I got my brand new Fireflies E12R today and promptly got the tail cap badly stuck trying to unscrew it. It’s halfway unscrewed, not budging a millimeter forward or back, and I’m afraid that taking tools to it will break it. Does anybody have advice on how I can fix this? They’re aluminum threads, no anodizing, no lubricant, square cut.
Very bummed after waiting two weeks, and worried that it’ll be damaged even if I get it unstuck.
Update: it’s fixed, see below. Thank you guys.
Update 2: Fireflies offered me a replacement tube and tail cap. I declined, I mention it here just so as not to give a wrong impression of the company.
Thanks very much for the advice, SYZYGY and turkeydance. It’s unstuck now, just pliers and WD-40 did the trick. I feel like a bit of an idiot now, I guess I just needed reassurance it wouldn’t break.
The threads are a bit messed up, but I can get it on and off and the contact seems good, so I think I’ll just only use the head side.
No pic in the first post just because I couldn’t see any difference between its state and just unscrewing it a half inch, but here’s what the threads look like now.
I got a T9R at the same time and the threads feel much smoother. For comparison:
So you bought the light, removed tail cap , installed battery, screwed on tail cap, now it does not come off? These threads are not tight fitting. Is there any chance you cross threaded it? I think this may be a first for BLF. If I had to guess, the o ring got jammed in the threads and that would explain why it does not go in or out.
You are gonna have to try harder. Possibly with rubber gloves on.
It came with the battery installed, but yeah, I unscrewed it, screwed it back on, tried to unscrew it a second time and got it stuck. It was very rough even before getting stuck. It was past the o-ring and I could see the o-ring all around, so I’m sure it wasn’t that. I did think I cross-threaded it, but trying to back it out just seemed to get it more firmly stuck, and strategic whacks (after removing the head, of course) didn’t help, and when it came off with the pliers it was by unscrewing, not tightening then retrying.
Wow, that is bad news.
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Look at it while turning the light to see if the tailcap wobbles out of concentric with the body.
If so, the side that is offset away from the body is the side the thread is climbing on.
The next thing to do is get a ziplock sandwich bag, fill it 1/2 full of ice and water.
Tape it to the battery tube, get a hair dryer and heat up the tailcap.
Heat and cold will maximize size difference.
Lightly tap around 1/2 the diameter opposite the side it is trying to climb on and screw it in the tightening direction, lightly tapping the tailcap simultaneously.
The object is to relieve pressure while reversing the direction it got cross-threaded.
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Good Luck, and Welcome to BLF
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You might have galling problem. Now that it’s apart try adding some grease.
Try lapping the pair with some mild abrasive paste like Fitz or JB.
All the Best,
Jeff
I have a NOV-MU from FireFlies that shares the same tube. The anodized threads are okay, but the tail square-cut threads are pretty rough. The tail threads were not on par with other premium priced flashlights. The threads were bad enough that applying the included lube did not help much. The threads had rough edges and I could see rough machining marks even with my bare eyes. I see similar machining marks (stripe marks) on the top photo, but not on the bottom photo. So I guess not all FF lights have this problem, but the problem is not uncommon enough to be discussed several times in this forum.
I lightly sanded the rough edges with high-grit sand paper wrapped around a wooden chopstick and knocked out some large burrs that were not properly removed. After I spent good amount of my time sanding away rough edges, my tail threads are now smooth. But I think I should not have to worry about these problems in premium-price flashlights. Machining in other parts of the flashlight seemed okay to me, so I think FF can resolve the rough tail threads issue pretty easily if they pay a little more attention.
You should be able to tighten the tail cap with the slightest force up until you contact the o ring. At that point you need a little more force.
Burrs alone would not cause what you described here. There have been numerous posts re FF Q/C. I think the premium price commands much better quality than what you described here.Imho, this is unacceptable.
