Well, member gchart gave me this nice idea.
How about sharing our silly flashlight (review) mistakes?
You know, so you will learn not to make these mistakes.
ps. Doesn't need to be reviewers specific.
I'll go first.
1. Did some lux measurements last Saturday, wrote them all down, and just now realised I forgot to remove the protection film 
2. One day, went out doing beamshots with multiple flashlights, and forgot in what order I took the shots..... (now I just order my lights from small to large! when I go out doing beamshots... tip)
3. A long time ago I made the mistake of unscrewing a Macro lens from my camera (while taking pictures of a flashlight) and put it on my lap or something while sitting or kneeling down. I stood up and the Macro lens dropped on the concrete.... broken.
A couple days ago I used my metal calipers to measure a battery length. Then couldn’t figure out why my flashlight wasn’t working. 
Good thing it was a protected cell!
I broke the clip for my P18 before taking pictures of it. Highly recommend taking the photos you need before disassembling things.
done that, now I shoot a photo of the light so I know which beams go with it.
.
yikes, thats something I could have done
fortunately, I sold my expensive stainless steel analog caliper, after I found a $4 digital plastic caliper superior for my convenience.
.
a mistake Ive made and regretted:
grab a driver wire with tweezers, by the insulation, to push the wire down below the shelf, in the process the insulation sleeve is split (requires special skills), and the wire shorts to the body…
result… dead driver :person_facepalming:
Dr. Ruth says: always use protection.
My own oops? Putting two 18350 cell’s in a space designed for one 18650 cell. And insisting ….
I thought I could de-dome an LH351D by running the light on turbo and getting it really hot. I was excited when the corner of the dome lifted. Then the phosphor popped off with it. Now I have an FC11 that gives off a lavender beam.
I’ve done similar, except when moving the wire into position, I’ve accidentally pulled the silicone insulation right off. At least that’s noticeable before frying the driver. But it requires disassembling everything all over again.
yeah
some mistakes are more obvious than others
it was clear the “insulation” would need replacing, in this case:
I tried pushing the wires back into the sleeve, but no cigar… LOL
a couple new wires, and Bob’s Your Uncle, no worse for wear
this one is painful to share…
I had my beloved TN31 driver pulled out to do some efficiency and current measurents with different LEDs. When I tried driving a shaved SST40 I had prepared to swap in, it nearly instantly popped the emitter. At that exact moment, I wasn’t 100% sure that it was just emitter that failed since the die would still glow at a sub-moonlight level. SOO. Enter Dr. Dumba$$. (I’m powering the driver from a power supply at charged voltage of 12.6V) I took the leads off the driver and without desoldering anything, NOR adjusting the voltage down, I touched them directly to the solder pads on the MCPCB. POOF goes the driver 
So yes. I still don’t forgive myself for being that dumb and hasty.
Also, I’d love to find a TN31 or K40M driver. Or if anybody wants a nice host to play with, it’s probably gonna be cheap!
OUCH! :zipper_mouth_face: That definitely must’ve hurt. Tough losing a perfectly good driver like that. :cry:
I was once in a hurry and after loading batteries I went to screw on the tail cap. Now, the flashlight wasn’t super expensive, but as a result the screw threads were not the squared off type. I didn’t do the “reverse then forward” technique then… and forced the tail cap on with threads out of alignment. I badly stripped them… and now, you have to be very careful to get the tail cap screw threads to align. Needless to say, I rarely use that flashlight any longer.
- My first BLF A6 had the most invisible battery protection sticker I have ever seen. I looked it over 2-3 times and missed it. I think I was mid refund request when I finally discovered it.
I have done this and still do this:
- Unscrew or screw bezel of flashlight thinking I can balance reflector/optic and glass while flashlight is upright. Glass falls to ground (always to hard floor). I have broken multiple lenses but thankfully they only crack a fraction of the time.
- Set up flashlights for photo/size comparison only to turn them into dominoes and have all of them crash down on each other.
Way back in 2012 I bought my Zebra SC600 as my first CPF/BLF initiation light.
One day the lights won’t work anymore. I got ZL’s service address already, pouch to put it in and on stand-by, and just as l was about to pack it in and ready to pay the $20 trip back to China, l remember lubing the tail-end of the tube.
Well, you know the rest of the story.
One time, I was so excited about getting a new flashlight to outdoor photo beamshot review, that when I was done and reviewed the pics, there definitely was something wrong with the beamshots. I realized that I was so excited, that I forgot to wait for night time to take the photos.
LOL
I just remembered something else that happened last winter.
I figured I would do beamshots at both startup and at 30 seconds. So while waiting in the dark for the 30 seconds to come, I figured to dim the light so people wouldn't notice me. I put the light against my winter coat.
Then I felt something hard and sharp on my coat...... I shone the light to look at this sharp and hard thing on my coat, and realised the light had burned a hole in my coat :(
Oh, another one.
I thought I was smart (this happened when I used to do beamshots from my apartment, while living in Tokyo) and instead of carrying my lights from my "hobbyroom" to the balcony, I decided to use a bag instead. You know, a smart idea to save time. I put all the flashlights in the bag and walked through the apartment to the balcony. I did this up and down.. only 1 time.
But when I came back to my hobby room, I realized all flashlights had anodization damage from touching eachother in the bag. Warning: Never put flashlights together in a bag.... bad idea!
So I’ve been trying to lower the light coming into my integrating sphere; with the frosted glass pane I have, I can only measure up to 3500lm, which is an issue for upcoming reviews. So, I looked into tinted acrylic to go under the glass - this starts out as a good idea. That said, I’m finding it to be inconsistent, so I’m going to turf that idea.
The next idea I had was to layer two pieces of 3mm acrylic… without the glass. I’m going to blame low blood sugar, or something else I pull out of my hat, because this was a stupid idea. <30 seconds of an NSX4 going at it, and I get:
It’s hard to photograph, but easy to see with the eye. Oops.
I’ve also killed a H600Fc III; I got it open and was looking into how to switch the emitter, buuuuut something has shifted and now it’s ded.
In a fit of frustration I decided to use 2 pipe wrenches to remove a glued on bezel (happened to have them in front of me). I did put duct tape on the head to protect the finish (hahaha) but you can guess what happened to it
It was a cheap light so I wasn’t too concerned about it and I never would have done it with something I really liked 
Installed my 18650’s in my BLF Q8 backwards and came within maybe a single revolution of turning the body to fully tightened. I shudder every time I think back on it. Probably doesn’t belong in this thread—it’s a bit more than “silly”.