Received mine today. I can confirm it won't fit any 18350, not even a flat top 16340. Either they redesigned the tailcap or planned on using a low profile button on the driver, then replaced it with a big stiff spring. Unusable without modding. Just insert a 18350, push down as hard as you can - it still sits over the battery tube, and therefore the tailcap cannot be tightened enough to make contact.
It's a chunky one, but just sitting in that machined out spot. Seen this many times before. It's gotta collapse maybe 1-2 mm above the bottom for the cell to fit w/solder boob.
This is my temp solution. Banggood should still make good this faulty designed flashlight and send us the proper tube.
Remove the tail spring and fit 3 magnets to the -ve end of the 18350. Tail spring can be easily pulled out of the cap, and no soldering required. It then fit quite nicely, provided you happens to have the magnets.
Nice! With the solder job I did, the S41 tail works great with it. The S41 tail spring is real soft, plus it's got more clearance.
Battery tubes are identical between the S41 and S42, though the S41 feels slightly heavier.
A shorter or softer tail spring would probably work well, but dunno what options you'd have. Can't just solder in a replacement. Maybe can cut down the stock one, then solder a softer one to the remaining bottom ring of the stock spring.
Is that simpler than removing the driver spring and cutting off a coil from the tail spring?
You’ll have to wait a month for an extra part and it will not look nice when the tube is not screwed in the head all the way.
Dang, taking off the bezel, thought I was real careful, but the first movement I heard something that didn't sound right - broke a post off the quad optic . Super thin and tall posts - wow.
I think with the solder blob for the driver spring, there's something that can be done for a soft spring in the tail. Didn't check any 18650 tubes yet i got around.
No, I’m hoping there is a simple solution that BangGood/Astrolux can send out which will solve the problem definitively. Pulling the tail spring and putting in spacers seems fine for a temporary solution. I am astounded that they manged to hose it up given that this is really an incremental change from the S41. A different length tube just seems like another opportunity to mess up.
Does anyone who has an S42 in hand have an 18650 tube to see if the same problem exists with the long tube?