What's happening at NiteCore?

What's happening at NiteCore? - Update 01/07/11

Please note that my comments here are made with the standing opinion that NiteCore were (or are) a great flashlight manufacturer. I have only been a high performance flashlight enthusiast for two years but in that time NiteCore quickly became one of my favourite manufacturers because of their innovative ideas (beginning with the Smart PD system and moving on to the SR series) and fantastic build quality. The NEX which was my first NC flashlight went straight to #1 on my EDC rotation the day I got it and its design and functionality blew me away. Keep this opinion in mind when you read the following:



This has been brushed over in several threads here in the LED section for the past couple of months and I think it's time we had a thread to discuss the disturbing things that have been observed by the flashlight enthusiast community from Nitecore over the past few months.



The first thing that I noticed wrong with any of the NiteCore products that I own was the ramping fault in the magnetic ring of the SR3. Any of you that own one will know what I'm talking about - the light skips to maximum output in between two of the middle modes on the selector ring. The extremely limited run of 18650 extension tubes for a light that in testing here on CPF proved itself as a fantastic single 18650 flashlight both confused and greatly irritated me. I have not been able to find one for my own SR3 since they sold out everywhere and have been forced to design my own and will be having a prototype machined soon.



The next thing that I heard of was that the IFE1 had still got issues with the selector ring, which was supposed to be a refined version of that on the SR3 and a result of lessons learned by NiteCore with the circuitry and mode adjustment on the SR3. When I heard that they had sent IFE1 lights to market which still had problems with the selector ring, alarm bells began to ring in the distance.



The updated D20 R2 that I got in July this year is fantastic. Fit, finish, function and everything else about this light screams quality. It may have taken them a couple of updates to get there, but they hit it out of the park with the latest version of the D20. Imagine my disappointment when I returned to CPF a few months later and read up on the D11 and EX11. The EX11 and D11 threads popping up in the LED forum recently piqued my interest and I started to research both lights to see if one of them might make a nice addition to my collection. I hadnt bought any 1xAA lights to date so the D11 interested me a lot. I was shocked to see that neither the EX11 or the D11 went to market with a clip - a real drop of the ball as far as Im concerned for NiteCore. Next, the issue of abnoramlly high parasitic drain on both the 11 series lights was discovered... especially bad and common on the D11 it seems. This is a flashlight which can drain a battery in 4 days even if the light is never switched on in that time. The publicity photos for the D11 also showed a badly off-center emitter, and many CPF members who have bought them report that this is the case in their D11s as well.



Despite all that, a D11 became available on the MP and I bought it last week. It arrived a couple of days ago and I was; 1) disappointed to see that they have ditched the nice gift box packaging in favour of cheaper retail store packaging with an eyelet hook for hanging it on a shop shelf and 2) disgusted to see that the anodizing on the head and battery tube of my D11 was so mismatched that they may as well have been two different colours.



As you can see, my opinion of NiteCore and their products has taken a real hit in the past few months, and I can barely believe that a large company like them would allow such things to happen that can and have damaged their reputation like this. They seem to be taking one step forward and two steps back. Whilst it may be true that they are still manufacturing good flashlights, I have very little confidence in their quality any more. Can anyone shed any light on why the issues I have raised here were allowed to go unchecked on lights that went to market and eventually ended up in the hands of NiteCore customers? Is it just a case that the big manufacturers simply do not pause for a moment before sending a product to market and think to themselves what would our customers think of this decision?

I'm bumping (dredging) this topic up again because first and foremost I am pretty sure there were some replies to it at the time and they have disappeared - is this something to do with the CPF database crashing again? If so, sigh.

The other reason is because I received a couple of emails or PM's from a member of Nitecore customer service on the issues raised in this thread - again, miraculously these seem to have disappeared from my PM inbox, unless they were actually emails in which case I should be able to find them again, but I am 99.9% sure they were private messages here on CPF. Can someone confirm for me if the site/forum has had a major crash/database loss since November last year? One of the PMs from Nitecore went along the lines of mentioning that they had bought over Jetbeam in the past year and were in the middle of moving to a bigger factory with everything under one roof. My questions were acknowledged but I didn't really get any solid answers, more so excuses which I really don't want to hear.

