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Magicshine Lights Announcement

66K views 439 replies 131 participants last post by  Cat-man-do 
#1 ·
To Our Valued Geomangear Customers,

Geomangear temporarily has stopped selling Magicshine lightsets due to our concerns regarding the safety, quality, and performance of Magicshine's lithium-ion battery packs sold by Geomangear between July 2009 and November 2010. We have determined that these Magicshine battery packs do not meet Geomangear's high expectations regarding product safety, quality, and performance. We have notified both the manufacturer of Magicshine lightsets and the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission that Geomangear intends to voluntarily recall all Magicshine battery packs sold by Geomangear.

We are actively working with the Safety Commission, outside engineering consultants, and a new battery pack supplier to evaluate product recall options for our customers. Geomangear will provide recall information and instructions directly to our affected customers after our final corrective action plan has been approved by the Safety Commission.

If you bought a Magicshine lightset from us between June 2009 and November 2010, please discontinue using your lightset until we are able to provide you with an upgraded replacement battery pack or another recall remedy. Despite our best efforts, this process will take some time, and we ask for your patience. You can rest assured that Geomangear has taken, and will continue to take, appropriate steps to protect the safety of our customers, and we will stand behind our products. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and appreciate your continued loyalty and support during this unprecedented situation our company is facing.

Thanks!!
Geoman
Geomangear.com

www.geomangear.com
 
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#52 ·
We have not had any safety issues with the lightheads, we are specifically concerned about the quality of the Magicshine batteries and the safety of all users. The US Safety Commission will provide more info on this matter shortly.

my51isfast said:
GEOMAN, can you please inform what the actual issue/issues with this system is? We know not to use them, but what are the risks. Do we need to store out batteries in a specified manner? Is there any issue with the head unit themselves?
 
#53 ·
my51isfast said:
GEOMAN, can you please inform what the actual issue/issues with this system is? We know not to use them, but what are the risks. Do we need to store out batteries in a specified manner? Is there any issue with the head unit themselves?
From earlier in the thread ...
Safety first, store your batteries outside until we can replace them with a completely different battery pack. Please mention this to anyone you know who has a Magicshine lightset.
 
#54 ·
GEOMAN said:
Hi Mike
GeoManGear was not retailing Magicshine lightsets prior to June 2009 you may simply be mistaken about the date. The recall covers every Magicshine battery that GeoManGear has ever distributed. Did you purchase directly from China prior to June 2009? We plan to make sure every GeoManGear customer is taken care of, you can email us directly contact@geomangear.com to make sure you are on our list
That's what happens when I post early in the morning with a head cold. Last winter was 2009. Got it.
FWIW- I would be happy to pay a reasonable replacement cost- say, 20-30 dollars- rather than expect you, the distributor, to be held wholly responsible for the manufacturing problems.

Thanks!
 
#55 ·
No worries and thanks for the support Mike, we are working on a list of remedies with the US Safety Commision to help our customers get what they need as quickly as possible.

Mike Brown said:
That's what happens when I post early in the morning with a head cold. Last winter was 2009. Got it.
FWIW- I would be happy to pay a reasonable replacement cost- say, 20-30 dollars- rather than expect you, the distributor, to be held wholly responsible for the manufacturing problems.

Thanks!
 
#56 ·
Mike Brown said:
That's what happens when I post early in the morning with a head cold. Last winter was 2009. Got it.
FWIW- I would be happy to pay a reasonable replacement cost- say, 20-30 dollars- rather than expect you, the distributor, to be held wholly responsible for the manufacturing problems.

Thanks!
Seconded. A discounted replacement fee would be appreciated, although a straight up replacement of course would be great. I just bought a new light set a couple months ago and have not had any problems. Should I send back the battery, keep it but not use it? I also have one from about one year ago that is still going strong. Is that battery effected by this announcement too?
 
#57 ·
Yes our battery experts have suggested we should include ALL Magicshine batteries in this recall. We advise not to use, and you can exercize extreme caution and store outdoors to ensure safety. Our plan which is being reviewed by the US Safety Commission would be to recall the batteries and replace with a battery pack from an alternate manufacturer as soon as possible.

TwoHeadsBrewing said:
Seconded. A discounted replacement fee would be appreciated, although a straight up replacement of course would be great. I just bought a new light set a couple months ago and have not had any problems. Should I send back the battery, keep it but not use it? I also have one from about one year ago that is still going strong. Is that battery effected by this announcement too?
 
#58 ·
I don't think...

Adim_X said:
Lipo batteries do not like a complete discharge. It is best to store them on 70-80% charge. Complete discharge is one of the factors that makes them swell and become dangerous. That is how my $100 rc cells are to be taken care of.
... these batteries are LiPo. I think they are regular LiIon. Maybe I don't understand the difference, but aren't LiPo like brick style layered batteries? IIRC, those are the ones famous for bursting into flames when smacked really hard. MS batteries are the round can style 18650 cells.
 
