NOVATAC FLICKERING

[camaro09]

Hey guys, long time looker, first time poster. I have a novatac 120t reprogrammed and was wondering about the flickering on the low low settings. Does this hurt the LED or affect its runtime at all? Maybe its already been answered but i couldn't find it. BTW i love the site.

 

[sappyg]

hey camaro, welcome to CPF
did the NT flicker before you "reprogramed" it?

 

[camaro09]

Before it was reprogrammed the low was .3 lumens now i have it set to .08 or .12. Anything above .3 is fine but the low low flickers every now and again.

 

[HKJ]

This sometimes happens on the NovaTac, it does not affect the led or the runtime.

 

[sappyg]

This sometimes happens on the NovaTac, it does not affect the led or the runtime.

yep... it does occur with the VT at the lowest setting in some cases. can't say that it happens to all of them.

 

[palimpsest]

Hey guys, long time looker, first time poster. I have a novatac 120t reprogrammed and was wondering about the flickering on the low low settings. Does this hurt the LED or affect its runtime at all? Maybe its already been answered but i couldn't find it. BTW i love the site.

I'm digging out this old thread because I had this problem a few hours ago with a brand new 120 Storm and Novatac primary 123A within. I didn't find the problem immediately because I tried to hack it several times and then programmed it with the lowest low.
The flickering occured after about 1 minute in the lowest mode. I tried several thing, cleaning thread, tightening all parts, reseting it to factory preset, etc, then the flickering occured quite immediately after selecting the low mode instead after a delay.

I prepared myself to the idea of returning a faulty flashlight but I tried a last thing: a battery-detect-reset* with 16340 within = no more flickering.

Battery-Detect-Reset*

Battery-Detect-Reset will not change any personal settings. Required when changing to or from a rechargeable battery. A rechargeable battery must be fully charged before installation.
1. Turn the light on.
2. Unscrew the battery case until the light turns off.
3. Screw the battery case back together; there will be one second of dim light.
4. During the one second of dim light, press and hold the button.
5. You will see five seconds of bright light, followed by dim light.
6. Release the button when the light goes dim.
7. The Battery-Detect-Reset is complete.
If the button is released during the brighter light period, the Error Flash Sequence of six rapid flashes will be displayed and the light will not detect the new battery configuration. If there is insufficient power to remember the detected configuration you will see two seconds of very rapid flashing. The battery configuration will not be detected and damage may occur to rechargeable batteries.

Novatac™ EDC- 85P or Novatac™ 120 : User Guide (link).

 

[peterharvey73]

Apparently, most of these flashlights work by "flickering"; it's just that the frequency of the flicker is so fast for our human eye to detect.
So, the flickering shouldn't harm the LED.

I find that primary disposable CR123's will result in flickering when their voltage becomes low.
However, the voltage of a rechargeable 16340 starts so high at an average of 3.7 volts, that there is never any flickering at all..

 

[balloonshark]

I noticed that my Storm would flicker but sometimes it wouldn't. Interesting that a battery reset would fix the problem.

Side note: If you hacked the Storm be careful when you do the battery reset. When I tried a battery reset the first time I accidentally did a factory reset somehow which required me to do the 250 click hack again.

 

[palimpsest]

Apparently, most of these flashlights work by "flickering"; it's just that the frequency of the flicker is so fast for our human eye to detect.

This model use PWM to dimm the light for low mode but the flickering problem that occured in the lowest modes which started initially after 1 minute, had a frequency like the one for the emergency strobe, not as fast but quite comparable. The flickering was not erratic but it had a "frequency".

Interesting that a battery reset would fix the problem.

At least that fix the problem with mine. I don't know if the "flickering" problem is always the same (I tried to describe it) so I don't know if it could help but it is something more to try in case of problem.
(I just try again the lowest mode with the Novatac Primary within and it flickers again but at a lowest frequency, 1 time per second. That looks like a programmed signal for "battery deplated" or something else. The lowest mode is stable with 16340).
Anyway, it runs great with 16340, fully hacked and reprogrammed.