manoloco
Enlightened
QTC pills So far have been a great experience in practical terms, but as you all know ramping is not always as smooth as butter, in real use it doesnt bother much as long as it still ramps, but the comfort of a smoother ramping makes things a lot better.
Enter a little list, compilation if you wish of what has worked for me so far (the parts in grey are outdated thanks to my latest fix, but might help users with other issues):
- adding stability to the QTC pill, CPF member netprince solved this by gluing the pill perfectly centered into the identation on the bottom of the QTC holder, This is one of the most important fixes, however adding glue for me added also a little more stiffness because the pill surface expansion when compressed is hampered a bit by the glue mantaining it into position, and also the pill eventually separated from the glue.
What happens here is that the holder identation edeges bite bits of the QTC pills corners, this little bits are left around and conduct electricity before the pill does, making ramping a bit jumpy, with the glue the pill stays in place and solves this problem.
-trying different hole sizes in the QTC pill: the hole size by default is very sensitive, it does help reach full brightess with less effort, but your uses may have different needs, for my case i needed a little bit more range, so a smaller hole does help but at the expense of being a little more stiff, this translates into a harder to press momentary and harder to twist constant (altough the twist effort difference doesnt matter in 2 handed operation, it does if you want to operate the twist one handed), 1mm diameter less than the default hole size is what i use.
...
A little mix of everything that i came up with:
Grab a new QTC pill without hole, make a hole (i use the opening of a metal mechanical pen) BUT keep the little round QTC left off that will be inside the opening of the mechanical pen, assemble everything together the same as always but with a little difference: insert the little round QTC left off inside the hole as if you were trying to make the pill whole again, what does this do? this still lets the pill compress as when it only has the empy hole, but since there are a couple of spikes in the center of the bottom and top of the holder they will hold the round hole filler in place and this one will hold the rest of the pill in place (not perfectly i know but better than before).
This will ensure contact to full every time you want, the pill will shift less, and the effort needed for compression will remain almost the same as when you only used the empty hole pill.
it might work better if you use a hole filler a little smaller than the hole, will try that later.
The best methods i have found yet:
Folded copper seat (warning, may break QTC)
Folded a copper foil tape a few times (removed the glue off of it with a bit of isoprophyl alcohol), as to increase the height around 0.5 mm (havent measured the fold i made and it compresses after first use so take that under consideration), and put the little square i folded in the identation on the bottom part of the QTC holder assembled everything back together and it works great! it becomes smoother the more you use it because the folded copper square sits better after a few compressions.
It seems that when the QTC pills are new they are taller, after some compressions the height makes them move inside the holder causing many of the jumps we experience. after twisting and pushing a lot i put in the original QTC pill that i have really operated the light with a lot (way over the 1000 compressions) and became a little jumpy, it worked great too!, if you are like me that likes to be pushing the momentary just for the sake of it and twisting it back and forth like crazy just to play with your light, this little fix will work great.
The hole size Curt designed is the best i have tried so far, bigger and it will compromise the integrity of the pill, smaller and it works but is stiffer, this size works great, effort needed to get to full is on par with my Surefire L1!, and the L1 doesnt have infinite ramping.
I am pretty sure that if the identations on the bottom part of the holder are made shallower there will be a lot less users complaining about QTC being jumpy, now it works really smooth and the folded foil seems to make it spring back faster after compression.
Hole punch copper seat (seems safe for QTC pill, but the folded method makes a better softer activation on momentary)
After seeing that the folded copper method could damage the QTC, i tried something else with the copper tape, a hole punch makes a circle that is almost the same size of the round identation where the QTC goes inside the capsule, i made a circle out of the copper tape and inserted it in there, since it comforms to the shape of the qtc quite easily is keeps it in place quite well, then took the QTC out again and added another circle, tried and then added another ,the reason i add i succesively instead of all the circles at once is that its easier to seat them inside after they are conformed, works out really good and since this isnt so tall and is the same shape as the identation i am assuming it wont break the QTC, while adding stability and a little less height than the folded seat.
So forget about the methods i mentioned before, this ones oudates all of them and is really simple and cheap! you dont even need to buy a new QTC pill.