#59 ·
Hello Geo
Thank you for standing behind what you sell
here's a ? that I'm sure a lot of people want to ask.
Will the 90 day warranty on the light heads be extended to coincide with the down time as of yesterday due to not being able to use them?
Again thanks for stepping up to the plate Ive got a bunch of guys just waiting to get some lights when this issue is resolved.
 
#60 ·
pimpbot said:
... these batteries are LiPo. I think they are regular LiIon. Maybe I don't understand the difference, but aren't LiPo like brick style layered batteries? IIRC, those are the ones famous for bursting into flames when smacked really hard. MS batteries are the round can style 18650 cells.
they use the same lithium-ion chemistry and so the discharging limitations he mentioned apply the same to either one. The difference is that electrolyte is held is a solid not a liquid and they can be made into those flat layer shapes that isn't possible with a normal liquid li-ion cell

I'm not 100% on the damage thing, but I believe its because some of those packs are made without as much protective casing to prevent punctures and such, are the internal layers probably break open and react with each other. Round cells like the 18650 always have a metal casing and I think that is the safety difference. In fact, based on the little I do know of batteries I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some 18650s are LiPo inside
 
#61 ·
Good to know

GEOMAN said:
.... The recall covers every Magicshine battery that GeoManGear has ever distributed. Did you purchase directly from China prior to June 2009? We plan to make sure every GeoManGear customer is taken care of, you can email us directly contact@geomangear.com to make sure you are on our list
Too bad I hacked up my one bad battery and used the connector to make a 2 cell battery for my helmet light. I also Plasti-Dipped my other battery. I still have the dead battery with the connector cut off. I figured it was out of warranty, and it died because I forgot about it on the charger for a couple months (under my desk at home, on a soft wood combustible floor :shocked: )

Would one or both still be covered by the recall, since I modified them?

I would understand if they weren't covered. I wouldn't hold you to it.
 
#62 ·
MtbMacgyver said:
I'll probably regret getting in the middle of this, but I will offer up the information I have based on some testing I did over the past week and a half. First, I want to be clear that I have no way to know of the specific issues that prompted Geoman to stop selling the lights and pursue a recall, I can only comment on what I observed in my testing. I also don't have a vested interest in this situation as I personally use my own lights and I do not offer them for sale.

I have ties to a large local bike club, which includes a fair number of magicshine light users. Based on all the discussion on the forum about magicshine battery issues, I put out a query to the club to find out if many folks were experiencing battery problems. I quickly got a fair number of responses and was "loaned" a number of packs that were experiencing problems.

I opened up the packs and ran them through a couple of cycles while instrumenting the current and voltage of each cell bank. What I found was that the packs were badly out of balance due to what are known as "soft shorts" within the cells. "Soft shorts" cause the cells to self-discharge at a higher rate than normal, which is what throws the pack out of balance. How quickly the pack goes out of balance depend purely on "time" and the extent of the soft short. Number of cycles or how the pack is cared for has little to no effect. This in itself isn't good for the pack, but it doesn't necessarily represent a safety issue. But, I also observed that the protection PCB lets the cells drop down to right below 2V on discharge. That's really below what is safe and can lead to cell damage that can cause a safety issue down the road.

Based on what I found I decided to check a pack that didn't appear to be having obvious problems. I found that this pack was also out of balance, just not enough to be showing such obvious external problems. So these 2 issues are likely interacting with each other. Normally, the protection PCB should only stop charge or discharge in fairly rare cases as a last ditch safety protection. But in the case of the magicshine packs, the protection PCB is having to shutdown the charge / discharge on a large percentage of packs and is doing so on almost every charge cycle and many of the discharge cycles. That has two implications; first it means that even a few rare failures of the protection PCB have a much higher chance that normal of causing a safety issue with the pack. Second, it means the voltage thresholds for the protection PCB really need to be spot on and that doesn't appear to be true.

The net is there really isn't anything the end user can do to in terms of how they care for or use the pack to guarantee that a problem won't occur. I say guarantee because, it's true that having an actual problem is probably somewhat rare. But on the other hand, these kinds of actions don't usually happen if there hasn't been some kind of real world problem. The engineer in me would say, follow the advice and stop using the packs. The mountain biker in me says, a lot of folks are going to keep using them, my advice is be really careful where you charge and store them. Problems are more likely while they are charging but can happen at any time.
1) So, since it ran down to 2V, would it be safer to only use, say, 1/2 the batteries capacity (if we do use it)
2) Could you post a DIY so we can identify if our cells have this problem?
3) I happen to have a couple of 3-cell Lithium Ion battery packs lying around. I also have a nice charger, recommended by site user "homebrew". The 3-cells are in parallel. I was thinking of connecting both packs in series and using the connector from my MagicShine pack. This would hopefully be safer, and would also provide greater capacity, with two extra cells. How can I analyze the two packs to determine if this is safe? They each have a little circuit board in them, but are pretty simple- 3-cells in blue shrink wrap. They're a couple years old, but looked like they've never been used. I charged them last weekend. I have two MORE, but they look like they've been used.

