Tail Cap Glowing Blue - How to turn off? Tool AA 2.0

In order to turn it off, you will need to remove the switch and disconnect the resistor(s) or LED (s). Blue LEDs are actually quite efficient, not as efficient as green, but pretty good. The blue tailcap in my JAXMAN E2L draws just 0.21 mA, so it lasts 1.6 years with a Samsung 30Q battery.

Have you tried to measure the current?

What a weird feature. How much it drain the battery?

I just twist the front of mine to turn it off. Doing this also makes sure I don’t accidentally turn it on while it’s in my pocket!

That’s actually the correct way according Lumintop

One thing to take into consideration is if you loose you’re light etc. that blue glow will help you out big time. I lost a tool AA 2.0 in our field but it didn’t have the blue light on it. I sure wish it did. It would have given me a greater chance to track it down. in which is still lost till today.

Does anyone have a link to a tail lighted Tool AA V2?

Im in UK and cannot find one, Amazon US wont ship here due to lockdown restrictions.

https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_dZYVnH6

I ordered this one and a white one and they both showed up with tail switch lights. I prefer an unlit switch for EDC, but it's not the worst thing in the world.

The Tool Ti also comes standard with a lit switch.

I just put a small screwdriver against the LEDs to push them off.
I liked them, but disliked the 8mA drain.
Drained a cell in a few weeks

My ToolTi tail has 6 leds, is just as bright as stock, and pulls just 0.6 mA :smiley: (ok, it was a lot of work :innocent: )

(BLF-A6 driver, 690 Ohm bleeder, 630nm leds on a ring-PCB with 4 KOhm resistance shared)

Since this light doesn’t have LVP, does the blue tailcap light provide any low voltage warning? Not while the light is on, of course, but if you turn it off and the cell is at 3.2V, maybe the blue is off or very dim?

Lol, i just notice today with NiMH aa!

Seems that there are two groups Tool V2 owners here on BLF:
1/ People who got a Tool with a lighted tailcap and don’t want it.
2/ People who got a Tool with a regular switch and want it lighted.
unles I forget the silent majority, which is:
3/ People who have a Tool V2 and like it as it is.

The solution for the first group is very simple, buy a regular Omten switch on 17mm PCB.
There is a catch, because the standard PCB is a bit too wide to fit.
Reduce the diameter of the PCB to about 16mm and all will be fine.
That takes about 1 minute on a bench grinder, or a lot of elbow grease when using a file.

Personally I think it is a bit of a waste to destroy a standard lighted Lumintop switch.
But then again: who am I to tell you what (not) te do?

You are wrong I got both tailcaps!

I think lighted tail caps are like crenellations and bottle openers, a result of feature creep and a needless feature. Do one thing, do it well, do nothing else, do not try to make it something that it is not. I have a knife and a bottle opener… don’t need a knife and a bottle opener on every other tool. I have an emitter on the front, and light should come out the front, not the back. If I need a way to find a light in the dark that is off, this problem has already been solved far more ideally and elegantly with glowing tape or trits. It isn’t just some flashlights, far too many things have too many lights on them, take anyone’s home, and the kitchen utilities and den cable box and modern receivers are filled with useless lights, ruining the dark of night with blue light. Car dashboards are now filled with useless lights, and they can be blinding. Technology, in a lot of ways, needs to get over how cool LEDs are, and stop sticking them on ever damn thing for no reason.

Seems that blue is the most common color for lighted tail caps, and that is even more unfortunate, as blue is brightest, resets circadian rhythms to the opposite of natural, and will cause insomnia, not kidding. If you’re going to have a light in the tail, it should be red to avoid messing with your sleep. While locking out the light, if the light will lock out (unlike my BLF Cu X5! Love the light, but with that feature the designers here jumped the shark), so locking out is a way to turn it off, but there should be some driver-based control. The way they are implemented, as far as I have seen… it is just not a mature feature, sort of an afterthought and slapped on there.

Anyone knows an AA (not 14500) light that has a lighted switch ?

Henk4U2 — Couldn’t you just remove the led or resistor from the board that’s in the tailcap? You have to get the PCB out of the tailcap, but same if you’re replacing it.

nocturne — while that’s a really long rant about a little blue light… I kinda gotta agree. Glad I have a 2009 car without much on it ( no obnoxious big screen for one thing). There are more than a few things I have with a bit of black tape or sharpie ink over a LED and, yes, usually an OBNOXIOUSLY BRIGHT blue one (looking at you - BT speakers) that is sometimes blinking, to boot. OTOH, the dim blue tailcap isn’t going to mess with anyone’s sleep unless they hold it on their eyeball, in which case they have other issues. I would agree that it is an afterthought, and a bad feature, based only on how quickly it drains batteries. That’s WAY too much standby draw. WAY too much.

Easiest way to turn it off? Use NiMH instead of 14500.

It would be SO nice if Lumintop would let the user switch the tail cap LED on or off in the UI menu. It would then retain the feature and everyone could be happy. I think disabling it by loosening the head kind of defeats the purpose of buying a clicky, right?

I think it would have to have a dedicated fet and a free mcu pin to do that in the UI. The tailcap gets power by bypassing the driver.
A simple DIP switch could be installed in the tailcap if they did ever want to add a way to turn the tailcap on or off.
https://www.newark.com/e-switch/kae01sggt/dip-switch-1pos

[quote=moderator007]
I think it wuld have to have a dedicated fet and a free mcu pin to do that in the UI. The tailcap gets power by bypassing the driver. A simple DIP switch could be installed in the tailcap if they did ever want to add a way to turn the tailcap on or off. “https://www.newark.com/e-switch/kae01sggt/dip-switch-1pos”:https://www.newark.com/e-switch/kae01sggt/dip-switch-1pos-spst-slide-smd/dp/61W9693?

[/QUOTE]

Both options sound like they would increase parts or productions costs too much to be practical in a $20 light? Oh well...

I just e-mailed Lumintop asking if I could exchange my LED tail switches for non-lit versions. I also suggested making the tail switch light user-selectable.

THIS! My lumintop tool 2.0 UV tailswitch is lighted. I twist the head when finished using the light, but other people forget (and use my light). I don’t want to removed it, sometimes that feature is useful.

Very satisfied otherwise…