Best lube for the itp A3 eos (aluminum version)

And any site to get it cheap????

I can probably get 50g of the stuff for the same money - I'd be happy to post it to you. I will get back to you with prices.

Personally I'd just use lithium grease which should cost a lot less and is available at every car place.

I have that lithium grease. I will test in an old flashlight and see the results!

However I will continue waiting a good price on clear silicone grease

Thanks Don

http://www.tait-components.com/Cleaners-and-Solvents/Greases-and-Lubricants/silicone-grease-50g-tube-690111.html

I have an account with them and am about to order some networking gear. I will need some grease for the job so the customer will be paying for it. I have about half a tube that I am happy to send to you for the cost of the postage since I'm getting the replacement basically for nothing. There is about 25g in the tube which ought to be enough for about ten years. Just PM me your address and I will post it tomorrow. Since I am also in the EU the postage won't be more than 3 euros I'd guess.

Hi Don, thanks.

For the moment I inform that I have tested my lithium grease (yellow colored one) and it works!!! Is not like the liquid substance used in the A3 eos but does the job.

I tested a an old flashlight, and screwed and unscrewed it about 50 times and goes very well. I dont know how will react the silicone or rubber orings.

I will take your offer if the lithium grease destroys the orings. But for the moment, appears good

The cleanest stuff I've found for metals is mineral oil. I use it for tools/blades/etc. It's also everywhere and practically free. AKA Baby oil (which has a tiny bit of fragrance added). Food safe just in case you like to lick your lights. LOL.

I think that's also what's in the little bottle of oil which is included with my Philips shaver. The tiny bottle, which is great as an applicator has lasted forever on flashlights.

I've also tried fairly pure silicone oil. That stuff works well on plastics, but I find can stick slightly with metals. No idea why.

Well I went to research this a bit. It turns out mineral oil is petroleum based, similar to the vaseline/jelly Don describes above. I think the oil is preferable since it penetrates better (get all the gunk out of those light the first time you use it), and ends up looking very clean. I'm not sure why Don says they'll attack natural rubber; wouldn't they attack any petroleum rubber rings since they're essential a petroleum solvent in order to be liquid? Sorry I'm not knowledgble in chemistry.

WD-40 FTW!

Don't you agree Don?

Most petroleum based substances in liquid form will harden and eventually destroy natural rubber. The higher the temperature, the faster this will happen.

Since natural rubber is expensive it hasn't been used to make O rings in years. The stuff used for O rings these days is invariably synthetic and is much less likely to be attacked by lubricants - it is normally a butadiene-styrene copolymer or some sort of carefully controlled molecular weight silicone polymer. This will not be damaged by any lubricant that I know of.

If a light needs cleaning of factory lubricant and general mess, WD40 works well to dissolve and shift it. However, WD40 is not really a lubricant so it needs to be wiped off. I prefer to use heavier lubricants as they don't end up on my clothes as oils tend to. Others may have better technique than I do...

I was kidding about the WD-40 (just making fun of your sig).

I use hobby R/C lubricant for my lights and it works great. The stuff is lightweight though so I have to wipe most of it off.

Now that's a good idea - DX have several bottles that look useful for such jobs

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5030

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5068

I think I'll put some of those in my next DX order and try an oil rather than a grease for lubrication.

I use Triflow: http://www.triflowlubricants.com/Tri-Flow_Pin_Point_Lubricant.html

The needle point applicator is nice. Those bottles from DX look very useful.

However, WD40 is not really a lubricant so it needs to be wiped off.

Hmm.. I'm not sure. Wiki entry for WD40 interpretes its MSD sheet and it seems to include just mineral oil as longer lasting ingredient /lubricant.

The solvents involved seem a bit nasty, though. The EU sheet seems to conflict slightly on what the volatile parts are, but I'm out of depth there.

Most safety sheets are scarier than the substances concerned. The light aliphatic hydrocarbons (butane, pentane, hexane, heptane, octane, etc.) have essentially no chemistry, they react with oxygen when provoked (i.e., they burn when you light them) and that is about it.

The light stuff is being used as a solvent for some heavy petroleum goo which has been hydrogenated probably to make it less chemically reactive - this will also make it less toxic as it should get rid of most aromatic (ring-shaped, like benzene which is very nasty stuff) substances in it. However, it is designed to coat, not to lubricate, it tends to wash out other lubricants. I use it as a solvent rather than a lubricant and wipe it off afterwards. This may leave a small amount of heavier oil around but I try to get rid of all of it by cleaning thoroughly. It does tend to get everywhere though. This is what it is designed to do.

The smell when it burns is quite distinctive and doesn't smell like any hydrocarbon I'm aware of. However I am not current in chemistry, it is 28 years since I graduated and I don't work in the field any more.

For o-ring chemistries, I found this:

http://www.marcorubber.com/materialguide.htm

http://www.elderrubber.com/material.htm

What I can gather is that silicone oil is not good on silicone ring, and petroleum is not good with others like EPDM. Prolly all because of the solvent issue. Nitrile seems resistent to everything. So basically, we're screwed unless the chinese manufacturers let us know what they use.

Here's a thread that I read a while back that helped with my lube questions. Most people here already know about it and maybe you already read it but here it is anyway.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=242414

I myself use Nyogel.

http://www.cpfreviews.com/Flashlight-Care-Nyogel-Lubricants.php

Nitrile is stated to be the cheapest. Unless there is some very good reason, I'd not expect them to use anything else. Ozone and weather resistance aren't very important inside a light though the heat resistance might be. I suspect that this isn't melting of the ring, but hardening and cracking.

Found some bulk prices. Nitrile is about $3000 per ton, natural rubber is currently around $3800 per ton. The price difference isn't as big as I thought.

I myself still need something. My fake Solarforce L2 arrived dry and is still dry nearly a month later. Only had aerosols, motor oil of some kind and chain lube (which I found out had hydrocarbons), none seemed a great idea. Had a look at a local hardware store and didn't find anything better. The CPF thread was interesting but as with most things CPF fairly US centric.

Have now found silicone grease http://newzealand.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=getProduct&R=0283404 about NZ$12.50 including GST (and delivery is free) for a 50g tube which isn't too bad. May have a look again in the plumbing section of my hardware store to see if there's anything there although I'm not hopeful.

I was wondering how likely it was that the o-rings would actually be damaged, may just try Vaseline. Or the chain lube

2. COMPOSITION
Ingredients EC-nr. CAS-nr. Weight-% Class. R-phrases
Polyalfaolefines 500-183-1 68037-01-4 50-80 IK
Residual oils (petroleum) hydrotreated 265-160-8 64742-57-0 10-20 IK

I've used chain lube in the past. The stuff sold in sprays for chainsaws works well but is a pig to remove from the places you don't want it to go. It is probably a bit too tarry for small stuff though.

The RS silicone will do fine, it likely came out of the same factory as the stuff I use.

I've not had O rings eaten by any lube I've used though plenty of rubbish quality ones have fallen apart on me.

Fran, is this the lithium grease that you are using?

Would this be good to use in flashlights?

Spanish link: http://www.wd40.es/dynamic-GRASA%20COMPACTA.htm?fid=4&cid=9&pid=1061

Couldn't find any english link for this product, but here is the link with Google translator: http://translate.google.pt/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=pt-PT&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wd40.es%2Fdynamic-GRASA%2520COMPACTA.htm%3Ffid%3D4%26cid%3D9%26pid%3D1061&sl=es&tl=en