CRC 2-26.....Discovered a great cheap product for electrical contacts.....

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

Just discovered this by pure chance at Home Depot in electrical. I was actually looking for the vaunted & apparently can be hard to find 3in1 Professional Silicone Spray (which they didn’t have) and noticed this little can on the bottom shelf……

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/electrical/fish-tapes-lubes/crc-2-26-5-oz-multi-purpose-lubricant-02004.html

So for $2.98 I thought what the heck. Boy am I glad I came across it. Let me tell you, this product works wonders and then some for safely cleaning, lubing, & protecting threads and in general all contact surfaces where electrical resistance should be minimized and electrical conductivity needs to be maximized. How do I know? I had some lights that were starting to flicker. So I took them apart and wherever electrical pathways needed to be maximized and protected I swabbed them with a Q-Tip dipped in the 2-26. The black cruddy stuff that came off onto the Q-tip was profound. Plus again it lubed the threads with a very fine film. According to the can, 2-26 “leaves a thin, molecular, non-hardening film”.

Needless to say there are no more flickers whatsoever on all lights treated. And I dare say their output is brighter. One other thing, this stuff doesn’t dry out and leave minute particles everywhere - which in my mind aren’t probably the best thing to have floating around anyway. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe the 3n1 silicone spray does dry out into tiny particles.

I think you don’t want any kind of dielectric products on conductive threads & contact areas, right? Some silicone lubes can have this dielectric effect. On o-rings no problem to use a silicone-type lube but otherwise I think you really want some of this kinda stuff that’s also importantly safe on plastics. I’m now coming to find out that a lot of electricians use 2-26.

Give it a try and see what you think. I think you’ll be duly impressed. $2.98 for a compact spray can that’ll probably last you decades.

Further proof? The little promo Ti that I received today from Thrunite after about test 10 twist-on-and-offs suddenly would only go into “firefly mode” and not high. I’m thinking great a defecto. Took out the 2-26, sprayed a touch into a Dixie Cup, dipped the Q-tip, and proceeded to swab all threads. The swab came out black. Swabbed it again until it stayed white. Guess what? Fixed the problem immediately. And I do declare the little Ti is now definitely brighter. No doubt about it.

I tell ya, I’m onto something here. $2.98? Forget-a-bout-it. This stuff rocks. 8)

This is for the 11oz can it appears per one of the comments. I think they also carry this size at Home Depot. Don’t need even that much for our type lights unless you were doing production. The 5 oz can believe me is P-L-E-N-T-Y. I should get a sales-rep position with this company. I’d sell tons.

http://www.amazon.com/CRC-Industries-02005-Multipurpose-Lubricant/dp/B0013J41KW

2

Interesting. I may have to pick some up.

3

what you think too. Btw, the stuff can be tenaciously odiferous on the fingers. I’ve learned to wear latex gloves. It’s not stinky bad per se just lingers if you get my drift in a kinda WD-40 sorta way.

4

I think there are times when it is needed however I would not use it on any lights that are direct driven because those lights need the resistance to limit the current. (I think I remember you saying you got a HD2010 so don't use it on that) I know what you mean by it lingers, most of the lubricants for flashlights do.

5

I´ve been using it myself for 20 years, good for all-round use, I have used it a lot in older cars.

6

Yeah, I just ordered one. Thx for mentioning this.

7

I actually don't have the HD2010. However, I should probably remedy that. :P The reason I say that is because with a good battery the HD2010 will pull 3-5 amps stock and if you reduce the resistance much more. I experienced the same problem with an old XM-L drop in when I replaced the wires with teflon ones and wired the spring. I fried the thing.

8

CRC is excellent stuff and cheap. It does work wonders on contact points.
My 2cents, i use Deoxit Gold for fine LED contacts only because it leaves a
conductive coating. This stuff works wonders as well.
So , i choose to pay $15.00 for 1/4 ounce spray of Deoxit and 4 bucks
for a can of CRC at least 10 times larger in volume ( red can). Is the difference
worth the extra money? I cant say conclusivly one way or the
other. I can say either products have failed and both substances enhance, clean, and protect
electric contacts and components. And without worry of damaging or shorting

9

I just received a nice gray Foy-style HD 2010 today from TMart. Put in a fully charged 18650. Click it on. It shines! Yeah! Great! Then about 10 seconds later while on high it shuts completely off. Dead. Nada. Take out the batt. Threads pretty dry. Lubed them up with SuperLube. Again, lites up, then after 10 seconds shuts off.

Crap.

Then I remembered the CRC 2-26 that it’s also a thin-film lubricant besides a electrical contact cleaner. Dipped some Q-tips in it and proceeded to swab out every thread fore and aft including the driver area pill mating surfaces, the driver positive face itself, and even the spring. Swabs come out dark gray especially from the threads. Kept doing it until they came out white.

After that I immediately assembled the light back together. Put in the same batt.

Lights up now like nobody’s biz. And stays lit. Functions perfect in all modes all the time.

What else can I say? Except……………………

I’m a believer.

From now on I will do this as a habit to every light before I even think of firing it up. I don’t care if it’s a $1,000 torch from the most highly-rated supplier in the world. It’s gonna get cleaned up first with 2-26. I’ll still lube the o-rings with SuperLube though.

10

Glad to hear it works! Do you have a DMM? If so you may want to measure current to make sure it isn't over powering the LED.

11

DMM and am getting an average of 2.62 on high out the tail on a near fresh TF 18650.

12

Good, just wanted to make sure you weren't getting anything to extreme. :)

13

In your first post you mentioned that after thoroughly cleaning and lubing the threads and contacts properly the output is brighter? I agree 100%, I’ve noticed the same thing too. When that dark grey stuff comes out it makes a difference in overall light output.

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I could be just imagining that it’s brighter but I gotta tell ya I’m not concretely sure in a scientific objective sense. I mean I do know for a fact that every single light I’ve treated with this stuff has continued to operate flawlessly. From a technical standpoint if electrical contacts end up more efficiently conductive after 2-26 then it intuitively follows that output should increase. How much? Well that’s the question. There is however no doubt whatsoever that after 2-26 output has not gone down. My eyes (if they can truly be believed) and brain tell me this stuff makes lights brighter. But I’d like to see some math to back-up what I think I’m observing.

I think we need one of the big gurus here to do a science-grade lux test.

Any takers? 8)

15

Thx for this post! Gotta go grab some soon and report back whenever I do.