So anyway, I want to get back to the subject of Nitecore and their apparent shortcomings of late - I have resorted to buying older Nitecore flashlights on the MP this week (an R2 ramping D10 to start with, still discussing a second D10 for modification and an EX10) rather than buying the new D11.2 or EX11.2 lights. My first D11 (v1) broke completely after I believe a little over 2 months of use and because it was a CPFMP purchase from Europe and I had no proof of purchase, Nitecore wouldn't accept it for RMA. Allright, it wasn't the most expensive flashlight I have ever bought, but the manufacturing quality on it was nothing sort of appalling. I think I was a little easy on them to begin with. Allright, maybe the anodising on the head and the tail don't match up perfectly, and maybe the emitter isn't perfectly centered. It's an imperfect world, those minor things I could live with. But when the actual functionality of the light is affected I can't overlook it. The parasitic drain on my light drained a AA primary battery (Duracell or similar) in a little over 4 days with no use, and the light eventually stopped working completely.

I want to know why QC checks at NC seem to be less thorough than they used to beand what is being done about it. Are the D11.2 and EX11.2 a little better, much better, miles better or much the same? Has anyone had a positive response from Nitecore regarding the replacement/repair of their faulty/defective D11 or EX11 lights since launch? I remain concerned that my favourite flashlight manufacturer is slipping and dropping the ball.

Please discuss.

Matt7337 said:

I'm bumping (dredging) this topic up again because first and foremost I am pretty sure there were some replies to it at the time and they have disappeared - is this something to do with the CPF database crashing again? If so, sigh.

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1) Yes, CPF had a major crash. You can read the details here: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?310655-Welcome-back-from-the-abyss!

2) The Nitecore SR3 was a great light. It was too bad the selector ring was not quite perfect. It had a fantastic beam and tint. I have been interested in some of their lights too but have been holding off because there seem to be so many negatives.

Hi tre, thanks for replying! That's really unfortunate... this topic and my PMs from Nitecore CS fall right in at the beginning of the "lost posts" period. That explains why I can't find my newer PMs and why this thread was restored to a one post only topic.

Anyway, nothing can be done about that now. For the record, Greta, tandem and any other admins/moderators who contribute to the running of CPF have both my sympathy and respect for the trouble they've had with the site in the past and for rectifying it and moving everything to a new server with what I would call great success. I have been in the unfortunate position in the past of having a site and a forum hosted on a sub-par server and have lost a lot of data - thank goodness for regular backups and lessons learned, but the first time it happened to me back in early 2008 I lost a whole forum which couldn't be restored (hosting company claimed it couldn't but had done it for me before... I cut my losses and walked away, taking several full hosting packages with me) and was gone forever.

Hopefully someone from Nitecore will chime in again and contact me about these issues and concerns. RE the SR3 - I still have mine. It is an awesome flashlight and I am actually really impressed with the fit, finish and overall performance of the light. In my opinion the selector ring problem could have been fixed before the product went to market, and one might take the view that Nitecore simply said "well, that's close enough - send it to production" when they saw the small but present issue with the SR. I still do not understand the 18650 tube limited run. It's clearly a light that was basically made to be an 18650 flashlight, suits that form factor and performs brilliantly on an 18650 cell, but they only made a handful of ext tubes for it. I am still working to refine my own extension tube design for the SR3 because despite all I have said I love the light and want to continue using it.

Bits and pieces that were posted in this thread and PM'd to me at the time it was originally posted are coming back to me - in particular one PM or post about "how large corporations in China/Asia work" or "the business structure of companies in Asia" sticks out in my mind. If the person who may have mentioned that to me in a PM reads this could re-write it and send it to me I would appreciate it because from what I remember it was a very valid and relevant point which was made in light of this thread. I belive it was someone who had/does work with large companies in Asia, if that helps jog anyone's memory.

I've owned 3 Nitecores at one time or another. 2 Nitecore Extreme R2s that had intermittent mode changing problems (luckily I was able to return them to the seller from whom I had purchased), and an EZ CR2 that broke the first night I had it : it was sitting on my lap and I was sitting indian-style on a wood floor - as I stood up it dropped all of maybe 18 inches to the ground and then stopped functioning. Nitecore's CS was of no help, so I gutted it and found the problem to be two-fold: a compressed positive spring and a broken solder joint. I fixed it myself and sold it to a friend who insisted on owning it, even though I warned him it may not be the greatest light in the world. Unfortunately, due to these experiences, I will not be buying another in the near future.