Very happy to have found a way to make the light work really smooth in what so far seems to be a reliable way! :):) hope it helps others.
please share your improvements and let me know if any of this fixes fail and for what reason, that way we can make a list of things to improve with this very new material.
Enter a little list, compilation if you wish of what has worked for me so far (the parts in grey are outdated thanks to my latest fix, but might help users with other issues):
- adding stability to the QTC pill, CPF member netprince solved this by gluing the pill perfectly centered into the identation on the bottom of the QTC holder, This is one of the most important fixes, however adding glue for me added also a little more stiffness because the pill surface expansion when compressed is hampered a bit by the glue mantaining it into position, and also the pill eventually separated from the glue.
What happens here is that the holder identation edeges bite bits of the QTC pills corners, this little bits are left around and conduct electricity before the pill does, making ramping a bit jumpy, with the glue the pill stays in place and solves this problem.
-trying different hole sizes in the QTC pill: the hole size by default is very sensitive, it does help reach full brightess with less effort, but your uses may have different needs, for my case i needed a little bit more range, so a smaller hole does help but at the expense of being a little more stiff, this translates into a harder to press momentary and harder to twist constant (altough the twist effort difference doesnt matter in 2 handed operation, it does if you want to operate the twist one handed), 1mm diameter less than the default hole size is what i use.
...
A little mix of everything that i came up with:
Grab a new QTC pill without hole, make a hole (i use the opening of a metal mechanical pen) BUT keep the little round QTC left off that will be inside the opening of the mechanical pen, assemble everything together the same as always but with a little difference: insert the little round QTC left off inside the hole as if you were trying to make the pill whole again, what does this do? this still lets the pill compress as when it only has the empy hole, but since there are a couple of spikes in the center of the bottom and top of the holder they will hold the round hole filler in place and this one will hold the rest of the pill in place (not perfectly i know but better than before).
This will ensure contact to full every time you want, the pill will shift less, and the effort needed for compression will remain almost the same as when you only used the empty hole pill.
it might work better if you use a hole filler a little smaller than the hole, will try that later.
The best methods i have found yet:
Folded copper seat (warning, may break QTC)
Folded a copper foil tape a few times (removed the glue off of it with a bit of isoprophyl alcohol), as to increase the height around 0.5 mm (havent measured the fold i made and it compresses after first use so take that under consideration), and put the little square i folded in the identation on the bottom part of the QTC holder assembled everything back together and it works great! it becomes smoother the more you use it because the folded copper square sits better after a few compressions.
It seems that when the QTC pills are new they are taller, after some compressions the height makes them move inside the holder causing many of the jumps we experience. after twisting and pushing a lot i put in the original QTC pill that i have really operated the light with a lot (way over the 1000 compressions) and became a little jumpy, it worked great too!, if you are like me that likes to be pushing the momentary just for the sake of it and twisting it back and forth like crazy just to play with your light, this little fix will work great.
The hole size Curt designed is the best i have tried so far, bigger and it will compromise the integrity of the pill, smaller and it works but is stiffer, this size works great, effort needed to get to full is on par with my Surefire L1!, and the L1 doesnt have infinite ramping.
I am pretty sure that if the identations on the bottom part of the holder are made shallower there will be a lot less users complaining about QTC being jumpy, now it works really smooth and the folded foil seems to make it spring back faster after compression.
Hole punch copper seat (seems safe for QTC pill, but the folded method makes a better softer activation on momentary)
After seeing that the folded copper method could damage the QTC, i tried something else with the copper tape, a hole punch makes a circle that is almost the same size of the round identation where the QTC goes inside the capsule, i made a circle out of the copper tape and inserted it in there, since it comforms to the shape of the qtc quite easily is keeps it in place quite well, then took the QTC out again and added another circle, tried and then added another ,the reason i add i succesively instead of all the circles at once is that its easier to seat them inside after they are conformed, works out really good and since this isnt so tall and is the same shape as the identation i am assuming it wont break the QTC, while adding stability and a little less height than the folded seat.
So forget about the methods i mentioned before, this ones oudates all of them and is really simple and cheap! you dont even need to buy a new QTC pill.
Very happy to have found a way to make the light work really smooth in what so far seems to be a reliable way! :):) hope it helps others.
please share your improvements and let me know if any of this fixes fail and for what reason, that way we can make a list of things to improve with this very new material.
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