I wish the fam an i lived in an open area.....would love to take a walk with just the fam and a couple of lights, must be nice Don to be able to do that.
The beaches around your area aren't open enough? 
Oh they are....but its not hot enough yet. One day its in the 80's and the next its in the 60's, dont want the kids freezing now do we.
So I tried out my new AW 14500 in my Akoray K-106 and it worked just fine but now it doesn't work with regular AA's anymore. The 14500 must have fried something in it. The weird thing is that my TrustFire F20 which is almost exactly the same as the K-106 works just fine with both 14500's and AA's. I tried swapping the head and of course the Akoray head won't work with the Trustfire body. Oh well.......
I will just make the Akoray K-106 my permanent 14500 torch.
I'm not even considering returning it because all the back and forth emails and the time it would take is just not worth it to me.
It may be that putting a 14500 in it turned on the cell protection and once this is turned off, it'll work with AA's again. Here's the link on programming it.
3 (or 4) half presses will turn it on or off
I didn't know you couldn't swap parts between the F20 and K-106. Does either one of them have square threads like the 3-mode K-106? I've heard of people burning out the AA ability in the DX comments. Some of these lights are so much brighter on a 14500 I don't know why you would want to go back to NiMH anyway except in a pinch. At least it still works on li-ion. I put a li-ion in my Uniquefire S10 6-mode and it wouldn't work on any kind of battery again. Another advantage of budget lights is that when you blow them up, at least you don't lose that much money. Of course you're more likely to blow up a budget light too . . .
They may run brighter but with a cost of short runtime......depending on what i do out i bring a spare nimh cell with me.
Well I just now tried the programming mode and it doesn't work. Any kind of half-press or tap just cycles through the 5 modes. At least it still works with a 14500 which is brighter anyway and still has all of its modes.
I just thought I'd try swapping parts since they both look and work exactly the same. Also, they both have the square threads you were asking about plus since the head doesn't have any markings, I coudn't tell which one was which just by its looks.
That's a pity. I've had exactly no trouble from mine which I got pretty much when DX announced it. Have used all sorts of cells in it and have turned protection on and off several times. At the moment it has a 14500 in it but have used many NiMH in it too and even alkalines. I've got the first week of May off so prepare to be bombed with beamshots once I get back. The hound can spend her time hunting rabbits and i can get to play.
Hopefully my latest light will arrive on Tuesday - EMS and Customs permitting so it'll need serious playing with. I might get around to playing with the K-106 and setting the modes more usefully than they are at present - I set it back to defaults a while back.
Ah, you have the non-programmable one - just realised that. If it works OK with a 14500 I'd just keep it that way. I tend to use 14500s in my AA lights that allow it as I'm never that far from electricity.
So they have a shorter run time with 14500's compared to AA's? I thought li-ion makes them run longer and brighter.
Nope just the opposite.........you sacrifice runtime for more brightness. I thought we discussed that section already.
Usually more than twice the brightness. But 14500s are way lower capacity than NiMH cells. If you reckon it takes twice the power to be twice as bright (Actually it takes more than that) then you can do the sums. A 2000mAh NiMH cell has 2000 x 1.2 (nominal voltage) mWh (milliwatt hours) in it = 2400mWh. A nominal 3.6V lithium cell which claims 900mAh and in fact probably has no more than 700mAh but we'll take the claimed figure gives us 900 x 3.6 = 3240mWh (Actually it has about the same Wh capacity as an AA NiMH) but it uses twice the power (roughly) so while it seems like the 14500 should run longer, it'll actually run out at about 2/3 of the time - but you get twice as much light for 2/3 of the time. It is actually nearer twice the light for half the time.
Not hot enough!!!!
People die of the heat here when it gets above 80 for more than an hour or two. It is a bracing 37 degrees (Fahrenheit) and hasn't been above 41 all week. It should get a lot warmer tomorrow - it might just reach 55 degrees which is as warm as it is going to get all week. But then I live north of Moscow - about the same latitude as Kodiak in Alaska. 85 is the highest temperature I have ever experienced here in 50 years. Problem is the place I work rarely gets below 90 apart from my office - I sat on the heater for most of the morning and my secretary was trying to type with gloves on.
Where I'm going in May might still have snow - it snowed there today. It is on the infamous A939 Cockbridge to Tomintoul road - first to be blocked in winter, last to reopen.
Dont worry i know what you mean.....i did a tour over in Saudi and it was freaking 130d........
Thanks guys! At least it still runs on 14500's which is better than not working at all. Plus I still have the Trustfire F20 that still runs on both batteries. Now that's 2 out of my first 5 batch of lights that are defective. I'm still waiting for a replacement on the Tank007 E07 from DX.
Yep, that hurts. I experienced those sorts of temperatures when I worked in Zambia - it was a nightmare in October-November when it could hit 50 centigrade (about 120F) with 100% humidity. That is no fun at all. The flies loved it - you couldn't see where you were going for the clouds of flies then. Once the rains broke it was a lot more bearable.
The downside of budget lights unfortunately. I've mostly been lucky or have been able to fix the problems. The worst ones for me were the Ultrafire C3's of which I own 6, the Aurora SH0030s which are basically Ultrafire C3s with added crapness and the Piritlight thrower. My first LED light, a Golston burned out its "driver" (actually a resistor) early on. It seemed to be screaming bright at the time. Now it's a sad, dim thing in comparison to stuff that cost less than half the price.
I have been lucky as well.......from all the lights that i have ordered from DX i had to send one back because i didnt like tint of the emitter.
But then of course when a light comes in i like to do maintenence first....clean the threads, making sure everything is tight as should be etc, etc.....