisen.
I will have to agree on this. After hearing all of the hype, I purchased a tr-1200 and it was an underdriven disappointment. I got rid of it and tried my luck at the 'Palight' version from dino direct. Same driver issue. Very disappointed as it just sits on my shelf reminding me of wasted money.
I am still hoping someone will figure out a proper driver swap for it:)
About your C3SS all you need to do is trim the post on the inside of the switch boot to fix flicker and mode changes. If you want to repair the boost circuit yourself you can replace the DC-DC converter chip with the chip off of this...
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.25505
You can also replace the Schottky diode with the one off of that driver as well and it will make the light a little brighter as well.
After the chip replacement I don't know if it still fries with 3.7V or not, I will try it with mine some day and see.
…
This is like the P.o.s. small sun I bought ...I just hate a bad host .. if the body sucks .. the light sucks
Hands down Ultrafire C3. It's a broken design, needs tin foil to work.
I know i was warned. :)
I couldn't help myself, the smallsun had a plumbing nut on the body this one did not. Oh well.. yesterday i replaced the p.o.s. driver in it and became decently bright. The negative end wire from the emitter was pressure attached to the body. :S Cheap manufacturing at it's finest! Still sux tho... after much needed repairs. Many like it tho, can't wait to get rid of it for cheap.
Versati ET10, way overpriced and suffering from massive cross threading issues.
I guess I should have actually stated my worst light rather than just defend the Trustfire S-A2 
Saik SA-105.
I ordered grey, but the light was actually sky blue
The threads galled and cross threaded
The switch was a press fit in the tailcap
Although advertised as aluminum, the reflector was plastic, as was the lens, which was advertised as glass. The lens also came with a small scratch that showed up as a beam artifact
The light was horribly dim and had a green tint.
Regarding the last point, I transplanted the led out of this light into another one, and it has a beautiful bright neutral white beam. I can only assume that the driver in the Saik was no good.
I was a bit surprised by all of this, because i read somewhere that saik is a name Romisen make lights under.
If that’s true, maybe Saik is Romisen’s budget brand…
I thought Romisens budget brand was mxdl ..wait a minute .I thought Romisen was a budget brand .?
this one http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16091
It was super bright, but the tailcap spring has an extra brass spacer in a plastic holder, this lost connection after a few months. I fixed it eventually by completely disassembling the light and stretching both the springs (leaving the spacer out), but that is pretty poor, but its build quality is that in general.
I got a 29 led torch from a petrol station £3.99. I also have a 1 million candlepower halogen spotlight, great for the two minutes untill the battery dies.
I'm hoping for better things from my newly ordered KD C8 XM-L :)
Welcome DWF! Good to have you here.
I think you forgot the 15 hours to charge it up for another ten minutes of runtime. :(
Aloha and welcome to BLF danceswithferrets! Funny user name. 
Techlite Lumen Master aka the "Costco Special". At least until I ripped the guts out and replaced the AAA holder with an 18650
Thanks Fishinfool, my ferrets love all the empty boxes that my tech habit provides :D
That's funny because here in Hawaii we have mongoose all over the place. I actually thought they were ferrets at first but then someone told me about how mongoose were introduced to Hawaii (well over a hundred years ago) to control the rat infestation but realized after the fact that rats come out at night and mongoose come out during the day. What idiots!