4) GeoMan: How much of this might be due to the inexpensive charger? If I cut the connectors off the charger and cells for my own DIY pack, will I still be able to exchange the battery with you later?

Also, I tested my battery life for the first time last week. I got 3:05. For the last 5 minutes, the light flashed. The battery is only about a month old with maybe 8 cycles on it. It had been charged with the factory charger, and subsequently charged with my new high-end charger, which I'll use from here on out.
 
#63 ·
Hi Raku
It's always been GeoMan's policy to give our cusomers as much benefit as possible and we have traditionally been generous beyond the Manufacturers 90 day warranty policy. The team at GeoManGear continue on in typical GeoMan fashion, we will be here taking care of our customers for many years to come. We will definitely be taking into account downtime and you can ask other folks who have had an issue beyond the manufacturers warranty, we have been very willing to help our friends.

Rakuman said:
Hello Geo
Thank you for standing behind what you sell
here's a ? that I'm sure a lot of people want to ask.
Will the 90 day warranty on the light heads be extended to coincide with the down time as of yesterday due to not being able to use them?
Again thanks for stepping up to the plate Ive got a bunch of guys just waiting to get some lights when this issue is resolved.
 
#64 ·
Hey Pimpbot
We'll have to wait on an answer for that one until the Safety Commission finalizes the remedies plan.

pimpbot said:
Too bad I hacked up my one bad battery and used the connector to make a 2 cell battery for my helmet light. I also Plasti-Dipped my other battery. I still have the dead battery with the connector cut off. I figured it was out of warranty, and it died because I forgot about it on the charger for a couple months (under my desk at home, on a soft wood combustible floor :shocked: )

Would one or both still be covered by the recall, since I modified them?

I would understand if they weren't covered. I wouldn't hold you to it.
 
#66 ·
Fair enough

GEOMAN said:
Hey Pimpbot
We'll have to wait on an answer for that one until the Safety Commission finalizes the remedies plan.
Keep us informed. Here I thought I was immune to the recall because I got the light in October of 2009. O-well.

Thanks again for doing the right thing. I would be pretty pished if I was a retailer and found out that my supplier was recycling old laptop batteries in my 'new' inventory to sell. Glad you're keeping a level head about this.

The light head is great, btw. I would love to keep using the light, but the safety is a bit of a concern for me. I would hate to have the thing burst into flames during a ride... possibly if I smack it really hard. Is that a possibility? Is part of the issue the armoring of the pack? As in, are there reports of the goofy thing bursting into flames after it gets poked by a pointy rock during a crash?

I may just take matters into my own hand and build my own battery packs from new LG or Sanyo cells.
 
#67 ·
Precisely, that's why the entire recall process is planned and implemented by experts and the US Safety Commission will approve the method. GeoManGear is waiting for clarification on the entire process, it evolves as we progress through the investigation. We are trying to provide info as it is released, the info on the website will be updated when we have new info for everyone. It's really great to see everyone taking an interest in this matter, we are sorry that it has occurred and will do everything possible to help resolve the Magicshine battery issue.

http://www.geomangear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4_41

A-Ray said:
Just my 2 cents, but when the recall takes place, putting a potential explosive into the mail, or UPS, Fed-ex, etc... may not be such a great idea.
 
#69 ·
GEOMAN said:
Hi Jim, you will be included with the GeoManGear recall we have obtained customer info for The Singletrack Store customers already. Notification will go out to STS customers shortly via US Safety Commission :thumbsup:
Thanks Geo for taking care of the STS customers as well. I have two batteries from you as well as two batteries from STS. I appreciate you stepping up for all those affected by this. Hopefully it will all be resolved soon.

You may want to post something over in roadbikereview as our roadie friends are also wondering what's going on with these batteries and your name keeps popping up.

Thank you again for all of the great service you provide. :thumbsup:
 
#71 ·
A question

Geomangear
I apologize but I would like to know where this US Safety Commission?:nono:
It does not exist as a Federal Government agency?
I believe that being accurate would be the way to go at this point.
Is your "voluntary recall" because someone was injuried or they may be?
Poor run time is a defect and not a safety issue so please clarify.

Oh yes, the recall may fall under CPSC jurisdiction, a Federal Agency.
When did you notify them?

Thanks

GEOMAN said:
Yes our battery experts have suggested we should include ALL Magicshine batteries in this recall. We advise not to use, and you can exercize extreme caution and store outdoors to ensure safety. Our plan which is being reviewed by the US Safety Commission would be to recall the batteries and replace with a battery pack from an alternate manufacturer as soon as possible.
 
#75 ·
That sucks, good thing I am currently in PT for a bum shoulder and can't ride anyway. However, I still think the light itself is awesome and as you already took care of a premature dead battery pack and have shown nothing but the highest level of customer service since I purchased the light set, I am glad I purcahsed from you and have no doubt that you will rectify the situation correctly and professionaly. Thanks, from a customer who continues to recomend you!
 
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