Is there a quality control issue at Olight?

I recently bought the Olight S1 Baton and, right out of the box, have been having nothing but problems with the light, the replacement that Olight sent me and the two Olight rechargeable 650mAh RCR123As that I bought with it. I've never had an Olight before and maybe these products are just more finicky than any of the other lights and batteries that I own. Here are the issues I've been having:

1) Both the first S1 that I got and it's replacement stop working properly after about 10 minutes of use (on high) with a fully charged Olight RCR123 battery. After roughly 10 minutes of use the next time I turn the light on (high) it cuts out in less than a minute and then won't turn back on. This happens with both the first S1 and it's replacement and both Olight RCR123 batteries.
2) Regular (non-rechargeable) Surefire 123A's don't seem to exhibit this problem but, so far, I've only tested to see if they can withstand 10 minutes of use without misbehaving like the Olight batteries do.
3) The 750mAh AW RCR123A's that I was told would work (by Going Gear) only work in the replacement S1 (but not the first one). What's that all about???? In the S1 that they do work in, they also seem to work OK, but like the Surefires, I've only tested to see if they don't misbehave after 10 minutes of use.

There seems to be issues with both the batteries and the lights. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Are you sure it's not the protection circuit in the batteries or the stepdown process in the lights that are causing the problems? Sounds like it is.

LeafSamurai said:

Are you sure it's not the protection circuit in the batteries or the stepdown process in the lights that are causing the problems? Sounds like it is.

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No I'm not sure it's not the protection circuit but I don't see how that means anything. That's like telling my car doesn't work because of the engine. Read what I said... once the Olight batteries have about 10 minutes of use logged the NEXT time I try and turn the light on (completely cold) it cuts out and stops working altogether after just a few seconds. That isn't the way the protection/step down is supposed to work. The light isn't hot and it's barely had any use when it does this. That also doesn't explain why premium AW RCR123A's only work in one of the lights or why everything works fine with Surefire CR123A non rechargeable batteries.

witness said:

I recently bought the Olight S1 Baton and, right out of the box, have been having nothing but problems with the light, the replacement that Olight sent me and the two Olight rechargeable 650mAh RCR123As that I bought with it. I've never had an Olight before and maybe these products are just more finicky than any of the other lights and batteries that I own. Here are the issues I've been having:

1) Both the first S1 that I got and it's replacement stop working properly after about 10 minutes of use (on high) with a fully charged Olight RCR123 battery. After roughly 10 minutes of use the next time I turn the light on (high) it cuts out in less than a minute and then won't turn back on. This happens with both the first S1 and it's replacement and both Olight RCR123 batteries.
2) Regular (non-rechargeable) Surefire 123A's don't seem to exhibit this problem but, so far, I've only tested to see if they can withstand 10 minutes of use without misbehaving like the Olight batteries do.
3) The 750mAh AW RCR123A's that I was told would work (by Going Gear) only work in the replacement S1 (but not the first one). What's that all about???? In the S1 that they do work in, they also seem to work OK, but like the Surefires, I've only tested to see if they don't misbehave after 10 minutes of use.

There seems to be issues with both the batteries and the lights. Can anyone shed some light on this?

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When the problem occurs again, change a fully charged RCR123A battery to try if there still has such problem. I guess RCR123A battery runs low and portected.

I think I see the problem and it's a serious design flaw.

ven said:

500lm from a baby 16340 is going to eat MAH like no tomorrow..............If you need this kind of output for any decent amount of time, probably better jumping to a compact 18650 fed light tbh...........As your going to or up to 3500mah from a measly 6-700mah

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I don't need (or want) the 500 lumen burst mode (as far as I'm concerned 90 seconds at 500 lumens is useless and just for showing off to friends). I want the 90 minutes at 300 lumens that Olight advertises but... this can't be accessed without first going through and stepping down from the 500 lumen burst mode. This is a flat out design flaw because it appears that, once the voltage has dropped even a tiny bit, the high won't engage at all (and that means you can't access either the 500 or the 300 lumens at all).

Re: I think I see the problem and it's a serious design flaw.

witness said:

I don't need (or want) the 500 lumen burst mode (as far as I'm concerned 90 seconds at 500 lumens is useless and just for showing off to friends). I want the 90 minutes at 300 lumens that Olight advertises but... this can't be accessed without first going through and stepping down from the 500 lumen burst mode. This is a flat out design flaw because it appears that, once the voltage has dropped even a tiny bit, the high won't engage at all (and that means you can't access either the 500 or the 300 lumens at all).

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I honestly dont know how it could run and sustain 300lm at that size.............it will get toasty for sure . A big ask for 700mah for 1.5hrs...........is it even possible without a further step down?

