Perfect! Thank you very much, Skywatcher, for the detailed reporting and wise testing. Unfortunately so far you are the only one bringing some valuable data!

Another German customer on the FB group bought a luxmeter inspired by your test, but he still did not receive the parcel. There is also a Dutch guy who posts videos of his testing (without measuring the light intensity) on Youtube, but since he discharged the flashlight with several consequent long runs, he will now let the flashlight resting for 17 days before doing another test. Then there is TheCell here, who did his tests in similar way as the Dutch, and should do his next test on 22nd, if I remember well. Then there are several ELFE owners who do not report anything at all, for some reasons - like Esaruoho here, or some others on the FB group, and elsewhere.

I think you should all join on the FB group, to compare your data, and to fine-tune the protocols. And in the case your tests confirm the suspicion of the scam, I would suggest a joint complaint at relevant authorities (either your local customer protection agency, or directly in Australia where ADGEX is registered. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission may be one of the choices. If you decide just to return the flashlight to get a new one, you either receive another non-functional, or ADGEX keeps it without any replacement to avoid letting evidence in hands of people who discovered their scam. I guess that they may be watching the reactions of customers on the web, so they may be already aware that it may turn bad for them soon.

Great work Skywatcher and all on testing the claims.  My argument has always been that this is mainly a "one shot" and then the promoters of this scam all walk (hide) away.   If they got orders for say 2000 flashlights, I think if you crunched the numbers they still walk away with a lot of money - 5000 flashlights and they get a serious chunk of money.  Conrad thinks it's primarily an investment scam, who knows.

What is interesting is that presumably something similar is taking place with a lower number of units with the new Orbo charging device and the Orbo phone.  Orbo Girl might be running to Obama Girl for comfort.

Great work Skywatcher and all on testing the claims.  My argument has always been that this is mainly a "one shot" and then the promoters of this scam all walk (hide) away.   If they got orders for say 2000 flashlights, I think if you crunched the numbers they still walk away with a lot of money - 5000 flashlights and they get a serious chunk of money.  Conrad thinks it's primarily an investment scam, who knows.

The investment scam was my claim since the very beginning. I describe it in details at Metabunk. I investigate them since several weeks, and since I understand some Russian too, I was able to dig a lot of information about them on the Russian part of the web. Although they are registered in Australia, they are all Russians, living in Russia (and other ex-Soviet countries), and practically all their investors are likely Russians too. So far they sold over AU$75 million of shares, so the money from the flashlight is absolutely uninteresting for them. The flashlight is nothing else than a demonstration product showing that the ELFE technology exists and works, and that their kW and MW ELFE systems (and other bunk fake technologies they allegedly develop) are viable. If you look them up, in the last few months they do gigantic publicity fund raising campaign, but practically only in Russia. They certainly hope that it will take couple of months before the flashlight affair explodes (if ever at all), and that in the meantime they will get even more than they already raised. But finally those $75M are already not so bad, so once the bubble bursts, they simply close the Australian corporation (just a mailbox in fact). Nobody will get them in Russia. Except if there are some mafiosi among their investors. But Viktor Uzlov, who appears to be the main boss of ADGEX, looks like a mafioso too, so he is probably not scared much.

Thanks for that information Txt, now I can see how it resembles the Steorn model as an investment scam.

What about the online tracking details, Skywatcher, wasn't there the address of the sender?

No, not at all. Only 'China'.

Skywatcher:

Yes, thank you for doing these tests.  It is very interesting and I also appreciate it.

TXT:

I had the same thought about finding the Chinese manufacturer to see if they sold the same light for like $5.00 US.  Wouldn't that be a hoot?  I wonder if we can search by photo and see if there is a match from say Alibaba or somewhere?

Bill

I already browsed through +20,000 flashlights at Alibaba (ufff..) and did not find it there. I still believe that it is a standard product of some Chinese manufacturer, just perhaps not in their public catalog, or simply just not on Alibaba. Or perhaps it is not correctly cataloged (I only browsed though AA flashlights).

Wow, that's a lot of searching.  Of course those factories will make whatever you want them to but, most folks just choose something they already make and put their name on it...obviously a lot cheaper and the minimum manufacturing run is not in the tens of thousands.  Let's all keep our eyes out...I'll bet it shows up somewhere else sooner or later.

Bill