Just a heads up for people paying with paypal. If you click the "gift" tab on the make a payment screen there is no fee!
I believe that the rules have changed and you must now link your bank account to paypal to enjoy the gift option without a fee. Mine remains linked to my credit card, which has protected me against the paypal theifs that tried to deny a transaction in access of $1k. For the most part paypal is not a protective financial instrument against fraud unless purchased on ebay, and then it has MANY stipulations. In polite terms, paypal is a complete F'n scam if you aske me.
+1
My experience with Paypal is exceptionally good, maybe I am just lucky. But Paypal forced DX to get my money back (full refund) on that 3-mode eastward which was supposed to be a 4-mode.
I have both my bank account and CC linked. I rarely use the bank account to pay with, except small things im not worried about. But the no fee option is good to have there if paying some you know.
I agree paypal is a big bullie and they need some stronger competition
beats paying the conversion rates from the credit card + conversion fee + transaction fee + other random fees on top of the crap conversion rate.
While I believe PP to be evil, the rates are better than what the scum we call "bankers" round here offer to retail customers. Not to mention the extortionate charges our thieves banks require for non-Sterling transactions. But I still have no love for PP. But the alternatives aren't used much and aren't actually any better.
It's great for international transactions IMHO. PP gives me much better exchange rates than the local banks, too, 'specially from Euro to US$. Plus, it costs me nothing as a customer.
Receiving money through PP is a whole different animal tho, I can see the shortcomings. When ITC-shop offered to refund excess payment through paypal (totally my own fault, or maybe their goofy English, but still my fault), I figured I would still loose. So, I declined with thanks and, instead, went shopping some more at ITC's from the money.
Before paypal, things were kinda crude with international transactions. The choices were:
- WesternUnion transactions (well-known for scammers),
- chashier's checks (tried that three times, they never reached their recipients),
- staying up late so I could call some vendor in the US on the phone and recite him my name, address and credit card number using the NATO phonetic alphabet to compensate for the crappy phone connection (yes, actually did that once to get some new pistons for an offbeat engine), and
- sending cash currency with the good old-fashioned snail mail postal service. While the last method was fraught with risk no less than the others, it always worked out well for me. The downsides were plenty, though: driving to the bank, finding a parking spot, rushing inside and get some cash exchanged for the desired currency, rushing back outside in hope for no parking ticket, fabbing up a black liner for the envelope from carbon paper, and sending it on its way, then having to wait for weeks for safe deliverance. Did that dozens of times before the advent of PP.
I have a paypal merchant account & debit card for some time (a non-ebay online biz). Several months ago, unbeknownst to me, they didn't allow a $4 transaction to go thru from a gas station 1500 miles from where I live. They contacted me next morning to confirm it was me trying to use my paypal... told them no. Confirmed the last 5 transactions I did make with the card. They canceled my paypal debit card & issued a new one, received it about 5 days later. Told me that scammers usual MO is to charge a small amount, if it goes thru, then go buy a TV or something much more expensive.
I was impressed on how much they were proactive. Same thing happened some time ago to my Bank of America debit card, BofA wasn't proactive at all, I had to bring the bogus transaction (again, thousands of miles away) to their attention, & had to wait about 3 weeks for a new debit card (after visiting the bank & signing some papers).
What I find is the real scam with paypal is their outrageous charges for every sale I make!
yea the banks have developed very sophisticated fraud detection software to spot unusual transactions. Not surprising since its their butt on the hook for any fraud losses.
To me the way PayPal is supposed to work is you keep a balance and that way it is very, very, very cheap for them to transfer money, even in small amounts, from one account to another. I think they just did the credit card link as a convenience, but that introduces a huge fee that they must pass on to the customer. So I am always paying out of my balance there. They used to have good interest rates and I had a significant deposit with them, but not so much lately.
To me, the real scam is the credit card companies and the fees they are charging to merchants and the merchants have very little leverage. A merchant either pays whatever fee the cc wants to charge them or they can't let customers use that card. But somehow some companies can charge you a credit card fee, like liquor stores . . . or is it a "cash discount"?
I suspect most of the peculiarities of Paypal can be explained by it having world wide coverage. The way in which they operate isn't the same in all countries, but they want to make it seem the same so there are some odd options.
