NiteCore Extreme Reliability - huge dissapointment, Will EdgeTac react?

[deewy]

Hi everyone,

I feel I have to share with you my experience with NiteCore Extreme flashlight. I stated in my other topic that I use the light as my EDC and quite often when on duty. It has been a month since I bought this light.

Yeasterday, after patrol when I was back in the office I took the light of the holster and realised something is not right. The crenelated bezel was just loose, it took only two another twists and the bezel popped out.

I am very glad, this did not happen to me when on duty, because the front part could be easily lost in a dark.

From now on I am afraid this may happen again. What if I was in pursuit and this happened? This could actually get me to a very bad situation...

The light was not dropped or anything. But what if it did drop, would the bezel pop away? Will the light keep its water resistance when it is raining?

These are the questions I am now asking myself when trying to find a confidence wearing the light on my duty.

I must say this is a huge dissapointment for me. The light is very expensive and honestly I would expect much more from light that is suppose to be used in military and law enforcement. I thought the bezel is sealed to the head and cannot be taken off as adviced by EagleTac previously. Obviuosly I was mistaken, you can unscrew it just with two fingers. Worse is when it happens on its own :shakehead

Please find enclosed pictures that shows the way the bezel was loose and what happens when two more twists were done.


Loosen bezel:

The light dissambled:

 

[Pöbel]

Re: NiteCore Extreme Reliability - huge dissapointment, Will EagleTac react?

just add some loctite to the threads and you won't have to worry about that problem again.

 

[deewy]

It is good idea, thank you.

But my point is that for light costing 90USD you should not been adding any loctite of fixing anything on it.

 

[Pöbel]

if it's advertised you shouldn't. But many of us cpf'ers would actually appreciate the absence of loctite, as this makes modifikations easier.

All the ppl who just want to use the light would prefer the threads glued in order not to get into the situation you are in.

 

[Armed_Forces]

You should consider purchasing Surefire products next time and I can assure you, you won't have to worry about something like this happening.

 

[Marduke]

Just put a little loctite or superglue on the threads and they will never move again.

 

[Ecko]

I don't understand, are you saying that the head can not be tightened to a point where it will stay on by it self.

 

[Superdave]

I'd clean the threads out and put a small dab of 3M trim adheasive on them, tighten it back down and have about the same strength as the glue that Surefire uses.

 

[Crenshaw]

its possible, however unlikley, that you might have dropped it, and then released the locktite thingy....

also possible, that its a fluke and this one doesnt have any on it..... it happens...

should be an easy fix to make sure it really doesnt ever come out again...

as for bringing surefire into this...

Crenshaw

 

[deewy]

There are no singns of loctite or some glue at all. So it was definately not used when assebmling the light.

But thank you guys, I will have a look in a Tool store and by some.

How much of this loctite should be used? Just a drop or so? Have never used it before.


Anyways, I lost trust in this light to have it on duty...pity... it will stay my EDC though.

I have already ordered NovaTac 120T flashlight, I hope it will satisfy my needs to be a reliable back up light.

 

[outdoorslight]

i think the thread pitch is 0.5mm,the structure is not suit for assembly.Pöbel and Marduke's advise is a good idea

 

[Pöbel]

There are no singns of loctite or some glue at all. So it was definately not used when assebmling the light.

But thank you guys, I will have a look in a Tool store and by some.

How much of this loctite should be used? Just a drop or so? Have never used it before.


Anyways, I lost trust in this light to have it on duty...pity... it will stay my EDC though.

I have already ordered NovaTac 120T flashlight, I hope it will satisfy my needs to be a reliable back up light.

depending on the type of loctite, (some act as light glue, some will weld the threads forever!) a drop is enough! You probably don't have to buy it, just ask an auto (or some other) repair shop if you may have a drop for the threads.. i don't think they'll refuse.

the newer NovaTacs do not have Loctite on the bezel threads as well, so you might run into the same problem, alhough the Novatacs are pretty tight when coming out of the factory.

 

[Jarl]

I imagine you could quite easily sell that one for more than retail price on B/S/T, and buy yourself a new one. Alternatively, you can just glue the threads. IMO, it's silly to stop using a light because there was a problem which you've fixed- now you know that the bezel won't unscrew itself because you've superglued/loctited it (I wouldn't use superglue, the fumes might screw with the reflector), and since you've also had a month of otherwise problem free usage, you know it's fairly reliable. IMO it's similar to replacing your car with every slight niggle, or buyingt a new house whenever the lawn became messed up, etc.