Yep, I'm one of those who was seriously considering a D11.2, but have been put off by the unusually large number of reports of issues concerning quality control. These aren't cheap lights, and for the prices asked I expect a light that can survive the rigors of daily life in my pocket.

Couple the many reports of problems with the fact that any repair requires a trip to China (at the owner's expense), and their lights become far less attractive.

It continues to be demonstrated here on CPF, it makes no difference how small and bright a light is, or how many nice features it has, it's not worth anything if I can't count on it to work when I need it.

Now to be fair, I don't own any NiteCore lights at present (I did have an NDI briefly when they first came out), and I'm sure there are many happy NiteCore owners here on CPF, and I don't mean to disparage the company or their products, but if they want my business they need to do something to repair their quickly deteriorating image.

NiteCore is owned by the same company that also owns Jetbeam (SYSMAX Ind). The new BC and PC series of Jetbeam lights are very reminiscent of NiteCore lights. I was honestly surprised to see (while composing this thread) that they are still putting out lights under the NiteCore name (4/2011 for the DX11.2 and EX11.2) as Jetbeam has put out 6 brand new models and re-released/redesigned the RRT-3 since March. Since the 2 NiteCores are essentially re-releases themselves, it'll be interesting to see if NiteCore sticks around or is dropped off to the side.

Derek, you made a wise decision. The night that I reached into my pocket for my relatively new D11 and it failed to switch on, my heart sank in my chest. Had I not been carrying a backup that night I would have been in difficulties - I'm a weekend electronic technician/camera operator for the media team that covers games at the local ice hockey arena and was working the main broadcast (center) feed cam that night. When they lower the arena and rink lights at the start of the game for the teams coming onto the ice, I have to be able to see what I'm doing around the camera position to make sure everything is ready for the broadcast to go live (90 second TV delay), start recording and make final adjustments to the two commentators sound levels - basically read from and perform tasks on a cue sheet. If I hadn't been carrying my Bitz Ti and Fenix L0D (and fenix TK11 in my toolbox IIRC) as backups I'd have missed several cues and been fumbling around in the dark for about 5 minutes...

I am going to refrain from buying any new Nitecore flashlights in the near future, until I start hearing reports of improved quality and performance. I have bought two older D10's and an EX10 (all original ramping versions) from members on the CPFMP this week for some mods and to have a spare AA light for a couple of trips I'm going on soon but I won't be jumping on the "11 series" wagon again any time soon. What I hope this post demonstrates is that for many, flashlights are an instrument that you need to be able to rely upon all the time. As I have said before, I am still fairly new to the world of high performance flashlights, and of the 12 or 13 (or is it more? ) that I now own, the D11 was the first to develop a major fault and the first that failed me in the line of duty, and I own 4 Nitecore lights including that dead D11. Imagine my disappointment and loss of faith in the brand...

[edit]

LowFlux's post was submitted whilst I was writing this - thanks for your input. I was told that SYSMAX/JetBeam had taken over Nitecore (or was that the other way round?) in one of my messages from Nitecore CS, but moving factory doesn't excuse poor QC and compromised reliability and performance.

I used to buy a lot of Nitecore lights. Some for myself, some as gifts (mainly D10 ramping). I stopped buying Nitecore when they removed the ramping feature. Then recently I got ahold of the IFE2 and sand tan IFE1.

The IFE2 was quite ok, but I disliked the way the rubber cap on the clicky feels. Squishy feeling. Gave it to a friend later on.

The sand tan IFE1 was a real disappointment. It says HA, or type 3 anodizing, and to my horror it is nothing but just powder coating to achieve the tan coloration. 3 days of carrying it in my jeans and the color has more of less worn off and is showing the black beneath on many areas of the light. Also, the flimsy clicky switch is too unreliable. During the 3 days of usage, I kept getting intermittent failure when trying to switch the light on. Figured I would need to tighten the retaining ring holding down the switch but decided it is not worth the hassle since I can't stand the vanishing tan color. Returned it to the dealer.