<only vaguely relevant ramblings>
In the UK for instance the vast majority of people have a debit card, these are backed either by Visa (Visa Debit) or MasterCard (Maestro). Significantly less people have credit cards, although the number that due has increased dramatically in the last 10years, mostly due to new card issuing companies comming into the country from the US with heavy advertising and almost not credit score requirments.
The key diffrence from a retailers point of view is there is a fixed charge when paying with a debit card, while there is a percentage charge with credit cards. The fee on debit cards is very low to the extent that all large retailers will accept a debit card payment for any purchase.
Anyway back to Paypal...Since it's launch in the UK it's recommended method was to associate your debit card or to a lesser extent your bank acount directly with you PP account. This way all payments or refunds go in and out of your bank account as they would do if you had just paid the vendor directly with you debit card.
Having a credit ballance on your PP account then dosn't serve much purpose, especially as they do not pay interest on it. I'm having trouble remembering the reason but I think it was simply not lawful for them to pay intrest on cash due to them not being a real bank.
Untill recently if you wanted the credit on your account paying into your bank account you had to pay a fee, same day was c.£25 or you could wait 4-5days and pay rather less.
Anyway, that was long and rambling. I worked in banking for many years doing a rather odd selection of jobs and can still remember a lot of now completely useless info :P
</OVRR>
Before this thread got paypal hijacked this question was asked and I am sure that mizjif and I aren’t the only ones who would love an answer to this. Hopefully it just got lost in the shuffle and Match missed it and not that Match wants to keep it a secret. 
Run Match, Run! They're on to you :P
Secret, huh, me, what? So....how about that baseball game the other night...
No. Not really a secret. More of an embarrassment really. The reason is...while it works ok, the longevity of the qtc pill leaves much to be desired the way I had it mounted. A little less than a month of use, it wore out. So, I'm still working on a better implementaion method. Engineering motto: There's always room for improvement...always.
With that out of the way, here's how it was mounted:
The way I set up the mini-match was by having spring pressure on the positive of the driver and tailcap (keeps the batteries in place). If you look back at the build, you'll notice the negative of the driver only makes contact with the sanded rim of the mag body. This is where I mounted the QTC. It was sandwiched between the rim of the driver and the rim of the mag body and kept in place by a small dab of superglue on one corner so as not to impede conductivity. Works ok...the only problem is the qtc doesn't much care for the constant lateral friction.
Again, I found out a month after posting this that it wasn't perfect, so I was reluctant to post it. My bad.
I kind of dismissed that idea out of hand for that very reason but will do it in the mean time just to have it working until I devise a better system. I've been thinking of how to use the + spring post on the driver with a copper center to make it rigid then utilizing the original spacer that existed at the + terminal of the battery sandwiching the qtc pad between two thin copper disks to avoid the twisting of the qtc with a stiff spring smaller in diameter than the one for the negative that comes with the p60 drop-in that will ride on the surface of the tube end to make contact with the negative of the driver. This should allow the head to be twisted to vary the qtc resistance and still keep the light looking original.
Another idea I had was to tap the end of the mag light for a small bolt to be threaded into it. On the end of that bolt on the inside ( of course) would be a similar cap with a QTC inside. Twisting the bolt would apply pressure to the QTC pad and vary resistance. The positive spring on the driver would have to be made rigid so as not to absorb the pressure on the pad. The bolt would have to be cut to the right length to be long enough to engage fully without bottoming out on the mag tail cap but short enough to not stick out too far when pad is decompressed. The bolt length would of course depend on the length of the batteries though. I'd like to avoid this idea because it would alter the external appearance of the maglite. What do you think of either of these ideas? Of course I get the credit if they work though since I came up with the ideas. ;)
I realize this is an old thread, but I tried this last night before reading the thread, by removing the tail spring completely and replacing it with a large copper rivet with a nut soldered to it. I dremeled a divot in the top of the rivet to hold the QTC. All I could get was on and off - that's when I let out a resounding "DOH!" and realized that I'd needed to remove the Ano off the threads for it to work properly.. The QTC holder I made is the perfect size, so I imagine once the ano is removed, it should work great. I'll post pics and results as soon as I have them...
Shao
So, now this is a super old thread, but did anyone find a better method?
Personally I’m a big fan of DD + QTC. Simple, infinite adjustment, unlike ramping I can easily adjust up and down.
Actually right now I’m shopping for another Peak Eiger.
I would be even bigger fan of FET+QTC with thermal shutdown though…