 

[kramer5150]

You should be aware that most lights can unscrew like that.... even my surefires. I specifically buy lights that can be taken apart, that way I can mod them to my taste when new emitter BINs and DC boards are released.

Not sure about Novatac, but I have seen enough modded ones for me to speculate that the bezel for their design also unscrews.

I think you should try loc-tite, they make it in different grades/levels of tight-ness. Just a small dab is all you need, unless you are unusually rough with your EDC. On that note, have you reconsidered your EDC method? Perhaps re-position it on your belt, or try a different holster.

PS... I didn't know extremes simply unscrew like that... good mod host perhaps... drop in a DD SSC-P7 in that!!

 

[litetube]

I would have to agree with a preference for a non loctited/glued bezel ring assembly though everyone I have had that didnt have thread lock did eventually loosen and require retightening. Nice to hear Novatac has stopped doing it though this surprises me since they gear the lights towards military/police and those groups seem to prefer a good tight seal lockup of the permanant nature for good reason!!
I would be more doubtful about the clicky switch on Chinese made lights and having that crap out on you when needed most. I think the Novatac is gonna be more reliable overal with a different more reliable switching mechanism. It might now be quite as brite on high but the difference is really negligible in real world use. Plus you can now get them with different battery configs and the prices have come down.
As was mentioned a little loctite (blue is easier to break than red , maybe the red since you really want it to not budge) will solve the problem. $3 bucks at Walmart

Something to note with Loctite, it hardens in the ABSENCE of air in the threads so using alot and having it oozing out of the joint will just make a mess and not dry. Its the stuff in the threads that will cure so just a bit spread evenly on the threads

 

[deewy]

Well you never know this will not happen again, never say never.

If this happened when I was walking a dog, fine. But, just imagine if I had to use a strobe on suspect and the light felt apart, this could have a fatal results.

The thing is that when it happened the spring caused the bezel to jump away along with other inside compononets.


As you say with loctite attached it should not happen again. However, when NovaTac arrives I will give a go and test it.

 

[supergravy]

If you are looking for life or death reliability, I don't think this is a very good flashlight. I wouldn't be concerned about the bezel unscrewing, particularly if you go the route of loc-titing it. For that matter just tightening it down tighter seems like it should do the trick? This isn't the problem I worry about though...

My Extreme came with a very poor feeling switch and intermittant problems where the light would flash once but not turn on. I could hit the switch on and off again multiple times and get more single flashes. After enough of this it would usually turn on and work normal again for a while. I then replaced the switch with one of the two spares and cleaned everything with deoxit. The new switch worked much better with much better feel, and best of all the light was always working. A couple of days later the flakey behaviour was back again.

I don't know why this is happening or if it is just my light but have seen another person on the forum with the same issue. This leads me to believe this flashlight is a very poor choice for staring down a perp. This makes me extremely sad as this would otherwise be my favorite flashlight.

 

[Pöbel]

Edgetac changed the switch design after there were so many problems with the old design. I received a replacement switch for my NDI a while ago. It's much stiffer and no hickups so far.

 

[deewy]

One more thing I forgot to mention, maybe because I was trying to forget as this made angry.

When the bezel popped out I accidentaly touched the lens from inside, when trying to clean of the finger print, the red colour film was left on the cleaning tissue. Now the lens have marks from inside and I am afraid the dual-coating is affected.

This is just all wrong, If I had choice I would return the light and got my money back. What a waste... Will again stick to my primary Fenix TK10 and wait for my NovaTac backup to arrive.

 

[supergravy]

Edgetac changed the switch design after there were so many problems with the old design. I received a replacement switch for my NDI a while ago. It's much stiffer and no hickups so far.

Thank you for this. After further research I have found that you can identify the new and old switch design by the color of the button. Yellow is the old design, and black is new. All of mine are yellow.... :mecry:

This sucks as I just bought this a couple of weeks ago and the switch has been out for at least a few months . I would have hoped vendors would have updated their stock so as not to ship with the faulty switch? I bought mine from Kandlepower on Amazon (It just occurred to me that since fulfilled by amazon these were likely in inventory a long time so no fault of Kandlepower). Fortunately I think this is a division of 4sevens. Argh! I am off to try and get one of these new switches...

I feel your pain Deewy and am sorry to hear about the fingerprint.