Ok guys I got my new TN31 for Christmas. I have already posted about my problems the first day on Christmas eve. I flipped the battery carrier around and thought it had solved my problem- for about 5 minutes. I tightened the crap out of the head and again it seemed to be fixed. Last night we took it out for some beam shots with my A60 and my brothers SR90 and BTU Shocker. We played around with about 3 sets of pics then the TN31 decided to stop working. We took it apart, flipped the battery carrier, put it back together and tightened the crap out of the head and nothing so we blew any further shooting off and went home. I figured it had the same problem as Dale’s and AlexGT’s light so my brother took the carrier out, took it apart, wiped the oil off of it, cleaned the contacts real well, put her back together and still nothing but an occasional flicker. I had pretty much decided to get with Thrunite to send the light back. I was playing around with the carrier and the head with no tube and it flickered again so I kept messing around and discovered that if I press the battery carrier against the spring in the head and grounded it against the side the light came on and stayed on as long as it was in contact with the spring and side. It even worked perfectly through all of the modes. I screwed the body tube back on and it has had no more problems. Yet! Doesn’t this kind of sound like a problem in the tailcap switch?
Have you been able to get your tail cap off?
Nope. I gave it every thing I had and she wouldn’t budge. I believe you are right about being loctited on.
That is the stupidest thing Thru-Nite could have done. I would be emailing them.
I noticed that you cleaned the battery carrier, but did you Tighten the center positive post with a wrench? I mean the center post where the positive spring contacts the battery carrier is actually a screw, the only way to tighten it is to grab it by the sides with a wrench and twist it to screw it in.
Try that and it will probably work just fine afterwards.
This part
I gotta agree. Why would they do that?
His center bolt/post doesn’t have a hex head. In fact we didn’t know that it held the ends to the center post. His is totally smooth. Nothing to grab ahold of. But I see now it is certainly loose. Enough so that it all just fell apart. I’ll half to see what I can use to grip the smooth head to tighten it up.
i used a pair of pliers to tighten it after I polished it.
A cutting disc on a dremel could easily carve a notch into it for a screwdriver.
I wouldn’t carve a notch in that screw because of the risk of the spring getting caught in the notch and short the battery carrier, Just grab it with pliers and tighten it.
Vise grip pliers will do the trick as well
Thanks guys, I use needle nose pliers, or vise grips if needed. One will do the job fine I’m sure.
That’s a really stupid design. All 3 posts just fell out of the carrier when I tried to grip the thing by hand. If it was designed to hold the whole thing together, either a hex design or a little knurling would have made a lot of sense.
But I will get the sucker snugged up so it won’t happen again and hopefully make better contact from on now.
Ok, got it back together. Everything is clean and tight. And it doesn’t turn on. Regardless of which end goes in first. Nothing. It will without the tube, but the switch will not do it. This is getting really annoying.
I just ordered the OSTS TN31 today. I really hope Michael has this contact issue fixed on his lights.
Any other ideas guys???
Have you tried completing the circuit with a piece of wire to make sure the tailcap isn't the issue? Alternatively, you could measure the voltage of the carrier.
I used metal cleaner on each end of the battery carriage. It had a bunch of something on each end… I polished those suckers till they changed from having a gold tint to silver. Although if you aren’t getting anything. I’m not sure that’s the issue. Especially since it’s been working previously.
Haven’t yet. Looks like that’s what we need to do to decide if its the switch or just a contact issue.
I want to do that also. I don’t think that’s the issue though now because when the side of the disc makes contact, the light comes on with full level ability, etc. Without the tube of course.
I still want to get that yellow stuff off just to be safe. So you suggest a metal polish vs like 600grit sandpaper?
I actually used ‘Neverdull’ & Silver polish! A bit unorthodox… BUT it worked!!! LMAO
This is what I have done so far. The battery carrier itself appears to have good contact from end to the other. With my DMM, I consistently get like 12.4V testing it from just one side first, then the other side, then using the center post of one end and the disc of the other side. Always 12.4V. Also tried continuity on it. Shows 0.0 resistance from one end to the other end.
I tried sitting the carrier on the head, touched the disc with a lead and the center post with the other lead, checking amps and for light to come on, but I get nothing. I assume that’s because the disc on the bottom isn’t contact the heads disc. So I’m not sure how you would do a tailcap test with this light. And the tubes threads are anodized to making it hard to get contact that way.
So I also tried playing with the tube and switch. Checking the DMM for ohms from the big spring to the little spring with the switch off, I get nothing as expected. Click the switch on and it reads like 6.22 ohms. Don’t have any idea if that is good or bad. I kinda assumed it would show full continuity, not just the 6.23, but this is kinda beyond me. Electonics are not my forte’.
Lastly again with just the head and sitting the carrier on the head, when the carrier is tilted so the carrier disc touches the metal disc in the head, the light comes on and works perfect. Will also do the same if touching the head’s body, but the anodizing happens it a little, again as expected.
So flashlight gurus and electronic guys, what do you think??
If the switch reads 6.22 ohms of resistance that is the problem. Sounds like you may have to send it back, but since IS is handling the US orders it should be fairly easy.