General Flashlight Body Design Improvement Suggestions

[Midnight Oil]

Hello, all.

This thread welcomes all design improvement suggestions for any flashlight body, from head to tail.



My first candidates are the Dereelight DBS V3 and CL1H V4 hosts. Here are my humble suggestions, very subjective of course. Please feel free to comment and add your own.

1. Thicker threads all around. Maybe even trapezoidal threads like on the Fenixes?
2. Increase the length of the body and tailcap and recess the tailcap spring, so that the threads can engage at least one revolution of the tailcap before the spring presses on the end of the battery.
3. Related to suggestion 2 above...locate the double o-rings at all joints so that the parts don't slide over the o-rings until the parts are 2 or 3 revolutions from being fully tightened. This will allow the parts to screw together much more easily. As it is, I've had to remove one o-ring from each joint of my CL1H. The tailcap was especially difficult to install before, even with lube, because the friction against the o-rings and the compression from the spring against the battery were making it hard to mate the threads.
4. Instead of double o-rings, consider providing one thicker o-ring. The thinner double o-ring appears to have durability issues.
5. Redesign the clip and ditch those screws! They just don't look right on a light with such good lines. Go with a simple clip that slides over the tailend and is clamped between the body and the tailcap. Consider including a lanyard hole on the clip.
6. Offer option of a cigar grip and lanyard ring, both interchangeable with the clip.
7. More aggressive knurling on the body and tailcap and a longer section of knurling on the body.
8. As some P60 drop-ins don't fit well and their pills do not make consistent contact with the body, redesign the neck to allow for the use of an external spring on drop-ins.
9. Offer option of either a tail-stand tailcap or tactical tailcap. For the tactical tailcap, the switch should protrude more.
10. In the case of the CL1H, the flared neck and the body should be in one piece, unless the intent is to allow fitment onto the CL1H of a different head, like that of the DBS.
11. Greater tolerance for differing lengths of P60 modules, so that the headcap can screw all the way down to the body. This goes hand in hand with allowing for outer spring on drop-ins.
12. Reconsider O-ring and retaining ring design for the lens. Perhaps, adopt a design similar to that of the Surefire 6P.
13. Tighter inner diameter for housing 18mm cells.
14. Offer a sleeve accessory for housing CR123As so they don't rattle.

 

[Midnight Oil]

 

[^Gurthang]

Oil,

My $0.02 worth....

Good dissection of the DBS & CL1H in regards to O-ring and drop-in evaluation.

O-rings: I've seen lights w/ double O-rings that slide together like butter. Seen others that like your case resist all attempts to "gently" engage the threads and NOT tear the rings apart. My call: mfg is used a slightly oversized O-ring. The machining standards for O-ring grooving is well established. However, variations in "cheap" O-rings will undo all that careful machine work....

Drop-in receiver: Another topic thats been long discussed on CPF. My call: #1 the P60 design is the weakest link by far. Its not adequate to handle the high output / high heat designs of today. #2 sloppy QC, too much variation from mfg to mfg in the drop-in assembly and the receiver. Dereelight may machine the host receiver to exactly the P60 standard.... if the maker of the P60 pill is off by a few hundredths of an inch.... no joy! And I'm NOT blaming makers like NB or the like, they put their heart & soul into each item, but they have limited control over the stock inventory they receive. One order may fit like a glove and the next has more slop than Paris Hilton.... The mass market stuff is worse.

We've both read lots of threads wishing for an "improved" P60 standard but I'll repeat it..... WE NEED A NEW DROP-IN STANDARD!

 

[Midnight Oil]

...One order may fit like a glove and the next has more slop than Paris Hilton....

Whoaaaa. This is a family thread, sir.

Any thoughts about my other suggestions? Criticism welcomed.

Thanks for your input. Tell your friends about this thread.

 

[^Gurthang]

Okies on the "Family Thread"....

OTOH maybe I could start a "why my flashlight is better than Paris Hilton thread."

