My Madmax+ is sick....

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

I thought for the longest time that I had a Kroll Switch problem. But tonight just for grins I grounded the tail end of the NimH to the body with a knife blade.

It only flickers bright at first contact, then nothing.

I have never used the crap out of it, fed it anything stronger than freshly charged NimH or fresh Alks or anything remotely similar to punishing it.

Is there any hope?

It's not like I desperately NEED it, as my Lambda LUXIII pill is the nuts! But it WOULD be nice if it worked!

 

[LitFuse]

It could be a contact issue with the front of the sammie, try running it outside of it's host.

Peter

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

I shall try!

 

[modamag]

LitFuse is right. I had similar prob a while back.
Cleaning the Mag contact & sammies ground should resolve the problem.

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

Hmmm...

Okay. I changed hosts. My Lambda Pill is happy as a pig in slop in the body the Madmax was persnickety in.

However, while the Madmax is much happier in the other body, it is still not without problems.

Funny too, when I used a 123 and a piece of wire to test outside of the hosts, I'd get a bright flash and then drop in output to maybe half. Only when I touched the ground wire to a specific location on the MM did it shine bright....

Right now it's working. But I would have no confidence in carrying it. The Kroll isn't at 100% either, but that is not the entire problem anyway. It does seem to have a ground issue at the top against the body.... although I got a lot of flash bright and slowly dim before finding "Karma"

Good thing the Lambda Micropro is built like a brick*&^%house!!! It causes NO concern.

The MM+ has me somewhat flumaxed!!!

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

Picked it up this AM thinking "It was working when I put it there"...

Nope. Lotsa Bright and fade to dim or off.

Anybody want to tackle it?

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

Okay. I scraped at the contact points with the blade of my SAK Classic.

It seems now the the Kroll is the only problem. And it is much better after pulling all the springs and scuffing them on my jeans.

 

[dat2zip]

The Kroll springs will oxidize and thus go high resistance. You can fix this by filling the inside with Nyogel or some other silicon grease.

Expanding the vertical inside spring also helps as by default it's a tad short and isn't making good connection.

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

It needed some MORE scraping of contacts...

I GOTTA get by Radio Shack!

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

Last night it started bright and dimmed down to barely lit , even using a knife blade instead of the Kroll. More "cleaning" of the ground surface and positive contact helped a lot.

Then this AM I pushed the Kroll, and it did the same thing!

Last straw is to get by Ratshack for the tube of contact enhancing lube. If that don't do it, I'm done.

And probably will not ever recommend a sammie again.

 

[hank]

I've had much better results using as hosts the Brinkmann 2xAA lights (Brinkmann comes with a tailswitch, they honor the lifetime warranty, they've sent me three replacements so far and the replacements are clearly better made switches than came on the stock lights three to five years ago.)

On the modded Mags, I had to take apart all of my Kroll switches, stretch the internal spring, clean the black oxidation off the contact points, and put a dab of the _conductive_ Nyogel lube on the contact areas. Since then, I've had no trouble.

(And a side note, I definitely did damage my very first module in a Mag, probably by using the Mag twist-on-off method that bears down on the face of the LED sandwich -- eventually got a broken contact between the LED and the sandwich, it became intermittent and failed and Wayne took care of it as soon as I sent it to him -- so, it can be the Sandwich -- but likely it's the Kroll switch troubling you.)

I carry my lights walking home at night, crossing a dozen intersections plagued by homeward-bound SUV drivers talking on their cell phones and blind to anything in front of them any less bright than a nice, bright MadMax waved in their faces from the crosswalk. They've saved my life and several other people's -- and the switches get a LOT of wear, on and off a dozen times each night adds up.

Clickety-click .... wave .... wave .... SCREEEEECH! SLIDE! Ah, got the driver's attention just in time .....

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

Maybe so...

But I'm taking the Kroll out of play by using metal things to ground the battery to the body.

This AM I used a long screwdriver to rough up the contact area in the minim*g. No help.

I gotta get to Ratshack before I give up, but I'm getting AWFULLY close to giving up!

Luckily I have my Lambda Pill as a RELIABLE light!

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

Okay. I just tried each individual NiMH against the MM+ module using my SAK classic as a contact. I got some flickering due to less than perfect contact, but each battery lit up the module.

I did one last hard look and a bit of scraping on the ground surface of the module. I put the module in the mini and used a stainless steel pen to try one battery. Success. I put the second battery in. Success. I put the Kroll on. Success.

So for at least a few hours, the MM+ is working. The contact enhancing stuff from Ratshack >>>SHOULD<<< be the end of my trials and tribulations... we shall see!

WHOOPS! NO! I just picked it up again. Pushed the Kroll, and got bright which faded down to barely lit.

It's not the Kroll. My SAK blade gets the same results.

Can the contacts be THAT flaky? It can look perfect and act whacked?

On my way to Radio Shack...

 

[Mags]

Hmm, if your willing to attack the kroll again, look at this thread Here In short, you switch out the spring of the Mag tailcap with the spring on the kroll. It works like a charm (For me).

Edit: Are you using a MiniMag or MicroMag for a host?

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

It's not the Kroll.

If I use Stainless Steel, be it a pen or a knife blade the same thing happens. It comes on bright for just a second, then dims a bunch to a little better than ARC AAA brightness. While at that brightness it's doing a lot of flickering.

What I got at Ratshack was a DeoxIT Power Booster PEN. It claims to clean up oxidation. I used it twice now on the negative contact area as well as both ends of each battery and the positive contact area on the sammie.

Right now, the very very same thing keeps accuring. I can NOT count on it to work.

funny, I just tried using each battery alone with the pen and got steady light. Then I put in both batts, and still was able to get steady light using the pen.

>>>Tries a few more times<<< >>>swaps battery positions<<<

I can't get it to fail again right now. What changed? Even with the Kroll, it's working just now. What the HELL???

 

[Alan_L]

Do you still have the original Mag tailcap? I would suggest that you try using it instead to see if you can determine whether or not the Kroll is the problem. I think it might give a more reliable contact than using your knife blade. And don't forget to clean out the inside lip of the Mag barrel where the Madmax makes contact.

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

Should be able to get to my "stuff" after the movers do their thing Friday. I plan to try a standard tailcap.

But I still think some other kind of hijinks is going on.

 

[dat2zip]

Have you cleaned the inside top of the battery tube. If you take the sandwich out and look into the battery tube down at the bottom and it's got black stuff, then you battery tube needs cleaning.

If the top of the sandwich looks good and the anode contact is fine, then I'd look at the tube itself. This will happen with any module of any kind since the parts can move. Dirt grease and grim accumulate up there. I'm not sure where, but, all the ones I've taken apart after a while seem very dirty.

Wayne

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

I scraped around up in there with a screwdriver earlier today, and just took it apart to deoxIt.

It still works. But it was working before I did that as well...

But will it work again in the morning? We'll see... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/poke2.gif

 

[dat2zip]

The best way to clean the inside is with a cotton swab dipped in a cleaner solution like acetone or a small wad of kleenex and then pushed and twisted with the blunt end of a long stick or writing utensil.

Otherwise, just scraping it with a screwdriver will just push it around.

Both the top of the sandwich and the top of the inner battery tube must be clean and flat. One little fleck of sand will break the electrical connection and or provide poor thermal transfer from the sandwich to the battery tube.

Hope you can clean it and it works fine again after it's all cleaned.

Wayne