switchtesting , (june13th2015:additional test by MRsDNF in post#44)

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
22

There's not much wrong with the switch, just some plastic deformation caused it to fail.

23

The heat would of been caused by a bad connection in the switch. is there any arcing on the contacts?

I would say your testing is working pretty good. Maybe testing on a batch of ten is next in order.

24

Ah, (language barrier), now I see your comment . ..Eehm, she wasn't there when I did that. (Shhhh, don't tell her, she still thinks that this hobby is just some innocent man thing)

25

no arcing that I can see, it must have been pure the heat caused by the resistance over the whole metal part of the switch, i measured somewhere above that the metal used is not the best conductive kind (it looks like the disc has a nice silver coating though):

26

I stopped the 16A test after 2 hours because nothing much was happenening, I got bored, and I want to go to bed. The small Omten switch ran hot, but still works fine and so does the 6A ebay switch although the resistance seems to have gone up a little.

Here's the last voltage numbers of the two remaining switches:

Small Omten 16A begin: 73 101 125 92 95 91 145 106 93 100 mV

16A 1.5hrs: 70 113 110 80 132 81 115 77 92 104 mV

6A ebay sw. 16A begin: 26 29 37 27 29 29 33 37 31 40 mV

16A 1.5hrs: 34 51 54 47 45 37 40 42 35 38 mV

I did not expect the switches to work so well. Perhaps the Mcclicky and the Judco(Tofty) switch have a lower resistance (can someone measure that for me?, I'm curious about that), but it is not that these switches fail easily. My ideas on these switches: they eventually fail from heating up, and they get rid of the heat via the leads. If the heat can travel a short distance from the leads to a flashlight body (thick solder blobs all the way to where the leads go into the switch and the leads in direct contact with the aluminium, and such) the switch may well perform even better than in this test where the heat must directly dissipate into the air.

Hope you liked these tests, good night :-)

27

There is but I could not measure the resistance in the Tofty switch with any of my DMM.

28

A DMM, when measuring resistance, uses a small constant current and then measures the voltage (that is what I think it does). When the resistance is very low the voltage is below what the DMM can measure. The way to go with very low resistances is use a much larger current than your DMM does (like more than 1 amp, or 16 :evil: ) and then the voltage is measurable, and the resistance can be calculated.

29

Thanks for doing these test.

I’ve had 3 switches fail recently. One at 3.04 amps, one a 4.8 amps and one at 5.1 amps. These switches were not Omten but generic switches in different lights. They all failed by dimming to barely visable light or going completely off.

It appears that the Omten are much better switches, I have 6 Omten 250v 1.5 amps switches on the way with full confidence in their ability thanks to your test.

30

Thank you for soing these tests. Sure must have been boring though. So much more thank you :-)

31

I'd like to see tests with the same currents but pwm-ed?Because constant current does nothing to switch,except generating heat,but maybe fast pulsating (for ex. 1khz pwm) current cause some additional "electrical wear" damage?I'm just guessing.

32

I think the set-up would still work with this resistor load and a FET-driver, so it must be doable. Say PWM causes more wear, it also means less heat because it is used to make lower modes. What would be more damaging (rhetorical question)?

I'm not going to do any more switchtesting this month (holidays, a nice mod in the planning), so there's plenty of time to think of other switch-tests worth doing :-)

33

Do you think the first switch passed along its heat to the second switch which in turn acted as a heat sink for the third switch?

34

I had a McClicky fail in an odd way, nothing wrong with the contacts but the light wouldn’t turn OFF. The spring inside the switch collapsed from the heat at just over 10A and wouldn’t press the components to cycle through the ballpoint mechanism. Hence, the light stayed on.

I have a cheap looking switch in my Sinner Ti that is Yanguo or something like that, it’s taking 9A to an MT-G2 ok so far. I worry about it, as it would take the same or one almost exactly like it to replace as there’s little room in the tail cap.

Thanks for the extensive testing and lip sacrifice, means a lot to a great many of us. Tell you girlfriend there’s thousands depending on your results and you’re doing it for the team. :wink:

35

Thanks for the test, the omten switches really are good. I have the 5pack of the small switches from cnqg they are cheap, reliable and have low resistance. They are only rated for 1A but don’t have problems with 5A. I also measured the voltage over the switch but in the mV range I don’t trust the DMM to get a absolute value but I always test it at 5A and if the resistance is below 100mV I let it stock and if it’s more I put one of the cheap omten in it.
The ebay switch seems to be a lot better but on the other side 60mV more or less is not the world, some tailcaps from eswitch lights have more resistance.

Before I got the switches from cnqg I often opened the stockswitches and tinned all the metal parts that helped often but was a lot of work. The switches which have only one contact on the side and one on the back are the worst because the current paths is through the spring…

36

Given the resistance in the nickel plated tabs I think you may be right about the copper wires at either end providing a sink for the outer two switches. The design of the failed switch looks good with no current through the spring(usual failure point of cheap switches) so maybe another test with the failed type at one of the outer positions and one of the others in the middle. See which switch survives that handicap best.

37

Thanks for the tested as always djozz :slight_smile:

I have read this tread up & down several times now & i can not find any info on where we can get this “6A ebay switch” is this some well know item?
Please give me more info so can find these & stock up on the clearly superior switch :slight_smile: i have tried to find it on ebay but my searches failed.

38

Here’s the thread . It’s linked in the OP of this post.

39

First two words after the second picture in the op are a link to a thread about that switch. The eBay link is in the op of that thread.
-FMC beat me to it. :slight_smile:

40

Thanks guys :slight_smile: i don’t know how i could have missed it :open_mouth: i think i was so curious to find out his result of the test :slight_smile:

One of my favorite BLF days are when i learn some new way to get more performance out of my builds :slight_smile: this is one of those days :bigsmile: thanks again djozz :wink:

41

Any chance you could pop open the other two switches for an inside by inside comparison of the parts?