Zebralight h52w tint changed. Overheated?

So I was using my ZL H52w (neutral white) this weekend while camping. I might have had a few beers, and left the headlamp on highest setting for a little while - while wearing it of course. No wonder it all looked so bright. :duh2:

Not sure how much time passed by - maybe 20-30 mins, and I noticed that the light got pretty warm. It wasn't excessively hot to the touch, but rather warm. I've never had it get this warm, but I've also never left it on high for more than a couple minutes.

Got home the later in the weekend and while walking the dog that night, I noticed that the tint looks different. Sure enough, the spill is bluish-purple while the hotspot seems more neutral. It is clearly not the neutral white that it used to be.

So what happened? Did the LED overheat that caused this tint change? Anyone else had this happen? Google didn't turn up too many similar cases, so I'm curious. I wouldn't think this is a defect that caused this, as it should have been able to sustain running on max output w/o overheating, right?

I contacted Zebralight today, and I expect to get an RMA tomorrow. I'm pretty bummed that I'll have to send it to China and wait around 6 weeks (bought it 2 months ago, which is outside of the vendor's 30 day window). I literally use this light every day and it will suck going without it.

I've had my ZLs turn on in a pocket, only for me to wonder what the heck was so dang hot on my leg.

No issues with tint changes from leaving my lights on. You should be able to use the light on high, not that it will throw the 280lms the whole entire time, but still function without damaging itself.

Seems like a tint change is pretty rare then. Interesting.

I don't have that particular light, but it's certainly on my list for my next headlamp purchase. With all of my other lights, I've never personally noticed any of them changing their tints for any reason. Perhaps yours is a rare case indeed...

I thought my eyes were deceiving me at first, but when I shine the light at a white wall in the house (at night), the blue-purple tint of the spill is very evident. Even when looking at the light from a wide angle (when on high), the blue-ish color is very evident. There was none of it when new, of course.

I hope the turnaround is better than 6-8 weeks that ZL told me, but I'm not really holding my breath. Sucks to be w/o my most used light. I'll have to go back to my Princeton Tec Quad for the time being, which absolutely pails in comparison with the ZL.

If you were here, I would have let you borrow any of my lights... Although if you were here you probably wouldn't need any of the lights. Let ZL make it right, they are made in China, at least they will fix it eventually for you

Right on both counts, man. Haha.

Sent it out to ZL today. Now I wait.

ahtoxa11 said:

I thought my eyes were deceiving me at first, but when I shine the light at a white wall in the house (at night), the blue-purple tint of the spill is very evident. Even when looking at the light from a wide angle (when on high), the blue-ish color is very evident. There was none of it when new, of course.

I hope the turnaround is better than 6-8 weeks that ZL told me, but I'm not really holding my breath. Sucks to be w/o my most used light. I'll have to go back to my Princeton Tec Quad for the time being, which absolutely pails in comparison with the ZL.

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I think maybe it's in your mind. There can be blue/purple tints mixed in that might not be noticed at first. I never heard of this either.

I tested it before I sent it out. I ran it on high for 10 mins.

The tint became the same cool blue as some other cool blue LEDs I own. It basically gets worse the longer I run it on high past the initial 10 mins or so. It was nowhere near the neutral tint it used to have.

Definitely a true scenario, as strange as it is.

Im guessing, it's a lemon with bad heatsinking.