My Balder HD-1 Has A Poltergeist!!!

This morning while drinking my coffee, getting ready for work, I decided I’d carry my little Balder HD-1 today. I had just been looking at it a couple of days ago and it worked fine. I found it and gave it a click,and got a micro flash and nothing. Clicked it several times, a couple more sporadic flashes and then nothing more. I tried and tried. I checked everything was tight, battery voltage was 3.98, but nothing. I bridged the battery with a tweezers and the light came on.

I took out the battery and tested the piston and it jammed in and wouldn’t return. After poking around inside with a pen it popped back into place so I pushed it again and the whole piston came out. I have two of these Balders and I have never been able to remove the piston before. How I did it, i don’t know, and I wish I could do it again. The little o-ring on the button was broken an needed replacing. I thought that was the problem.

I wiped everything down with alcohol and coated the outside of the piston and inside of the hollow out tube with sentry solution to reduce friction. I left this to dry while I went to work. After work I popped in an my AW14500 before I installed a new o-ring. The light came on, so I removed the battery and installed the freshly lubricated ring.

Here goes. Battery reinstalled…click…nothing. Click,click,click…nothing. I checked the voltage in my AW…nothing. It must have tripped. I popped in an IMR and sometimes it would come on, and go off by itself. No mode changes and only sporadic illumination that would flicker or stay on, or turn off by itself. I put the newly charged 14500 back in thinking that maybe because it was longer than the IMR it might work. I clicked a couple times, it came on, ran through the modes a few times and then it would go off by itself. it would only repeat this sporadic behavior at its own leisure.

I have another HD-1 that was the original that Balder replaced because of a circuit flaw that precluded its ability to turn off. I switched the head of my twitchy light onto the body from the old one. Voila! It works perfectly. Not a hitch. All three modes and off and on.

I’ve tried every combination of heads and batteries with this body now and it just refuses to run. I mean, it’s a simple piston drive, how complicated can that be. I’ve studied and cleaned and contacted and sworn, but this simplistic setup just won’t do it’s simple task.

I still don’t know how I removed the piston the first time, because I can’t seem to repeat the action.

I know this post is very long winded, but its hard to describe a conundrum and let you know I have checked every contact and connection at the same time. I had to write this to help bleed off some of my frustration.

Thanks for listening.

How you remove the piston is easy, unscrew the head and then unscrew the threaded portion of the body that the head screws on to.

In your picture, the threaded portion of the body that you remove to get to the piston is still screwed into the head itself (note the male threads)

I had a situation on my HD-1 where the O-ring deteriorated so I had to take it out and replace it…. only to find that my wife had accidentaly thrown away my spare when she was cleaning up the office… OOPS!!! :open_mouth:

As far as the poltergeist goes, make sure that you hold the piston in for just a moment while turning it on and that everything is screwed together tightly. I know you said everything was tight but try seperating the head from the threaded piston retainer, tightening the retainer to the body, and then tightening the head.

Hope this helps!

Hope this help! :smiley:

I had the same problem with my second Hd1 the replacement for my first one, sent it back for store credit and never looked back

Thanks for that Tactical Oatmeal.
I wasn’t even going to post that picture. It must have been a fluke that the threaded piece came out when I unscrewed the head that one time. I never would have noticed. It was a bitch getting it back out again though. I tried rethreading it different ways and testing the piston while I tightened it. I was still getting sporadic connections. I’m not sure now, but I think it was when I tightened the threaded piece into the head first and then screwed it back down into the body that I got power. It must have been threaded too deeply into the body and was just barely making contact with the head. Mind you, I did destroy the o-ring on the collar trying to tork that threaded piece back out.
Both lights now are reunited with their original bodies and are working fine. I think I’ll carry this one for a bit to see if it acts up again.
Question: what made it suddenly start going wonky when it hadn’t been touched?
What triggered the protection circuit in my AW 14500?

Piston drives are very finicky by their nature. They almost need a certain type of forplay to turn them on. A lot relies on how much pressure, angle of pressure and a sense of feel. I’ve been wanting one of those Nitcore EX11 V2,s, but I can never bring myself to lay down that kind of money for a system that needs to be wined and dined before it puts out.

So strange that you posted this, because just last night I was having poltergeist issues with my Shadow Mini.

I woke up in the middle of the night, and as usual I grabbed my bedside table Mini to walk to the kitchen. It went about 20 seconds then poof. Out it went. So I clicked it back on, FLASH, off again… on, FLASH, off again… and again. Now it does nothing.

I unscrewed the battery and shut again. Click on… oh there we go… nope just kidding 5 seconds later OUT.

The battery couldn’t possibly be low… could it? I just charged it a couple days ago and haven’t really used it since…? Oh well, after some frustration I’m back in bed and I’ll deal with it in the morning.

Morning arrives and whadayaknow… it works flawlessly. I can’t seem to find ANYTHING wrong. WTH?!?

I disagree 100% with your comment about pistons being finiky . The nitecores are rock solid ..i have no idea what the balders problems are ..... but i wouldn't confuse the two . I really don't feel the need to defend one of the most popular lights on the planet ..I just think you're wrong ..Dump the balder and buy an older nitecore .

I know a guy ...

Gremlins or needs TLC.

Hey. I really like the Nitecores even though I have never held one. What I’m saying is that every time I’m getting revved up to buy one I come accross some posts pointing out some problem or glitch. This always ends up giving me second thoughts. I depend on reviews and forums for my info, but unfortunately I have no way of knowing if these are fluke abnomalies or common traits. I still want an EX11, so I appreciate your comments. The ramping feature of the EX11 really turns my crank. I almost pushed the button last week, but something else came up that I had to have. I noticed that in that “other” forum site people like slagging Nitecore products, but I think they are exceptional.