Surefire 6P Doesn't Work After Boring

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

Hi,

This last weekend I had some extra time on my hands (always dangerous) and decided to bore our my old (~15 yrs old) Surefire 6P so it could take an 18650 battery. I followed the Youtube video instructions and everything went fine. I decided to stop at the point where my 2400Ma batteries would fit, but my 2600 Ma batteries wouldn’t. Cleaned up and put everything together and the light (which was always dependable before) is now inconsistent. Sometimes it will light up when I press the tail cap button or screw in the tail cap, but sometimes not. Then I need to tap the head of the light and it will work. Hardly what you want in your tactical light. I have tried several aftermarket (Solarforce and other Chinese) drop in emitters and all act the same. It seems to be caused by the spring on the emitter not contacting the battery properly rather than an issue with the tail cap (based on the fact that tapping, trying to wiggle the tail cap doesn’t help while tapping the head does). Any suggestions? Did I just ruin a good light?

Thanks,
Dave

2

hi dave and welcome to blf

it sounds like the drop in is not making negative contact with the body of the flashlight

try wrapping the drop in in aluminum foil so its tight when you drop it in

EDIT:

if it is in fact the battery you could solder some copper wire on the tail cap to raise the battery up to make contact with the spring

3

Well , as long as you cleaned up everything correctly ( burs etc )

All you have done is increase the internal dia of the tube ,

The other thing you did id is remove the anodizing from the inside , making the internal surface conductive to electrical current ..

Issues :

Check your battery for damage ,

Check the springs ( Drop in and tail cap ) to make sure they are not twisting or some how making contact with the tube ( internally )

Again make sure you have cleaned up the burs , as the body is the negative path for the current , so needs a good clean path to conduct such .

Otherwise I would think :

Check your tailcap , is the retaining ring tight ? Do you have another tailcap to test with ...

Could be a typical tailcap issue ( lose or bad solder )

4

Thanks jmpaul320! That did the trick. I was planning on doing a foil wrap to help with heat sinking after I figured out the connection problem. Duh! Lack of foil was the connection problem. All I can figure is that, with the bored out body, the battery was pushing against the emitter differently resulting in a less solid contact between the emitter housing and the flashlight body.

Dave