It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and normally I wouldn’t post anything so seemingly “duh” but I had this experience TWICE in the same day on two different flashlights, so I thought my experience might benefit someone else.
I have a Nitecore EC4 that would not turn on. Since it had been a while since I had used it, I checked batteries, but after recharging, still no light. Checked contacts for corrosion, and they looked good - nothing looked out of place or damaged.
Looked up forum threads on light failures, specifically the EC4, nothing helpful. I looked up threads about returning the EC4 for repair, and that sounded like a non-starter for me (pay to ship to China, MAYBE they can repair, probably for a fee…) So, I am just about to toss the light in my parts bin, considering it an interesting, though potentially difficult donor light, when on a whim, I pulled on the rear tail spring, reassembled the light, tried the switch again (why not?) and it worked! Apparently, the rear springs had become compressed enough that the batteries were not making contact sufficiently to power the light, even though the springs looked fine to me. I was using Samsung 30Q cells, so shorter than some, so it kinda made sense that the spring might not have been adequate length before I stretched it a bit.
Checking out some other lights that hadn’t been used in a while, and found my Nitecore EC11 wasn’t working - and it had exactly the same problem. This light uses a 16340 cell, and the spring in the tail cap was nearly flat. I stretched it out a bit, and success again!
I hope it was purely coincidence that both affected lights were Nitecore.
At any rate, lesson learned - if a light isn’t working, check all the simple stuff like battery charge, condition of contacts and the spring first, before thinking or doing anything drastic. Glad to have my lights working again!
