Okay, I’m actually on my second of these lights. And it’s doing EXACTLY the same thing that the first one did. Specifically, the light will start to flicker. Originally, I thought little of this, and passed it off as intermittently poor battery contact. No biggie. But eventually, the light goes into what looks like a permanent ‘moonlight mode’. Yet this is a single mode light, and shouldn’t be doing this. At this time, I’m debating whether I should try another or just throw in the towel with this light.
I bought 2 originally; and one of them would flicker sometimes when I turned it on.
I took it back for credit. Sounds like a percentage of them have a defect.
I have a terrible problem with them… none of the stores in Dallas seem to have them (at least on the inventory checker they don’t even recognize the SKU, same for the 2xAA lights).
Well, a third one bites the dust! It looks like these lights possibly have a driver problem. When I took the second one back, the guy at Home Depot measured 7.5V at the LED! He didn’t seem to think this was a problem, since this is battery voltage. However, as I’m sure many know here, that will FRY an XM-L (especially with NiMH, which will hold voltage under a load). When my third light bit the dust, I measured 7.0V at the emitter (with NiMH). Somehow, the driver is getting fried, and allowing full battery voltage to reach the emitter.
Interestingly, the light seems to fry when I pull out the alkaleaks and drop in my Tenergy Centuras. Makes me wonder whether this light is quite possibly using a direct drive setup and using the internal resistance of the alkaleaks to limit current.
Looks like I have a choice here: return the light and throw in the towel OR keep it and use it as a host. Luckily, this particular light came apart easy. So it looks like this is a distinct possibility. Maybe I can do that MT-G2? Or at the very least, a higher current XM-L2.
texaspyro: I picked up the 2aa 2 pack the other day. The guy at the desk said they are being discontinued…
Great little lights for the price!! Surprisingly bright and well made… I want to grab a couple more packs for gifts.
I think I might have found out what’s up with these lights. With my other Defiant lights, I CAN’T move the star on the pill. It would seem that the star is glued down pretty good with thermal adhesive. But the 5C just seems to use thermal grease, and not very much at that. It seems like there’s about an 8mm dab of it between the star and the pill. And that (along with the bezel/reflector holding the star down) just doesn’t seem to be enough to ensure proper heatsinking of the LED. So, from what I gather, the LED seems to be overheating. And I assume that, once the LED fries, the driver is going to try to give it maximum voltage to flow the required current. Perhaps all that is required to get this light to work right is some thermal adhesive. Or even just more thermal grease.