Excellent ! Unbelievable how they keep gnawing !!!
What you may not understand is these lights are great for my use. I'll explain:
I don't just put these on a shelf and play with them or use them on camping trips. My guys work with these things all day. They are in attics and crawl spaces and everywhere in-between. My guys will toss them to each other and they are not NBA stars. Although, to be fair, a simple toss and catch is harder when you are in an attic walking on ceiling joists. I probably use my lights more in a week than most do in a year.
I was lucky that the lights I've had to return didn't have much use (no jobsite use except for hours of paint work) and I could tell for sure that the problem was a defect and not because we drop these things a LOT. Most of the time they fall on wood but sometimes they fall on concrete or tile. My oldest XM-L2 has probably been dropped more than most people's lights get dropped over 10 years.
Yes I'm critical of Armytek because I hold them to a high standard. That doesn't mean I don't respect what they have done with the design and construction of these lights. They just need to spend more time in R&D phase and do their very best with quality control in my humble opinion.
They may take a financial hit in the beginning but it would likely be a viable investment. I believe it would benefit their financial bottom line in the long run. But this is a decision they have to balance with other considerations as well, such as the financial benefit of cranking out tons of new versions of lights with new emitters that people buy like candy and then set on a shelf where they will never know that their particular light has an issue that will develop after 160 hours of use.
It may be simpler than that though. It may be that the designs are awesome and the production process is to blame. I have friends who have had China mass produce some promotional products and they generally send samples before they fire up a production run. My advice is for Armytek to abuse these samples and try to make them fail or send them to product testers who will do it. Sending samples to members of this forum would not be a bad idea.
These lights are tough. That's why I like them. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has a better option. I have some 18650 batteries with dented positive conductors due to impact. These lights have beefy springs on the negative terminal but if they had springs on both sides, they would be even more durable. The trade off is size. But if the springs are produced with a good "k" factor (F=kX) they would likely not require much length to dissipate external impulse force without damaging the battery or the positive end of the light.
It's a physics problem, more specifically a dynamics problem that can be solved. It depends on the maximum desired height of fall, average mass of an 18650, mass of the light, and the maximum desirable spring length would be a constraint that would be a factor as well. It would be an iterative calculation though because the mass of the light and center of mass of the light+battery combination would change slightly every time you change the spring and housing lengths. The oscillating frequency would change as well. Ever seen one of those as-seen-on-TV shake weights? Ok, now I'm just rambling. Time for sleep.
I want a headlamp that has a battery sandwiched between two strong springs and is built like a tiny tank. Anyone?
