yesterday i tried to repair some motorized roller shutter, and since it's indoors work, i always wear the headlamp. an important spare part had fallen into a deep tight crevice around the corner, i couldn't reach it (with a piece of bent wire or similar grabbing tool) and i could hardly make it out with a mirror redirecting the lighting because the view was blocked by my fumbling hands (or their shadows). absolutely tricky to make the lost item visible to my eyes
and to try to reach it with a grabbing tool, all this with two hands only!
I had to clip'n unclip the light fast, repeatedly, to determine an optimal lighting location. As it turned out, the light being unclipped and standing right next to my eye gave me a unique tiny viewing slot to hold the mirror with my left hand while operating the grabbing tool with my right hand without any of the shadows getting into my viewing line. long story short, after all a too challenging of a retrieval task, in the end i gave up, so last night i reordered the spare part for some 10€ aha.
anyway.
when i tried to unclip the light with my right hand (while holding the mirror in my left hand), i.e. single-handedly as i often did, i lifted the tail section first to unclip that successfully and then continued to lift (=tilt) the light to let the head section get unclipped automatically, in order to complete the unclipping of the entire light. That's the tried and proven operating procedure to unclip this light single-handedly, as long as you do it carefully and not brutally!
However this time the single-handed unclipping resulted in the head section clip to break and pop away. It flew away like a fly. WTF. Yeah, my bad, i guess. I mean, if you unclip the light
carefully (i.e. not fast, not brutally, not etc.), with one or with two hands doesn't matter, then the plastic material woht fail you.
View attachment 17987
I just caht believe that this breakage happened to me, the tool-petting poser kreisl!
View attachment 17988
Fenix used a low density polymer type of hard plastic (
very cheap quality!) which is light-weight and serves its purpose of clipping and holding a light but which easily snaps, breaks, cracks. Shame on Fenix. Replacing the part would cost
14.5€ shipped lmao. Why would someone pay that much to get the same very cheap quality again?? I would accept a free replacement from the distributor or the manufacturer but not this. Or i'd accept paying 14.5€ in return for a high quality item. But
this plastic part is made out of sh*t material quality, worthless, cr*p.
Going forward, what are my acceptable options?
I simply continue to use the broken holder (holder1), as
one intact clip suffices to hold the light; and i could finally make use of the rubber securing strap. And once that clip eventually breaks off too (i would update this thread then stay stuned!), i would throw the holder away and
could use the holder of my 2nd hm61r unit as replacement (holder2). From then on, i would handle the holder2 with even more care and caution, in an effort to
never break the clips
again.
Or, i should really give the rubber clip holders by Armytek/Skilhunt/etc a try. Some day, i will. I am interested. No hurries though.
Most importantly, do i regret having purchased the hm61r as my primary, most used flashlight (for work, walks, or as headlamp), is the cr*ppy plastic material of the otherwise very functional holder reason enough to turn one's back on the product? No and no. The light is just too great, the headband itself is also fantastic (holding up so far, at least), and only because Fenix chose a cheap quality plastic (advantage: light weight!) for the clipping holder it wouldn't be fair to dismiss the entire product. This Fenix product does indeed tick all the boxes, show me another 18650 headlamp which clearly beats it in all aspects. As of 2021, there isn't one.
But true enough: shame on Fenix for having chosen this cheap plastic material (similar to ABS) for the holder. Since literally millions of polymer plastic varieties exist on the market, the responsibles at Fenix Company should have chosen a durable robust hard plastic material like HDPP instead. The other week i had to destroy a bunch of household plastic products into little pieces for recycling purposes; most of them were made out of polypropylene, and man, some of the items, at only 1.0mm wall thickness, were super tough to cut/break/crack/destroy/tear/snap/anything/etc. It opened my eyes on how robust and unbreakable items made out of polypropylene can be! Yeah sure, it is higher density (=heavier) than the "ABS" which Fenix used for producing the holder but let's be honest here, the original hm61r holder is not suitable for professional use, in a real duty work environment.
Uncareful unclipping of the light resulted in a broken clip. What a joke!