BTW, I do understand your ideas regarding the DBS and CL1H. From my perspective it all comes down to "whats my preference and can I buy a light that fits those needs?" which follows in the path of "have you found your PERFECT light yet?" thread...

From a general aspect I do wholly agree w/ your "fit & finish" comments. Which is why SureFire costs what it does. You're paying for the warrenty and for the precise tooling. SFs last as long as they do because they're built to last that long.

 

[jellydonut]

I like the idea of a sleeve to fit CR123As better. I only use primaries so the bored-out diameter is not of use to me.

 

[Kestrel]

Related to suggestion 2 above...locate the double o-rings at all joints so that the parts don't slide over the o-rings until the parts are 2 or 3 revolutions from being fully tightened. This will allow the parts to screw together much more easily. As it is, I've had to remove one o-ring from each joint of my CL1H. The tailcap was especially difficult to install before, even with lube, because the friction against the o-rings and the compression from the spring against the battery were making it hard to mate the threads.

Very much agree with (3) above. This is my only complaint with the SureFire L1 & L2 - reinstalling the tailcap requires o-ring compression and initial thread engagement at almost the exact same time. Even being as careful as possible, sometimes the starting area of the thread gets a little marred when I'm trying to get the tailcap to go over the o-ring. I'm going as far as to create another o-ring groove on my SF L2 (to relocate the existing o-ring) so that I can get tailcap thread engagement prior to having to compress the o-ring:

 

[Midnight Oil]

 

[Jash]

You should include internals, such as reflectors.

For instance, the TK20 would probably be the PERFECT 2AA light if it had an o/p reflector. I mean really, you don't but a AA for it's throwing ability do you? I don't at least.

If I want throw, I go for something that has far more output to start with and a bigger smooth reflector to make use of that extra output. 150 lumens isn't exactly bright these days.

Also get rid of the whine on high while you're at it.

Are you listening Fenix?

 

[Midnight Oil]

Kestrel,

Your first pic shows one of the perks one gets with the high price of Surefires: robust threads! They're actually SQUARE, are they not?

The threads on my CL1H have the typical triangular profile, if that's the correct jargon, and maybe about half as thick as the SF threads, so I don't expect them to last too long.

Does it add that much more to production cost to turn out SQUARE or TRAPEZOIDAL threads, and that's why not every maker does?

 

[Midnight Oil]

You should include internals, such as reflectors.

For instance, the TK20 would probably be the PERFECT 2AA light if it had an o/p reflector. I mean really, you don't but a AA for it's throwing ability do you? I don't at least.

If I want throw, I go for something that has far more output to start with and a bigger smooth reflector to make use of that extra output. 150 lumens isn't exactly bright these days.

Also get rid of the whine on high while you're at it.

Are you listening Fenix?

I hear you buddy.

I spent about, oh, 4 MONTHS!, doing research before I purchased my first light: the Eagletac P100A2 NW, because I just couldn't find a light among the Fenixes, Quarks, Eagletacs, and Olights with the right compromise of beam qualities, battery format, and tint I was looking for. And oh, the ET is not it. I decided to buy it because it was the least expensive. My reasoning was, if I couldn't get what I wanted among those brands, might as well buy the cheapest light, instead of a more expensive light which I would be less than 75% happy with.

That's why I've opted to go the P60 drop-in route.

But the P60 route for me has a separate problem: while there is a very good selection of drop-ins, it's damn near impossible to find a host of good quality that accomodates 1x18650 and multiple cells with optional extension tubes, at a price that is reasonable to me, which is highly subjective of course.

What is a good quality host to me? Well, if the CL1H is redesigned to incorporate all of my humble suggestions, that's pretty damn near perfect for me. As for the price, I'm willing to pay up to $60 for that. Call me cheap.:shrug:

The Solarforce L2P would have been my candidate, too, but it's got that damn rattle problem, and stretching the tailcap spring or shimming with business cards to fix it, for me, is just uncool.

Maybe this is the reason why some flashaholics have to keep buying: they're hoping to find the perfect light, which is a Quixotic quest.

