Hey peeps, long time reader (which is how I ended up with a D40A!) but first time poster.
My D40A is about a year old, but the plastic buttons have cracked, and they now allow water ingress… The torch was acting very strangely the other day after a stint in the rain, and when taking the battery cartridge out, I noticed it was wet inside. Not good. The metal pushbuttons below the plastic seem to have very sharp edges, which I think has contributed to the cracking of the plastic.
That is not nice! I use my D40A just as an output testing reference, so the buttons get very little use.
You might contact SWM somehow on this. At least they will want to know to prevent this in future flashlight models, and perhaps they can do something for you too. This should not happen after a year of use!
Thanks for your replies! I have contacted SWM twice via two different email addresses, but I’ve had no reply. Does anyone do spares for these torches? If not, I might end up cutting out a piece of inner tube rubber as a replacement…!
Good luck I’ve not had a good experience with SWM’s warranty, luckily tho I bought from a reputable dealer and they helped me out (tho I still haven’t received the repaired light back yet after a few months now)
A quick update on this, Sunwayman got back to me this morning, offering to send a new plastic button cover I’ve asked for two incase it happens again, and I shall be glueing some rubber to the top of the buttons to reduce the stress on the plastic… Or perhaps replacing the buttons entirely. I’ll let you know when (if) the button covers arrive…!
I’m looking at getting these to replace the metal switches that SWM has used. They’re just about the right size (slightly wider than the originals) but with plastic buttons. That should increase the longevity of the plastic cover a fair bit.
I’ve never been keen on that flexible plastic cover thing on anything (microwaves often use it) since it always cracks eventually.
I have 2 D40A’s and one looks just like yours, the brass switches stick up too far causing an imprint in the plastic cover within a few clicks then a crack soon after.
I ordered not only spare D40A covers but a couple F40A rubber covers, I trimmed the nubbins off the back of the F40A rubber cover and installed it on the offending D40A and no problems so far. I’ll try to get some pics up in the future.
How much do they charge for button covers? i have 4 x D40A and would like to replace the current poor covers with the F40A versions, which email address did you use to request the switches.
Ouch, I too have a D40A and this is bad news for sure. This is weirder still, since another light (in)famous for switch cover problems was a competing 4xAA light, the Nitecore EA4. Of course the shared issue is unrelated to battery setup.
I look forward too to a tutorial on upgrading switch cover with the F40A one.