Zebralight mk3 duds..

I got a zebralight h600fw in the mail 2 days ago.. It gets ridiculously hot after 2 minutes on high, starts flashing and ramping down in brightness. They emailed me back saying I have to use Panasonic /Sanyo/Samsung batteries . I already use 3500mah panasonics. I used my original 12 month old batteries. Then I charged up fresh brand new ones when light seemed faulty. It was same with brand new batteries.. They are allowing swap or refund but haven't admitted they are at fault.

i have h502 and h602 already.. Best headlights I love em.. Not sure on the mark 3 though...

Anybody else get a dud zebralight mk3???

WTH are they suppose to admit to? Yeah we built a p.o.s. light just for you so we could make you mad,and post it on CPF. Geeez they are gonna give you a new light.

It is a small light with thermal management built in. It's going to get hot quick as there isn't a lot of mass to absorb the heat. Once it gets hot the thermal management kicks in and backs down the output to avoid over heating. Sounds to me like it's working fine.

Robert Marley said:

I got a zebralight h600fw in the mail 2 days ago.. It gets ridiculously hot after 2 minutes on high, starts flashing and ramping down in brightness. They emailed me back saying I have to use Panasonic /Sanyo/Samsung batteries . I already use 3500mah panasonics. I used my original 12 month old batteries. Then I charged up fresh brand new ones when light seemed faulty. It was same with brand new batteries.. They are allowing swap or refund but haven't admitted they are at fault.

i have h502 and h602 already.. Best headlights I love em.. Not sure on the mark 3 though...

Anybody else get a dud zebralight mk3???

Click to expand...

Well, duh? You realize how much light that thing is outputting?

The last 3 replier's obviously have never owned a zebralight before and don't realise their power..
Like I said I already own h502w and h602w and they can maintain high level for a very long time. Go look at some of the reviews with run-time graphs!! Sure they get hot, but not stupid hot in 2 minutes like the new h600fw mk3 and start flashing.

So, all I want to know if there is anybody else with dud Mark 3 models that get crazy hot in 2 minutes and start flashing.. It's that simple.

If you don't own a zebralight I don't really need your input . Thanks a lot to the first 3 replier's though.

Ive got 2 ZL's. Never seen the flashing thing before. The MKIII's supposedly have better thermal regulation and they do but try a level lower and see what happens. My SC600MkII gets hot in a minute my MkIII HI gets hot in two I throttle down a level.

I have an mk iii hi and on H1 (1126 lumen) it only takes a few minutes to cause the thermal regulation to kick in which is normal. There is no "flash" other than noticing the light stepping down output as part of the thermal regulation and then varying from there as it should. On H2 (I have it set at the 312 lumen option) and it never gets hot. Maybe ever so slightly warm but that could be just from my hand. If your light is doing that then it's normal. Same goes for the xhp35 headlamps since I also have 2 of those. The flood and floody versions. Imo they get hotter faster than the mk iii hi but they have smaller mass so not surprised. Same thermal regulation.

Can't you all reprogram the thermal stepdown?

I don't own an H600fw, but an H600Fd has been in my Amazon list for quite a while waiting for me to purchase it. I've got a couple H502d lights, and you're right...they will run on high for quite a while without getting extremely hot. They likely only step down due to low voltage, not high temperature. They also put out less than 200 lumens, while the H600fw puts out over 1000 lumens....and it's very small. A very small light with that kind of output is going to get very hot quickly.

As far as I know, the thermal parameters can't be adjusted. The only way for this adjustment to aid the OP, it would need to be changed to allow the light to get even hotter before step down, which wouldn't be good for the light, or the forehead it's attached to.

Sounds right. The high mode you talk about is turbo. It's supposed to step down in brightness, or you will overheat the light and fry the led. The zebra steps down in a "flickerish way" one tiny step at the time. Other small powerful lights might just step down to a medium-lo mode. If you think the zebra heats up fast, try to buy a manker e14, after only 30 sek i can barly hold that thing in my hand, and it steps down to medium after 30 sek What your smaller zebralights do, dont matter. They are not as powerful and wont need the electronics stepping down to prevent it from killing itself.

Deleted post - misunderstanding.