Different Heads?

[maverick215]

Hi, 1st time post here. Been here a few times in the past, and been a more frequent visitor. Esp now that I've bought my first ARC-aaa's /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Anyways, I recently ordered 4 of the aaa's and noticed that one of them has a different head. Atleast the knurling is different, it seems "less grippy." Just wondering if it's pot luck to get a matching head/body, or if this is just some odd random occurance. The pics on the web seem to show the head and body being the same.
Thanks

 

[Pi_is_blue]

On my Arc AAA the knurling on the body is very good, but the knurling on the head does not provide much grip.

 

[gyverpete]

I think the head knurling has recently been improved by ARC. I just received an order of 20 AAAs and all but one of them had the same finer, more grippy knurling on the head that the body has.

Pi is blue,
The other 5 AAAs, both black and natural I purchased in the past (6-8 mo ago) had the less grippy, larger pattern knurling on the head like yours does, which I didn't like(harder to turn on one-handed). I'd been asking for this improvement for some time now. Apparently there wasn't any announcement that this change was made. But I'm happy!

This issue was my only gripe with the ARC-AAA and now it's PERFECT! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Maverick215,
Apparently the older and newer ones are mixed in together, accounting for the different heads.

 

[maverick215]

do the old heads still have the HA III coating? I also noticed that the led is not set as "deep" in the reflector

 

[gyverpete]

The AAAs have all had HA III anodize for some time now. I'm not sure exactly, but at least a year and a half. The LED placement does vary sometimes in depth and alignment, but recently they've been especially good. Only one that I've come across had its LEDs not as deeply set as the others. That one I bought about 5 months ago. It resulted in a slightly different beam pattern, but the LED was still well protected.
And back to the knurling, I got a old turquoise LED model, discontinued now, that had all fine, grippy knurling, so I think the AAAs head knurling has gone from grippy, then not-so-grippy, and now grippy again. Not sure of the reasons, though.

 

[chamenos]

its probably due to the various contractors that they get to manufacture the components.