OK, I hate to mention this stuff. I hate to recommend it. It has to be made of unicorn tears and rancid snake oil right? Anything that costs what this stuff costs and has the claims that the maker makes for it just has to be a scam? Think hi-fi audio hoo-hah…
Well, damned if it doesn’t actually work. Or at least hypnotize you into believing that it works. But numbers don’t lie… Well, what the fork is it? Well it’s a “electrical contact enhancer”. It makes metal parts make sweet sparkly electron love in an intimate embrace, or some such drivel. It is obviously made of distilled magic smoke from a uncorn’s ass or some other fluid from an undisclosed uni-orifice. I’ve used it for years in things like VERY touchy test equipment that works in the picovolt/femtoamp areas.
I’d been having lots of problems with the switch in one of my E1320 UF2100’s. It puts out around 350 lumens on high, when it should be doing 500+ lumens. Also the color temp would jump around. I’ve cleaned the switch a bunch of times, always with very temporary results. So last month I broke out the big gun (actually tiny little bottle) and did the switch/board/button with it (a tiny drop will do ’ya). No more flakeitude since then.
Well, where can you get it? Probably your best bet is a Volkswagen dealer! Better have like 40+ bucks burning a hole in your pocket. This post lists some sources and the VW part number. Stabilant 22A | TDIClub Forums
Amazon also has a kit of concentrate that you dilute with alcohol. Beware, some places sell this stuff for over $100 a bottle.
The CRC stuff is like a contact cleaner. It cleans gunk off of contacts.
This stuff is some sort of black magic electron kung fu stuff. Who knows what it does, how it does it, or even if it does it. It could just be “Hey, fool! You spent 40 bucks for a tiny bottle of distilled sweat from the emperors new clothes.”
I’ve used and still use stuff like deoxit, pro-gold, etc but when things get desperate I break out the Stabilant. If it doesn’t work, I break out the sledgehammer. Nothing else worked on that damn switch.
OK Ok…I was just pokin fun. Guess I’ve been lucky, haven’t had any contact problems. I swear, I’ve cleaned contacts with Isopropyl and then applied silicone and been fine so far. Cheap too. And I live on the coast…go figure.
Yeh, I’ve got one of Eriks UF2100’s. Switch was awful. So I put one in from a Romisen RC-29 (Euro version) rated for 14500’s. Done and done. Haven’t tried cleaning up the original switch yet.
I’m not so sure it is the switch itself or the brass contact button between the switch circuit board and the battery negative. Anyway, they are both humming along great now.
