Just got my L5 - extreme dissapointment.

What heartbreak. The most hideous donut hole. I'm pissed. Its not barely noticeable, either. Its very pronounced. A light that cost this much should have absolutely NOTHING wrong with it. Horrible. Should I try to fix it myself or go thru the agony of sending it in and waiting months for the turnaround? Its the old style head which I like better though. The only good things are the clickie works fantastic and the color is the absolute whitest tint I've ever seen in a LED.

I'm going to call Surefire now and see if they will swap out heads by sending me the new one first and I'll send back the old one in the same package. I'll report back. I'm really bummed.....

Bummer KDOG3,

The same happened to me
My U2 has a slight hole, but I let it go,
the L5 was really bad, but mine is also very white and has good output.

I sent mine back to SF.
Took about 2 to 2.5 weeks turnaround.
Was much better when I got it back.

Although, I heard rumor they wouldnt let you return doughnuts now, i donno.

~John

Well they wanted the whole light back, got an RMA number. Have to send it out Monday. They better take back this donut! Like I said its not slight, its in-your-face bad. The light is nearly unusable in this current status. Its so defined that the spot looks like a big white "O".


This just plain sucks. Just get it and it has to go back. I hope they don't expect me to pay for the shipping from their repair department!

They should if they are letting you send it back in the first place,
I assume you told them why you want to send it back.

No, they wont charge you for return shipping.

~John

Sorry to hear that. Truly sucks! Hope the replacement will be perfect. The L5 is a (apart from this example) great light!

Jesus! What's happening, some Mag engineers got hired over at SF?

KDOG3, can you post a photo? You seem to have had more than your share of LED woes of late and I can't help but want to see it. Not being morbid, I admit I am a less picky kinda person so a Photo or two would help me alot. How far away from the "white wall" to have the huge whole? I prefer like inches and feet but will adapt to meteres if needed. I still feel bad for recommending a drop in.
Topper :candle:

Don't feel bad, I'm a big boy - I can handle it. I don't know how to take good beam shots so I'll just tell you that at ANY distance greater than a foot or so the hole is extremely pronounced. 5ft or 25ft - its' there. I think the emitter just needs to be repositioned in relationship to the reflector, either forward or back and it will be ok. Still a shame though. I thought Surefire checked every light before going out. Theres' no way anyone looke at the beam of this particular light. Its that bad.

KDOG3,

Be careful about sending back the light to Surefire. I have been waiting for nearly 6 weeks for my U2 to come back because of the same problem. I would recommend verifying the availability of the part with Surefire before you send it in as they will make you wait until they have stock.

As of Monday, I still have to wait another 2 weeks for the chance that the U2 head will come in.

I sent you a PM in anticipation of this possibility.

-Goatee

RoyJ said:

Jesus! What's happening, some Mag engineers got hired over at SF?

Click to expand...

:lolsign:

KDOG3,

Sorry to hear about your L5 problem :thumbsdow

It's a real downer when your hopes and expectations get dashed.

It's stories like yours that make me keep putting back a Surefire L series purchase. Especially as I would have to do the whole international postage thing if I needed to return mine. (The A2 is looking more and more appealing all the time)

Hope they sort you out soon


Tim.

Well, I'm guessing that this kind of somehow, but don't really know, that it's beginning to sound like that's the "nature of the beast" on these particular LED lights from SureFire. :thinking:

That's why for me, the SureFire L2 is the only LED light I have from said company, since this model I have is Bright, White, and overall flawless in it's beam characteristics when white wall flashing. But that's not what I use this for.

Hope you get your's sorted out by SureFire soon enough.

:)> said:

KDOG3,

Be careful about sending back the light to Surefire. I have been waiting for nearly 6 weeks for my U2 to come back because of the same problem. I would recommend verifying the availability of the part with Surefire before you send it in as they will make you wait until they have stock.

As of Monday, I still have to wait another 2 weeks for the chance that the U2 head will come in.

I sent you a PM in anticipation of this possibility.

-Goatee

Click to expand...

Oh good grief are you serious. I hope I don't have to wait that long!

Bummer.

I absolutely loath sending a new puchase back to the factory for service. Not only is it inconvenient, but it usually (not always) hurts my short term faith in the quality of the product...deserved or not. If it's a decent product (and we know the Surefires are), then that 'bad feeling' usually goes away.