When I heard that Nitecore is back with the ramping version of the D11 and EX11, I decided to get one since I love the old D10 so much. Got myself a D11.2 and again major disappointment. Within 8 to 9 hours of getting the light and inserting a freshly charged battery in, it drained the battery down to nothing. No wonder the light felt hot the whole day. I had thought that it was from the heat on my body. Tried another freshly charged battery just to make sure that it is having drain issue and it proves to be so. Also, I could not seem to achieve a low output level. The lowest it went was somewhere in the ballpark of 10 to 15 lumen. Way too bright for my liking, especially after comparing to the older D10/EX10. Returned it back to the dealer again.

Promised myself then I would never ever ever touch another Nitecore.

I've had a few NiteCore lights, 3 NDIs Q3, Q5, R2, two EX10 SPs Q3 and R2, and an EZAAW and an EZCR2W.

Perhaps I have just been lucky, but I have had no problems, other than the tendency of the NDIs, on which I have the user defined brightness set at minimum, to 'cling' to that brighness level, if the head is tightened from the loosened position, even for a new on-off cycle of the clickie. Since I carry them with the head tightened, where once it comes on in high, it stays at that setting, it isn't a problem for me.

I will admit that one of the reasons I have 3, in addition to the fact that I just like the light, is that the NDI clcikies had a reputation at one time for being, shall we say, not the most robust. The light even comes with a spare one. I now have lots of spares. I have yet to have a problem, and have carried one frequently for over a year now. But that is CARRIED, not USED. I honestly don't have much need to turn them on in my day-to-day activities.

Both of my EX10s worked well, but I sold them because I just didn't care for the piston interface, though it appeared to work as advertised.

The EZAA has seen virtually no use, so I can't comment on it other than to say what use it has seen, it has never failed to work as it should.

My EZCR2W was carried on my keys for a couple of years. The ano is beat all to H)#l (if that's really Type III, someone didn't do it right), but otherwise that light has been a great performer. I've dropped it onto hard floors or concrete from waist height no less than half a dozen times, and it once bounced down half a flight of concrete steps, with no ill effects, other than more dings in the ano. Two levels, a nice useful low, and bright high, nice beam, and nice tint. I really think this is a great little light.

But I too, have over the past year, read quite a bit of grumbling regarding the changing UIs in the D10 -11 and then with EX11 and EX11.2, the parasitic drain, and I am put-off of NiteCore for now, other than looking for an older NDI with the Golden Dragon emitter.

I'm hoping though, that now that NiteCore is owned by the same folks that own JetBeam, that the NiteCore lights will be up to JetBeam standards, which are really pretty good. (Though JB has been a bit weird with the I.B.S. UIs....but that's another issue, I think.)

Same sort of issues here. I *really* liked Nitecore a couple of years ago then got burned by a couple of D10s in a row. (Parasitic drain / UI faulty.) Luckily, I purchased them through 7777, who took care of me. I've got a SR3 on the way from the CPF-M. It's a replacement for a missing package that I had originally purchased. Here is to hoping that I don't get turned off Nitecore again.

I've been carrying Novatac or HDS primarily for the past few weeks but was pleasantly stunned by the quality of the Jetbeam RRT-2 that came my way recently. Hopefully, future Jetbeams doesn't suffer from Nitecore "genes."

I like my EX10 R2. ALways works even after getting tagged on the ground a few times. But after reading about the parasitic drain of the EX11 and even the "fixed" EX11.2 I wasn't going to buy an update. This is a darn shame.

i just got my IFE1 this week - all function are ok but the LED is badly off center , mine is normal color - it fit on my E2L tube but won't turn ON,not sure why and the same goes on my E1E tube.

Looks like I will strike NiteCore from my list of manufacturers to buy from. I have had Zero problems with my 2 fenix and 2 4sevens lights. I also have had no problems with my 3 TechLite 150 lumen lights that i picked up at Costco for $15. (Cree XRE). That is a real shame that you are having these problems. Not what you would expect from a quality company or is the point that they are now making junk?

