LED Flashlight Beyond Repair ?

I was wondering who has had an LED flashlight fail on them and be beyond repair. I've heard of people with Fenix lights have them go down, but a clean of the threads and contacts brings them back to life, so that does not count.

I've only had one light fail on me. Inova Bolt - it was almost new (on first set of batteries). It got dirty so I dunked ut in the sink to wash off debris. It was barely below the surface of the water for just a couple of seconds. Water leaked in and it quit working. I took it apart and dried it out slowly over a period of a few days. No life.

A bit of a disapointment.

A solarforce xm-l drop in, broke when dropped head first. The 18650 batt pushed the driver into the pill and it made magic smoke. A big part of the driver was burned to ashes..
A CQG S1 died on me when dropped. Press fittet together, so i really had to go hard when forcing out the pill. Broke the glass and bendt the reflector. led still works.
A old nitecore d10 broke on me when installing a AW 14500. The batt was a bit too long and spit the driver in 2 pices.. My other d10 used the same 14500 with no problems.

I flooded a Inova X5

And i managed to use a Surefire L4 long enough to burn the LED out
its not beyond repair - i dropped a seoul into it and it still runs

It seems that failures are very rare - good for us :thumbsup:

DonK said:

It seems that failures are very rare - good for us :thumbsup:

Click to expand...

I have had cheap lights fail, but they were generally ones I expected to not last long (more of a "let's see quickly I can break this" abuse test of very cheap crappy lights)

Wiki:

DonK said:

It seems that failures are very rare - good for us :thumbsup:

Click to expand...

Not with me, I had a Fenix PD30 & a PD32 and an Eagletac T20C2 fail on me just months after buying them with minimal usage. PD30 died and the other 2 just stuck on low mode.

A 4sevens mini quark died on me because the inductor came undone. (maybe it fell but, that should not cause such a problem). [I only discovered the problem after OPENING the light myself] I'm pretty sure 4sevens would have sent a new light instead of 'repairing' the old one since everything is epoxied in place.

Yesterday I dropped a Sunwayman V11R onto a linoleum floor from about 5 feet and it won't turn on now. No flicker, just totally dead.

Very few are beyond repair.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ION-COMPLETED!!!!!&highlight=surefire+in+fire

As Applesnail pointed out, "beyond repair" doesn't actually mean anything, as ANYTHING can be repaired.

So, no matter what went wrong, tube disintegrated, LED fried, board cracked, tail switch melted, it doesn't matter...anything can be replaced.

A better question is going to require what the point of diminishing return is for qualifying....akin to "totaling out" a car, etc.

I have had some DX style gazillion lumen 2000 km throw military grade aerospace aluminum EffYou-Fire lights actually disintegrate when weapon mounted and subjected to recoil, little parts all over the place...same if you drop them...they don't work anymore, and parts may skitter all over.

Those are dramatic and epic failures...and yet, they can be fixed, but why bother?



If you have a more expensive/better made light, say with threads that over lap enough to keep parts together and other wonderful QA features...the cost of a switch may not "total" the light, etc.


Some people are very gentle with their lights, as they just take them out once in a while to shine around for fun, and then put them back on their shelf again, etc. If the lights are cut-rate, and might be lacking thermal protection, or are poorly soldered, etc...even that might fry something.....but they probably will never physically break it at least.

Others use them as tools, and the lights might take a knock or two here and there in the course of use...that physically can break the cheap lights. (Cheap meaning how they are made...not always their price...)


I have some "cheap lights" that held up fine if I didn't drop them...but, DROP = death.

So, if you ask who had a problem...the demographics of those answering will be reflected. Shelf queens have a higher survival rate.