Not it my case. Worked fine with laptop pull, the night it went crazy, I was using a LG HG2 cell. I think this allow some pulsing arcing of the cell, not sure how to explain it. I had it working fine but without FF mode. Played with it for hours with laptop pull in it while charging my hi drain cells. Took it out again with HG2 and again it went crazy. Tore it down replaced the 7135 again, heated every contact again, worked fine again on laptop pull. Went to HG2 and it went crazy again, I noticed I could loosen the head about a quarter to half a turn and it would work.
Full tight with the head made it act up.
Removed the ano. Now it works fine (minus ff) on HG2
As far as losing FF (assuming you mean a “firefly” mode), this could be due to changing the 7135. Getting the lowest levels out of 7135’s is tricky. IIRC switching from a 350mA 7135 to a 380mA 7135 would be likely to cause a problem like that.
I have to tap more than 8 usually but mine doesn’t have the extra chip, just the FET. It goes to group change mode, no voltage check that I know of.
It’s probably not because you removed the ano but rather that you took of enough material so it’s not pushing hard against the pill/driver. If I use a cell that’s too long with my linear drivers, they screw up but with a shorter cell they work again.
lightme- I just barely removed the ano, then I wire brushed the bare threads. It worked on my long protected cells, and short laptop pulls, same length as the HG2. There was really bad electrical path. Sometimes twisting the head would change mode groups. It was reading many on off cycles.
Group Change Mode —should give number of blinks in relation to battery voltage. 1-12 starts at 3 volts. 12 would be 4.2 6 would be 3.6 etc
Wight- I agree I may have messed up fire fly mode trying to fix it. Since this is a dog walking light I will not have any need for FF mode.
Something else to mention- After removing the ano and brushing the threads. I was getting 3300 lux @ 5 meters. I scraped the top of the driver retaining ring and the switch retaining ring with small flat screw driver. Now it’s getting 5000 lux at 5 meters.
I didn’t know you were using a retaining ring for the driver. I’ve had to reshape them by removing the raised inner edge to get the outer edge to make contact with the driver.
I have had some strange issues out of dirty contacts on the drivers… not visibly dirty, but seemingly dirty by the way they act. I do not know on this particular case, but I have a feeling the too tight issue may be from the board flexing and changing a component value in some way. I have had it happen too with smaller lights and my solution is to tighten up the threads with some Teflon tape. In this case, that will cut the conductivity, so a drop of threadlocker once it is at a good level may do. This way the head stays tight, but not too tight and does not unscrew in your pocket or whatever. For a dog walking light, the lack of FireFly mode may not hurt you anyway, so that is good. Hope you find a solution to this vexing problem…
I can now twist the head while light is on without any changes. I feel (believe) my whole problem from the start was a poor electrical path. I would bet I messed up the FF mode trying to fix something that wasn’t broke
I don’t know why it worked on large protected cells and unprotected laptop pulls.
But would act up with HG2 cells.
I do know any future trouble shooting will start with the electrical path
Going to look into thread lock that is easy to remove for future changes.
Thanks to all for input, suggestions and just plan support
The only difference with the HG2’s would be if there were a stray electrical path, more current would be able to flow… The protected and laptop pulls do not behave any different, except for less amps.
Stray voltage and corrosion are issues in ungrounded items like aircraft, boats, and I am starting to think, flashlights. Not all the time of course, but enough at times to cause issues like yours… The more sensitive and complex our drivers become, the more we will have to find solutions to these kind of “stray” issues.
I have filed flat the back of retaining rings on drivers as well, sometimes there is a “lip” where the center has been drilled out and they do not make positive contact like they should.
What I was driving at was that if you removed a 350 and installed a 380 and you want to get to the bottom of the mystery - you should re-install a 350.
Like I said earlier, the lowest levels are known to be touchy.
EDIT: The implications may not be clear from reading that post by itself. It’s definitely a post to be taken in context. The short version is that the very low modes are tuned based on a variety of factors. A 7135 can be PWM’ed in such a way as to not light up the LED. Exactly where we hit that point depends on a variety of factors. (specifics of the LED, the number of 7135s, and the type of 7135s).
