It doesn’t sound related to the inner tube at all. The inner tube is only responsible for controlling the switch. When you have a complete loss of power as the amperage draw increases it points to something else. Perhaps really high resistance through the body connections or battery connections.
Middle age man, you’re using a flat top battery and not a button top, right? You by try cleaning the threads and battery connections.
Jason, I defer to your experience. Somehow mine stopped acting up after tightening the ends. Maybe the connection to the driver with the outer tube was bad? It stopped doing it totally by itself knock on wood.
I got that sort of thing, and loosening/tightening/cleaning fixed it. I blamed phantom button-clicks, momentary interruptions of the circuit.
I just want to say that maybe Teflon shouldn’t be referred to as food-grade. While it is arguably stable on pots and pans (until scratched), it shouldn’t be consumed.
If anyone wants my opinions about Dupont and Teflon in general…
Anyways, yes, electrical contacts should get dielectric grease - be they bulb sockets, flashlight threads, or whatever. A lot of times “Nyogel” is used as a generic recommendation; as mentioned in this thread, there are many types, and 760G is what you want for your flashlights.
It’s petroleum-based lubricants like vaseline that will stretch or dissolve rubber o-rings.
I am using a flat top 30Q. I have cleaned the contacts and threads; the threads were a bit dirty. I am also noticing that when ramping up and down, there is a gap in brightness, i.e. there is a sudden jump in brightness from medium low to medium high and vice-versa, rather than a smooth transition.
Scariest documentary I remember seeing.
Wow, so in addition to turning off (occasionally) while ramping up, it also has a sudden jump in brightness?
Man, I would see about getting a replacement. Sounds like there is an issue with the driver. There are three channels and it’s designed to transition through all 3 smoothly. If it’s not transmitting the pwm signal for channel two it will ramp up through channel one and then stay at that brightness level until channel two goes 100% and then you might see the jump in brightness. That would be a pretty big jump though. What you’re describing sounds very strange like there’s a problem in the MCU.
What does it do when you double-click to go to Turbo? Does it sometimes go to Turbo and sometimes turn off?
Turbo works fine. The problem is intermittent, so it was working fine all yesterday and last night. This morning it was switching off consistently when ramping - around the mid-level brightness. Switching it to turbo and off a few times just now has reset it to normal, save for the jump in brightness, which is not that big. I am wondering if it might be a switch problem.
It turning off seems highly unlikely to be related to the switch. If the switch circuit got disconnected it would simply stop ramping as if you are taking your finger off the button. If the switch circuit got shorted it would continue to ramp all the way as if you were holding down the button. If the switch circuit got disconnected and then reconnected it would jump to Turbo. I can’t think of any thing related to the switch that could make it turn off while ramping up.
The one exception being is if the switch circuit got disconnected for at least 1 second and then somehow reconnected very briefly. That would simulate you ramping up, taking your finger off the switch for a second and then doing a single click. This would turn the light off but I find the odds of all of that happening just like I described to be extremely unlikely.
Besides something wrong with the driver, I’m not thinking of too many other things that it could be. Maybe temperature related? You said going to Turbo seemed to fix it and turbo does generate a lot of heat. I’m sorry I’m not of much help.
I wonder if you can buy a new driver really cheap. Has anybody seen drivers for sale?
I am thinking of posting to see if anyone is willing to swap out the driver for a Lume1 CC driver.
You can’t solder? It’s not that hard and the equipment is not that expensive. It’s definitely a good ability to have.
I’m planning on reflashing my FW3A with Anduril2, and i see there is a no-FET version. I’m guessing I’ll be able to tell when I take the driver out to flash if there’s a FET or not, and it was advertised to have a FET and produce 2800 lumen. Is there a no FET version available commercially, or do folks remove the FET as a mod?
Some LEDs (eg, 219B) could be damaged using a FET. The no-fet firmware simply disables the FET without having to physically remove it.
that makes sense. I see there’s a 219 version also, maybe for the 219c emitter?
my FW3A was purchased on amazon, it didn’t specify the emitter. I’m guessing because of that its not a 219, is that a decent assumption?
The listing should tell you what LEDs you have. If you don’t see it, try to post a link to where you bought it from and we’ll take a look.
You’re right JasonWW, it was in the title of the listing, as well as in the descriptions, 3 Cree XP-L HI LEDS 
I got a question about blip at 1x7135 - if I’m ramping from floor and I want to stay on exactly on 1x7135 level - should I stop ramping right at the blip? Or I should go higher, and then ramp back down and stop at the blip?
Anything below the blip is the 1 x 7135 channel. If you ramp up you may go too high, so it’s better to ramp down.
Oh thank you, so when the blip happens when ramping up - it’s already higher the 1 × 7135, that’s what I wanted to know