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It’s probably a small li-ion battery, not a capacitor.

Great idea, Keith. I found a wire, stripped the ends, and completed the circuit. And YES… now it was clear to me the difference between medium & high. I noticed even medium is brighter without the tail cap. So apparently there must be some kind of current regulation going on in the tail cap and mine is faulty. I installed the tail cap after this test, and now I can’t even get mode changes working properly again. It’s either some sort of medium, then a medium-high, which starts out a little dim while switch is still depressed then brightens a little upon release of button. No low. Hopefully the replacement will be OK.

Useful info, thanx Djozz

Even dumber design, then. You have to charge a separate lithium-ion battery in the tailcap, every time you change the “main” battery? I don’t believe it.

I think they’re faulty units. The “charge the tailcap capacitor” is a dumb excuse.

WTH? Nobody makes a flashlight electronic switch like that. Why would they? A li-ion battery would eventually require replacement, having far less lifespan than a capacitor. And a tiny li-ion battery sandwiched inside a tail switch certainly wouldn’t be user serviceable.

Here’s the abstract from Lumintop’s Energy storage type zero-power flashlight electronic switching circuit Chinese patent application:

See paragraphs [0011] to [0014] if you understand electronics and can get past the machine translation.

EDIT: added pic from T18 in the other thread. Note there’s one more component on the other side of the board (the MOS?) that matches what I can see at the base of the spring on my MassDrop light.

^ What does this mean for the lay person who isn’t fluent in electronic circuit diagrams & components?

Copper is out of stock now. They have a notice link, and appear to expect to have more eventually.

it is actually a supercap

It means the capacitor in the switch needs to charge up for the modes to work. Once the cap is full, all the modes will switch.

If the cap is not loaded, the vessel cant make the quantum leap into hyperspace :student:

Thanks for the pointer. Here’s an interesting switch pic from that thread courtesy of T18 Available on BangGood now:ReyLight Custom-Lumintop‬ Tool Ti AAA, L-M-H - #219 by T18
I see why it feels like the button is contacting the switch off center.

EDIT: I’ll add T18’s pic next to the schematic I extracted from the patent above for convenient comparison.

I just got my order for 10 Supercaps today from arrow electronics for building Loneoceans GFS16 FET switches. Ordered a few for spares.

The Seiko Supercaps are tiny and look just like a coin battery. Its only 4.8 mm in diameter.
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/xh414hg-iv01e/seiko-instruments-inc
It could be the same one used in these tool switches, I will check next time I take one apart.
.
Edit: I can confirm it is this exact SC, the Seiko XH414HG-IV01E.

if it’s a supercap then it should charge in seconds, not minutes

and something doesn’t make sense.
if it needs to be charged before use then it means there’s no battery inside?
and there was never a battery inside, no testing with a battery at all?
either that or the supercap lost it’s charge. so that means that thiswill just drain the battery all the time.
probably not a good idea to make switches like this

It works even when you dont understand why.

try one sometime…

Here is my eSwitch Cu Tool running an MLH head from a Maratac, w sw45k LED swap

Charge time will depend on how much current is provided. The current could be quite low if the supercapacitor is in series with a large resistor (e.g., R3 and the BAT in the patent schematic).

Yup.

Yup. A supercap is certainly not low self-discharge. It will continue to drain the battery as it continuously needs to be topped up with charge. You have maybe a month of shelf-life before your battery is drained by the supercap.

Yup. This stupid flashlight design.

Everyone else seems to be able to design lights with switches that can run off the main battery, and don’t need to be charged for an hour before you use it.

I still think the units must be faulty. I’m having a really difficult time believing anyone would design such a ridiculous switch.

I’m not sure your speculation matches what others have experienced with these switches that seem to have been used for over 4 years. Here’s a comment in the other thread

I'd like to know the parasitic drain of the switch assembly, but like I said, my (crude) multimeter measures nothing.

Note if parasitic drain is an issue and I need to leave the light sit for a month, it's easy to lock out by loosening the head 1/4 turn.

Thanks! you said what I was thinking.

In actual use I have not had any problem with my eSwitch Tool
it is a Brilliant Design!

tailstands, silent, simple
KISS

for those who do not know the history…
the Lumintop TiTool was the first eSwitch Tool,
here is maukka’s excellent review

Then my friend Coppet made his own by transplanting a TiTool eSwitch into a CuTool:

Then Massdrop ordered copper ones, and sold thousands of them. I have one, it works great.

I ordered another one.

I’ve had the same amaloop nimh aaa in my ti tool for well over 6 months and it still works fine. Parasitic draw mustn’t be too extreme.

What I like most about the eswitch on these Tools, is that it seems like it would be nearly impossible to have them come on in your pocket at any level other than low, which means that you’d have a long time to discover it before the battery could be drained to an extreme degree.

I think that the UI is a bit awkward, but it’s very good for assuring only low mode turn-ons in the pocket. Any accidental turn-ons seem pretty unlikely with these switches, anyway, since they’re not proud of the tail cap.

It is what it is I guess, but mine has been sitting in Hebron (roughly 10-15 minutes from my house) for several days with no update…