Worst light ever: Never buy anything made by Totes

Call this a review, a Rant, or an invitation to share similar stories.

I was given a Totes "Third Eye" headlamp for Christmas. As I opened the box up and pulled it out, it literally fell apart in my hands. I tried to put it back together but found out that the tiny metal screws that hold the light together were stripped beyond recognition. This makes less sense than it should, as the socket that they screwed into was made entirely of soft plastic that hardly had a hint of thread markings on it itself. The light was supposed to be powered by 3 AAA batteries. When I slid the battery holder out, I saw that one of the springs was broken off. As expected, no batteries were included with the light. Not even the head strap was salvageable, as it would not fit my head on the largest size. The light had broken away from the head strap and then into pieces as I had pulled it out of the box, so I looked at the 7 leds to find that they were the worst 5mm I have ever seen. Two of them had some sort of strange discoloration and one of them was slightly smaller that the others. Even the lens was poorly made. The light had brittle plastic threads and no o-rings at all. Here is a picture that was probably photoshopped in order to remove the gaping spaces and cracks in the plastic.:green:

http://media.kohls.com.edgesuite.net/is/image/kohls/121745?wid=230&hei=230&op_sharpen=1

When I saw the $20 price tag on the box, I attempted to return the light to radio shack. They told me that had never carried such a light. This light failed in ways that I did not even know were possible until now. In fact, given the choice between a small box of matches to light my way and 4 of these lights with batteries, I would choose the small box of matches.

I am NEVER buying anything made by Totes! The quality was unimaginably BAD.

The person who gave you this light...how well do you know them?

Sounds to me like someone returned a Dollar Store junker to radio shack in the box of another light and made off with the original. That or tried to repair it themselves and returned it broken.

I know this story isn't meant to be funny... but...

this is nuts. my wife gave me that same light 2 years ago! what a let down.... though i have meet with a little more success with mine than the OP i must say that while attempting to use it with the head band i think it restricted the flow of blood to my head and i started seeing spots and feeling dizzy. i still have it because i did'nt have the nerve to ask for the receipt so that i could return it.
you know.... the darn thing still works

Looks like a candidate for target practice. Then it might be worth something! A few laughs!

The pic is not photoshopped. That plastic body is a standard one used by a great number of cheapo lights, of which I own one.

It is by no means a quality body, and personally I had great trouble opening the battery compartment until I removed the rubber o-ring under the cap, but it doesn't fall apart as soon as you look at it too hard. I'd probably be using it, if it wasn't that I don't like powering 21 LEDs off 3 AAAs.

I'm guessing your light was either manufactured so badly that the process damaged the body, or tinkered with by someone who didn't know what they were doing.

damn that sounds terrible, i have to agree that the body is a common one as i have a light like that too, 3 modes lo-med-hi with a 7-led showerhead but mine is working all right thus far (i want a zebralight dammit!)

do you have pictures of the broken bits?? Then i can show it to my wife as justification to get a zebralight.

ME: "now darling, you wouldnt want my light to fail when i'm out at night in the dark would you?"

HER: HA! You have a million and one lights! So what if one fails, you're always telling me 2 is one and one is none aren't you? so you'll definitely ALWAYS have a backup.

still, its worth a shot, please post pics of the broken bits.

thanks

I've thrown most of it away, but I could post a picture of the discolored leds sometime next week. I can't do it right now, because I have to get a new card reader.

nikon said:

The person who gave you this light...how well do you know them?

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My grandparents get me some really good Christmas gifts, but they also use Christmas as a chance to clean out the useless junk they have acquired. Here are 2 of the worst examples:

This year, I also received a $2 pre-giftwrapped plastic light that runs on 3 AA batteries with a tiny christmas light style incandescent bulb on each side of the light(Wtf were the designers thinking?). The output is about 3 lumens, it has a loose connection so it requires contimuous shaking to stay on, and it looks as though it was designed by a retard.

I had asked for a soldering iron and they got me the infamous Cold Heat soldering iron. This thing Destroys anything that's static-sensitive, as it creates small static sparks and it is not powerful enough to even melt the smallest amout of solder on the smallest element. It has a loose connection problem as well. A very poor design overall.

I hear the umbrellas made Surefire suck, too.

Surefire makes umbrellas?

Oh ok, haha. I have never really needed an umbrella, so forgive me.

gottawearshades said:

I hear the umbrellas made Surefire suck, too.

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I thought Totes made slippers for Grandma that are only sold during the holiday season. . . . .

thats a pretty common cheap-o headlight body. i guess it depends on your luck of the draw but the one i had was fine. I modified it to a Bare emittor mounted on a heatsink and a circuit....worked alight...

Crenshaw

Never buy anything might be a little strong. I've got a pretty nice hat from Totes. :tinfoil:

Geoff

gottawearshades said:

I hear the umbrellas made Surefire suck, too.

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:twothumbs Tactical my @$$! Who but Surefire would put the opening button on the butt end of an umbrella?

Good point though gottawearshades.

I'm not doubting that the light is a piece of junk, it certainly sounds like it, but I'm sure Totes didn't make it. They just rebranded it. I bet they just bought a huge supply from a Chinese supplier, and told them to slap the Totes name on it. They probably had absolutely nothing to do with the design or manufacture of that piece of junk.

Big_Ed said:

I'm not doubting that the light is a piece of junk, it certainly sounds like it, but I'm sure Totes didn't make it. They just rebranded it. I bet they just bought a huge supply from a Chinese supplier, and told them to slap the Totes name on it. They probably had absolutely nothing to do with the design or manufacture of that piece of junk.

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This explains it, but it doesn't excuse it. If I'm going to have something rebranded with my company's logo I'm going to make sure it's not a piece of crap.

If you want to make as much money as possible through uninformed customers then you might.

Fallingwater said:

This explains it, but it doesn't excuse it. If I'm going to have something rebranded with my company's logo I'm going to make sure it's not a piece of crap.

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I definitely was not excusing it. But I think more of the blame for the shoddy craftsmanship belongs on the company who actually manufactured the light, not who merely marketed it. Totes makes umbrellas, and probably should stick with that.