My one and only experience with Nitecore was the D20 which was my first "high end" flashlight, and I had nothing but trouble with the switching mechanism. Sometimes it would fail to turn on, other times it would jump straight to high instead of starting on low, or it would jump to high instead of ramping up/down, and the most annoying was its habit of turning itself on simply from handling it or carrying it in my pocket. I sold the piece of junk six-months later and have never even considered buying another Nitecore light since.

the.Mtn.Man said:

My one and only experience with Nitecore was the D20 which was my first "high end" flashlight, and I had nothing but trouble with the switching mechanism. Sometimes it would fail to turn on, other times it would jump straight to high instead of starting on low, or it would jump to high instead of ramping up/down, and the most annoying was its habit of turning itself on simply from handling it or carrying it in my pocket. I sold the piece of junk six-months later and have never even considered buying another Nitecore light since.

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paddling_man said:

UI faulty.

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Yep! Those were my UI issues... maddening. Crossing my fingers on the Marketplace SR3!

2) disgusted to see that the anodizing on the head and battery tube of my D11 was so mismatched that they may as well have been two different colours.

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NOt saying I'd ever buy a Nite-Core, but I've gotten more different colored components from s.f. than matched. I can't get too disgusted so long as it's purely a cosmetic issue, no bare spots etc.

Well, as someone who takes fit and finish so seriously in my day to day job, colour matching and finish are extremely important. I really don't think it looks good when you get a flashlight that retails for £60 or thereabouts and the head is dark grey/almost black and the tail is light grey/almost "dirty silver. If I sprayed two panels of a custom PC case two different shades of, say, blue... there is no way the customer would accept it. I might have been able to look over the different colouring had the D11 actually been a good design and hadn't broken within weeks of getting it.

There's a saying often used when I'm amongst my close friends when things aren't going well or a little too much friendly abuse is being tossed around. It's usually used in a humorous/sarcastic way between us but in this case I am 100% serious when I say... I'm just not happy. It's not good enough.

Once again, here is my list of things I didn't like about the D11, presented in a clear, concise way.

- No pocket clip. Not even an optional extra.
- Flats milled on the tail cap - pointless and ugly. Why?!
- Parasitic drain. Drained a fully charged AA Duracell in just over 4 days on my sample.
- Off center emitter. It's not life or death but it doesn't help the beam much either.
- Mismatched head/tail anodizing. Not gonna lie, this is the first light I've ever seen this on and it screamed poor quality to me as soon as I lifted it out of the box.
- Light developed a major fault after just 2 months of very occasional use. Right in the middle of an "I need light NOW" situation.

I received a D10 from a member on the marketplace over the weekend and have been carrying and using it today. When a product that is 2-3 years old and discontinued is miles better than a product that a company just released in the past few months, it's time for that company to drop everything, take a few steps back and take a good long, hard look at themselves and start fixing whatever has gone wrong and making sure that it never happens again. Speaking as a businessman, Nitecore are comitting slow but sure corporate suicide. I know they're owned by the company that own Jetbeam now, but "Nitecore" is still a brand name and there is no good reason why they let such terrible products get to market and damage their name and reputation so badly. To put some perspective on how bad this is and speaking of the industry that I know best (the computer/electronics industry) - If a major PC component manufacturer's product quality went downhill as fast as Nitecore's has, their product reviews which are read by hundreds of millions of people worldwide would reflect that and their sales would drop so fast that they would be in danger of being bought out by a larger company or just disappearing alltogether. What I'm saying is that it bewilders me that NC let this happen at all.

Much as this all sounds like a lot of complaining, I am posting these views because I would like to hear from Nitecore regarding these issues. I'm not going to lose sleep over any of it either, basically as it stands I will never buy a new Nitecore product ever again. I still have faith in their older lights, such as my fantastic NEX, D10 and new to the EDC rotation, D10 R2. With the exception of that "new" D10, the rest of my Nitecore lights have had enough use and carry that I'm confident enough to continue using them.

Re: What's happening at NiteCore? - Update 01/07/11

They were always too expensive anyway... got a SR3 on greedbay a few months ago cheap, but it has the full-on between selections as previously mentioned.

Rich

I was a Nitecore fanboy back when the D10 original UI it was actually the best light I have owned. Then I bought a D20 which had the UI fault that had the light turning on in my pocket. SR3 is another good light not too bothered about the mid level high burst bit irritating nothing I couldnt live with.

How have they become so lazy considering their previous triumphs in the D10.
Pull your socks up Nitecore and bring out a NEW light that works.