In this case, I'm sure they'll make things right, but still...



...it is darn irritating.

I really would like to see beamshots too, if at all possible. I'm wondering how just how bad it is, since it seems to me that beam quality is very subjective.

Maybe SF is cranking out lights faster than they can QC? Sounds like the problem is pretty much mostly on the LED side of things...

KDOG3 said:

Oh good grief are you serious. I hope I don't have to wait that long!

Click to expand...

Very serious. It is driving me nuts as I have been without my light for longer than I have been with it. That is why I recommend discussing this with Surefire before sending it in.

I would recommend that you keep it for as long as possible and then send it in to Surefire when they commit to turning around the exchange quickly.

My current L5 is the 2nd that I have had and this one is slightly better than the last (I think) but it still has the donut.

I think the one thing that makes me like the light more (even with the hole) is that www.lighthound.com turned it around for me so fast. He does indeed have "World Class Customer Service" for Surefire.

-Goatee

carrot said:

I really would like to see beamshots too, if at all possible. I'm wondering how just how bad it is, since it seems to me that beam quality is very subjective.

Maybe SF is cranking out lights faster than they can QC? Sounds like the problem is pretty much mostly on the LED side of things...

Click to expand...

The only problems that I have had have been with the LUX V offerings in the deep reflectors. Still very disturbing.

-Goatee

After reading some of your post, I think I will hold on to it for while and see if I can live with it. A couple of reasons you all have given are causing me to be apprehensive about sending it back. Such as:
-Extremely long turn around time as Goatee mentioned
-The light may come back no better than I sent it.
-I may be able to fix it myself ( like I said it really looks like it simply a matter of manipulating the reflector back or forward in relation to the LED or vise-versa ) , better yet there are some great people here at CPF that could probably adjust/fix it faster than Surefire.
-Also, this thing has the absolute snow-whitest tint I've ever seen. I'm afraid what I get back won't be as good.

Its still a freakin' overpowering light. I see the donut hole because I'm a CPFer and we're nitpicky , maybe its really not that bad once I actually USE it for stuff.

Yeah, I think maybe I should give it awhile before I send it in. I'll let Surefire know that.

IIRC the KL5 is almost impossible to open and mod. KL6 is easy.

The donut hole with the LuxV SF offerings is a result of the LED being in perfect focus with the reflector ... for max throw / tightest beam. For us, the result isn't pleasing though, unfortunately. However, the people SF normally supplies might think differently. Same goes for tint ... not a critical parameter for anyone except us it seems. And the LuxV has more tint issues than the LuxIII.

It is very difficult to get a perfectly white donut-free unit with the KL5 and KL6 as well as U2 for these reasons. I'll give you my statistics so you might feel better :

- 2 x KL6 --> both with a donut. Not terrible, but noticeable. Both pure white.
- 3 x U2 --> one with a bad donut, two with a noticeable but ok donut. One green, two warm white and one with a bluer center spot.
- 1 x KL5 --> pure white, almost no donut.

The situation is a bit less pronounced with the L2 and L4 as those have a more diffused beam. Thus said ... my L4 is donut-free and warm tinted.

Now ... because I am a great fan of the U2 (my preferred light for more than a year now) ... I tried to acquire a "perfect" one in B/S/T ... and succeeded almost 100% (it is perfectly white, very bright and has almost no donut), but had to pay the price :green: .

bernie

It's been posted many times before, but i guess it's worth repeating:

All *perfectly* focused Luxeon V lights will have a donut hole. This is an issue with the design of the LED itself, and not the result of poor manufacturing or QC issues. The only exceptions i've seen are modified LED lights running in a reflector designed for incan sources, as they tend to have a little leeway that allows you to adjust the height of the emitter relative to the reflector's focal point. Reflectors designed around a Luxeon light source tend not to have any room for adjustment.

Moving the LED lower relative to the reflector in the L5 *may* get rid of the donut hole, but it *may* be at the expense of total lumen output. The light emitted from the base of the Luxeon's dome would shine uselessly behind the reflector instead of being collimated.

I see Bernie is quicker than me at the keyboard

I suspect that the variations seen by Keissling and in all the various threads regarding this matter is caused by different emitter heights as witnessed and documented in the Luxeon III.