Ever had a flashlight lens spontaneously break?

Pics below, its hard to see in the photo but the lens cracked while in the holster and not dropped.
Along the edge is broken about 1/3 way around (but hard to see) in addition to the center crack shown.

Anyone else have this happen?


Had you ever had the lens out to inspect it prior? Could have had a small defect, like a nick or scratch on the side. Or possibly an internal defect in the glass aka an inclusion. Either would eventually succumb to thermal stress, at a potentially unexpected time like even when the light is off.

I had one crack on me when screwing the bezel back on. I didn’t think I had it on too tight, but I guess I did. It sucked either way having to buy another UCL lens…

I had that happen to me with a Thrunite Archer 2A v2 very recently. The break came along with a rip in the GITD o-ring at the bezel. Kinda disturbing since I didn’t even drop the dang thing, it literally fell on its side from headstanding when it happened, and it had tanked some true tumbles before with no damage at all.

A good talk with CS had me with replacements for both parts, and all is good now.

Yep … I have a couple lights with broken lenses . I think it’s a bezel issue in my case . Both lights came with broken glass. Not a big deal .

look for a high spot,debris,ect on the bezel or head in that area.it delivers concentrated stress there and a temp change might be all it takes to crack it.

Yep this happened to me just two days ago. I had recently disassembled an old Preon to do an emitter swap, and after disassembly the lens cracked while the flashlight was off and just sitting there. I think heating the head to release the threadlock was mainly to blame.

I have had the glass out, maybe last year, the light has not been used on high power for maybe a few weeks, and i have not done anything like heat the head for modding purposes. I don’t recall any chips or defects. This could have happened any time in the last few days, and what bothers me the most is potentially having glass dust possible in several places or along the floors of my place. Also i have to remove it to prevent more broken glass ending up everywhere, and getting a replacement is not in the cards right now :frowning:

Happened with a Courui, too much pressure from the bezel and it suddenly just cracked

A new lens is not that expensive. Do you know what size the lens is?

I noticed one day my$10 crelant ch10 clone had a broken lens. Doesn’t really bother me as long as the 2 halves stay put. It’s actually been a nice beater work light :slight_smile:

31.86mm, i’ll round that to 32mm


Thickness?
What country do you live in?

1.57mm
Canada

I thought I had that size, but mine is 37.5

I’ve seen glass shatter after 8 months use without being touched or used at the time - it was a 6 place glass top table and broke into lots of little pieces and was about 6mm thick.

I have quite a few glass lenses here Bort, I’ll check that size and see if I can fix you up… :wink:

31.86mm dia x 1.57mm thickness, right?

I looked through over 80 glass lenses, the closest I found was 29 or 36.

I could probably order one from flashlightlens.com and have it sent to you as cheap or cheaper than I could mail one to you directly.

I think I have a 35mm UCLp for an X6 that I could reduce the diameter on, these are all 2.25mm thick though, if that would make a difference.

Going over to Chris’s shop to see if he has a glass one in your size…

Chris has an AR coated UCL glass lens at 31.52mm x 1.85mm thick for $5.25. Want me to have it sent your way?

Might be of interest to name the light, I can’t tell what it is from the pictures.

Shipping to Canada for Chris (flashlightlens.com) is $10 plus the $5.25 for the lens itself, makes me wonder if the light is worth a $15 lens replacement… some are some aren’t.

Also wondering if an UCLp in Acrylic might serve better in a light that had a glass lens break without obvious reason. The UCLp at 31.52x2.25 is the same price, in case you were wondering.

Y’all may have seen by now that I like to compare perspectives, so if you think a $15 lens is ridiculous think about this, I got a burger at McDonalds the other day that cost me $7.75 just for me, the Lone Star Stacker, and it was ok but not great. So if a burger can come that close to being $10, obviously a dessert would approach the $15 of this lens. Relative perspectives, one is gone in a matter of hours the other can last a veritable lifetime. :wink:

Edit: And no, I didn’t even consider looking at prices of plain glass lenses without AR coating, if it’s got to be replaced it may as well be an upgrade. :stuck_out_tongue: