Anyone have issues (seemingly) with their Emisar D4 button?
Would anyone be willing/able to replace my switch if Hank sends me a replacement and I send everything to you? I’d pay shipping and for your time of course.
My light’s worked awesomely for a year and just last week started reacting to half-presses;
-sometimes a half (or really soft) press will turn the light on the last memory
-sometimes a half (or really soft) press will activate turbo. This is how i originally noticed the problem. Burned my thigh in my pocket.
-sometimes half presses will turn the light off.
-sometimes, when turbo is activated, nothing will turn it off, no click-press or half-press. I have to unscrew the tailcap or head.
-sometimes a half press will activate strobe mode.
Super weird, and none of those individual states is reproducable on purpose. At first I thought it was a programming thing, but after reviewing the click patterns, I don’t think so.
I emailed Hank and he said it might be the switch. Also said he’d send me a replacement if I thought I could swap it out.
So. I love the light and would love to have it back functioning, but maybe it’s not worth the hassle? Maybe I just buy a V2?
You can disassemble the switch pretty easily and may not have to replace it. Once you remove the metal retaining ring (press fit) and rubber boot you’ll see the small red PCB with surface mount switch.
It consists of a plastic base with metal contacts, then a metal dome, and sealed over with a thin sheet of tape stuff. All you have to do is peel off the tape and the dome will fall straight off. Clean the dome & contacts with alcohol and reassemble it by placing the dome where it was (carefully with tweezers) and cutting a tiny square of tape to cover over the top. I did this with a D4 switch and it’s worked perfectly since. If the dome is damaged you could use a couple pairs of tweezers to try and bend it outwards so it’s taller and doesn’t make contact so easily
Thanks so much for the quick response. Any tips for removing the retaining ring? I’ve tried several things and short of using brute force and marring/scratching the light, i’m coming up short.
My daily D4V2 has steadily been getting pretty bad. The little tac domes do have a finite lifespan and I’m not against replacing mine but getting the (raised) retaining ring out without chewing it up with pliers sure would be nice. I might try applying some liquid butane to it to freeze-shrink it but that might ruin the rubber boot instead…
The flat retaining ring is fairly easy to remove. I use a small thin screwdriver… typically the one built-in to a Victorinox mini pocket knife. Press the rubber boot down and wedge it underneath, then lever up.
However, this technique doesn’t seem to work with the raised button retaining ring. The raised ring seems to be slightly wider and I couldn’t get it to budge.
I’m inclined to think so based on a teardown I saw of the og D4. The board in mine is certainly not RGB backlight equipped but the tac dome is likely same.
That switch PCB is from a M43.
The dome fell off the button after reflowing different color LEDs onto the PCB.
I ordered replacements from Mouser(link in my post above)