 

[jhc37013]

So this is a safe place place to let out a little frustration, well then if I may can I make a complaint about the donut hole from a XPG light with smooth reflector. I don't want to wait for someone else to review a light i would like to be able to pre-order or buy it at launch with a little more confidence.

I just got the RRT-0 XPG R5 model and it has a pretty bad dark center in the hotspot, why bother with the SMO if the textured reflector is going to have a cleaner looking beam and probably throw further just like the P20 and T20 MKII models.

I don't know it just seems if someone was developing a light and thought hey it has a large dark area in the hotspot they would choose a different route knowing the SMO reflector is not offering any performance advantage. So why is it like this? I'm not sure why I can only think maybe the smo reflector is cheaper and easier to produce then the textured but I know nothing about this so I could be wrong.

 

[Midnight Oil]

I asked for a smooth reflector for my first custom P60 XPG R3 drop-in and its maker appeared to have just dropped in a smooth reflector that was designed for the XRE R2.

Result: not only was there a donut hole in the middle, there were 9 dark spots in a 3x3 grid pattern, which the maker explained were the die marks and it's normal in a smooth reflector.

Yeah, normal if you use a smooth reflector that wasn't designed for the XPG!

I hear that the Fenix LD20 XPG R4 has a bit of a dark spot in the hotspot as well.

I recently saw some beamshots of Solarforce's new XPG drop-ins with smooth reflectors and the beams appeared very good. No holes or rings.

Hmm, I always thought the smooth reflector are more difficult to manufacture. In my experience they do offer a significant increase in throw. I had a Solarforce R2 that came in a stock LOP. I've swapped in a Dereelight SMO and the throw is easily doubled.

 

[red02]

I'm probably going to get some heat for this...

I'd like if 4sevens would use something other than their square threads to lessen the wobble in the head. I can't speak to their other lights as I only have a first production Quark 123x2 (the one without ano on the threads) and the head is really loose beyond 1 turn.

The dereelight threads I personally like but I can't say the same about their o-rings. They have a tendency to get caught in the threads while your trying to screw in the tail.

 

[Midnight Oil]

Hey Red! Thanks for dropping by.

I wonder if just redesigning those square threads with tighter tolerances, so they mate better, will fix that wobble problem.

I hope the wobble is not inherent in using square threads.

 

[SCEMan]

Great thread!

Hello, all.

This thread welcomes all design improvement suggestions for any flashlight body, from head to tail.

My first candidates are the Dereelight DBS V3 and CL1H V4 hosts.

1. Offer a sleeve accessory for housing CR123As so they don't rattle.

A simple rolled business card solved this problem nicely in my CL1Hv4 MC-E...

 

[Midnight Oil]

 

[red02]

Great thread!

A simple rolled business card solved this problem nicely in my CL1Hv4 MC-E...

nice trick, but I like O-rings around the AAs in my DBS.

On topic, I would really like if the white "surefire" tag on their lights wasn't so dominant. Something more overt would be nice, I like the DBS in that respect. Dereelight's logo doesn't take up almost the whole side.

 

[Locoboy5150]

On all lights with tailcap switches, I'd like to see anodized threads on the body and tailcap so that they are lock out capable. On larger sized lights I'd really like to see both a tailcap switch and a side switch on the body so users could use whichever one is most comfortable no matter how the light is held.

 

[^Gurthang]

Looking at the photos of the O-rings, the height that the O-ring protrudes beyond the body / threads looks incorrect. The whole idea is that the outer part compresses the ring filling the groove and acheiving a good seal. If the bezel or tailcap catch on the ring [which in that picture it certainly WILL do] I'd chalk it up to poor design. The ring protrudes too far. Substituting a thinner o-ring would still achieve a seal w/o tearing the ring.

I studied the two LF Seraphs at work, both w/ double O-rings. The bezel and tailcap have a tapered profile that compresses the rings before the threads engage, that to me seems "correct". My 2 cents worth....