Sorry to hear of your troubles, i have read a few issues on this light, but also a lot of love.

Re: I think I see the problem and it's a serious design flaw.

ven said:

I honestly dont know how it could run and sustain 300lm at that size.............it will get toasty for sure . A big ask for 700mah for 1.5hrs...........is it even possible without a further step down?

Sorry to hear of your troubles, i have read a few issues on this light, but also a lot of love.

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I think thats what Trevilux is trying to say, its not sustaining 300lm for that amount of time. It has been a while since I read up on ANSI standard on run times, but if I remember correctly a light only needs to maintain 20% of the rated output (this example would be 300 lumens) before the rating is complete (means this light could run to 60 lumens and still comply with the rating of 300). I will have to read it over again but the example gives the idea.

Not really directing the post at you ven, you know much more than I do, just sharing info and hit quote.


Edit: correcting myself, it is 10% so 30 lumens would still give you a 300 lumen rating.

Re: I think I see the problem and it's a serious design flaw.

ven said:

I honestly dont know how it could run and sustain 300lm at that size.............it will get toasty for sure . A big ask for 700mah for 1.5hrs...........is it even possible without a further step down?

Sorry to hear of your troubles, i have read a few issues on this light, but also a lot of love.

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I haven't read over all the last few posts yet but.. even accepting that the light can't maintain 300 lumens for X amount of time there is still a HUGE design flaw. When the voltage drops (exacerbated by the need to use the absurdly taxing 500 lumen mode to even get to the normal high 300 lumen mode) the light steps down (as it should) but... if you turn it off and, subsequently, try to get to high again it either won't turn on at all or cuts out. This is the silly byproduct of having a high mode that starts at 500 lumens. At the very least, if the voltage isn't high enough to properly engage the 500 lumen mode it should default to 300 ... IT SHOULDN'T TURN OFF COMPLETELY AFTER A COUPLE OF SECONDS OR NOT START AT ALL (which is what it does). Essentially, the way the light is designed (and regardless of the battery used), one is able to get 500 lumens for 1.5 minutes and then 300 lumens for 1.5 hours only if it's done all at once. If you use the light for less than that amount of time, but long enough to lower the voltage (which will be battery dependent) then after that... you won't be able to access either of the high modes at all.

Contrary to all the hype about the practicality of this light it is, in reality, highly impractical as a useful EDC (at least if you expect the kind of sustained performance and flexibility that other relatively high power keychain lights like the Foursevens Mini MLX have been providing for years i.e. 250 lumens of measurable and sustained output on demand.

Re: I think I see the problem and it's a serious design flaw.

Olight is a very solid company, its def a battery issue, and or amp draw hunger issue.
I think its good you have come out and high lighted potential issues to others, personally I would put it down to experience, we don't always get what we think we will.

FYI I have a real juicey single cr123 light and can only feed it on IMR batteries. It then actually surpasses my expectations where as on rcr and cr123 I just could not get the performance out of it.

Re: I think I see the problem and it's a serious design flaw.

Violation of rule 4 isn't overlooked, even if it was by way of changing the title. All the posts that carried that title has been removed. Let's attempt to be civil, even if the nature of the topic may be negative.

I had this as well with my old S1Baton. After cleaning the threads the light works as advertized. I use an Olight charger and Olight 650mAh rechargeables.

My employer has been buying a lot of Olights as give away gifts to customers. I think we have bought 400-500 lights so far. Most are the little single CR123 lights but we have bought many others as well and out of those 500 we have had only one that we had to return.

Ours have been VERY reliable.

Sorry to hear of your troubles OP. My S1 works perfectly. Use new AW 750mah 16340's. Works exactly as the manual says it is supposed to. Have a few more Olights and have had zero issues with any of them. One thing I will say, no light leaves the factory clean. I have a couple cans of DeOxit D100 that I use to clean all the contact points. You would be shocked at how dirty many new lights are out the box. Only Olight cells I have used are their 3400mah 18650's and they perform perfectly. No experience with their 16340's. I will add that when I got my S1 at first I did not have my new AW's yet and had on hand Orbtronic and Keeppower 16340's. First I tried the Keeppower cell. The light would not work for some reason I could not figure out. Only once did the light flash on then off. I couldnt figure it out. Then I tried the Orbtronic 16340 and the light worked fine. Upon very close inspection the button tops on the Keeppowers are not as wide as those on the Orbtronic. I think your issue is a battery issue. I just took a look at one of my Panasonic CR123's and the button top is tall and wide and works fine in the light. Try a CR123 out see how that goes. Just looked at the AW cell in my S1. The button top is nice and wide and tall. I do not have an Olight 16340 to compare to though so...just trying to help out...good luck