I got my S4 host from FastTech and I’m having a problem getting the tailcap assembled correctly. Here are some photos on how I put it together.
The leads to the switch were soldered to the pads on the PCB. I made sure that the switch was sitting flat against the PCB when it was soldered.
Place the washer on top of the switch.
Solder the spring to the opposite side of the PCB and screw the assembly into the tailcap.
If it gets screwed too far into the tailacap, then the glow in the dark rubber cover starts to bulge and the switch doesn’t latch properly or consistently. If I unscrew it one or two turns, then it won’t allow the tailcap to screw all the way onto the body of the flashlight. Here you can see the tailcap tightened as far as it will go, but it still needs another millimeter for it to cover the o-ring.
Did I assemble this correctly, or is there something I’m overlooking?
Done a few of these with no problems, the method appears correct, how many O rings did you use?
I use just the one, another possibility is the green tail cap might be a little too long, IE: it is too close to the switch,
unfortunately I have gifted all my S4 lights, so unable to do a measurement comparison of the tail cap rubber
Or the switch they provided is too high, trimming the rubber might help.
If I remember correctly my last S4 had a nice soft rubber actuation of the switch.
The flat washer doesn't have a raised section to fit the ID of the boot like most plastic spacers do, so there's nothing to keep the boot from squeezing out through the hole. Find some scrap plastic tubing that fits inside the boot, or cut down a plastic spacer from another light if you have a well-populated junk parts box.
Trim 1-2mm off of the nub inside the rubber boot. That will allow you to tighten the retaining ring all the way and still give the switch enough room to work consistently.
Thanks for the help. Now that I know it was put together correctly, I feel better about modding the washer/boot. I was afraid to start cutting into the light if it was something I did wrong during the assembly.
Right now it’s just one o-ring. I wasn’t sure if the extra o-rings were just spares or if I was to use more than one at a time.
Thanks, that’s probably what I’ll do first. Try to make my own plastic washer.
I’ll try that if the washer trick doesn’t work. I’m little hesitant about cutting up the boot since I don’t have a spare to replace it with when I screw up the first one beyond repair.
