Oracle 35W HID

[Patriot]

Jim, you drew a pretty good mental picture for me but if the photos are easy to upload that would be great too. It's almost like the battery is alternately sending voltage through a resistor of some type when using the second set of tabs. After hearing this, I really doubt that any switching is happening inside of the ballast itself though. Thanks for the interesting info.


Paul

 

[LOUSYGREATWALLGM]

Just did a runtime test on mine. 77min 35 sec on high, and 87 min 12 sec on low. I followed the same procedure as when I tested the batteries for my 24W; 5 minutes off for cool down after every 25 minutes of runtime.

Thank you so much Jim, I can now use my 35W without worrying too much for the lens and ballast :twothumbs
- Jeff

 

[SunFire900]

I thought I'd bump the thread and add a few comments here since I received this light yesterday.

First of all, the package came perfectly undamaged by priority mail. Big plus.

When I opened the carry case the first thing I saw was a gleaming silver colored steroidal flashlight.

I had ordered the dual-mode battery with it, but when I looked I saw a solid black on/off button cap and knew they had sent the single-mode battery by mistake. No clear plastic, no LED indicators. Bummer. I immediately emailed Justin about this, but I'm still waiting for an answer. (Weekend)

But wait! I removed the rubber cap from the contact end of the battery and voila', four contact pins! This must be a "New and Improved" dual-mode version that was made to reduce costs and user friendliness. Now we can just guess what mode we are in? I hate "bait and switch"!

[ We reserve the right to change quality, specifications and anything else we want without the knowledge of the consumer ]

I realize (I think) that when you first press the switch you are in High mode (?). Touching the button lightly again will put the light in Low mode (?). Can I be sure of this? Everyone has said that it is hard to see the difference between Low and High so now, to be sure, I have to switch the light OFF and then ON again (re-strike) and go from there. Don't like this at all. I do like the longer run time and don't want to give that up, but this is nuts.

I like cheese with my whine. (Whining stops)😀

I charged the battery and installed it. When I switched the light on last night I was really surprised to see just how warm the 4300k bulb was. Wow, warmer than my old M-chargers! No blue here, guys. The light is really a flooder and blasts light out in all directions....very warm light too. You just can't be anywhere in front of the light and glance at it without getting blue and green spots in your eyes for a while. Not too much info. on CPF about beam color, so it did take me by surprise.

I'm happy with the light, but not so much with the "guesswork" style of battery/mode control.:shakehead

 

[Juggernaut]

One click for on-another click for low-another for off and the cycle repeats it's self.

 

[SunFire900]

One click for on-another click for low-another for off and the cycle repeats it's self.

I'm afraid mine doesn't work like that. "Clicking" (pushing button all the way in and releasing) turns my light on and off only. Now, if I "soft" press the button (no click) while the light is on, it flashes off and on, but it stays on until switched off. There is no cycling. It is a reverse clicky type of switch, not tactical. Again, you cannot tell what level you are in.

I'm finding this hard to clearly explain,:thinking: but there is definitely no normal cycle as mentioned in your quote above.

Thanks for trying to help, Juggernaut. I wish the light came with more than just basic, single-mode instructions.

 

[Richie086]

Was something changed on this light that I missed? The dual mode battery lights up with and colored ring on the button. If you don't have the lighted ring, you don't have dual mode.

 

[SunFire900]

Richie, I don't have the lighted ring. But what I do have is the Four pins on the top which made me think (still haven't heard back from Oracle) it may be a new style dual-mode.

All the single mode batteries I have seen have only Two contact pins.

I will call AAC later if I don't hear from them soon.

 

[Richie086]

Richie, I don't have the lighted ring. But what I do have is the Four pins on the top which made me think (still haven't heard back from Oracle) it may be a new style dual-mode.

All the single mode batteries I have seen have only Two contact pins.

I will call AAC later if I don't hear from them soon.

Hi there Sunfire,

I see what you mean. Just so you know, my dual mode battery has 4 pins, but it also has the lighted ring. I'm not aware of the dual mode battery being available without the lighted ring. Keep in mind this dual mode battery with the lighted ring is a new feature. I'd be amazed if it was done away with so soon after it's come to market.

If it turns out they did away with the lighted electronic ring, I'd have to say it would be due to the fact that electronic lighted switch requires almost no pressure to activate. If transporting the flashlight inside the case with the battery inside the flashlight, having an accidental activation is a certainty.

When Justin gets back to you, please post whatever you find out. Thanks.

 

[SunFire900]

When I got home this afternoon I had an email from Justin @ ACC saying he'd send the dual mode battery out immediately.:thumbsup:

In my initial email to him, I didn't mention the the 4 pins because I had not yet seen them. I'd only seen the black, no light end cap at that time that told me "single mode". I will get back to him sometime about that.

The 4-pins were really confusing me.

I know what you mean about the light-touch activation button on the dual-mode. I will be careful of that. The single mode battery has, as I said a reverse clicky and therefor is NOT easily switched on. But, for the life of me, I can't figure out why, while the light is ON that lightly pressing the button will momentarily (until you release it again) turn the light OFF! I have not yet seen any other light switch do this, have you?

I'll let you know what happens when I get the 2-mode battery.

 

[Richie086]

When I got home this afternoon I had an email from Justin @ ACC saying he'd send the dual mode battery out immediately.:thumbsup:.

Awesome! Yeah, Justin takes care of business very quickly once he's aware of a problem.

But, for the life of me, I can't figure out why, while the light is ON that lightly pressing the button will momentarily (until you release it again) turn the light OFF! I have not yet seen any other light switch do this, have you?

I'll let you know what happens when I get the 2-mode battery.

Yeah, you got me on that one. I suppose it's just how the Chinese build this particular light.

 

[SunFire900]

Update: I received the dual mode battery from AAC yesterday (9 days after I was told it was shipped by priority mail) and it arrived DOA. None of the LED's would light up when I removed it from the box. I put it on charge and the LED's lit, so I let it charge. 2.5 hrs later the charger light was green. I checked the voltage and it read 11.79v . I put it in the light, turned it on and it lit for 5 secs and flickered off. Put it back on charge and the charger LED flashed red-green-red-green, etc. Then the red light gradually blinked less and less until the light turned steady green. The charger was cool. Checked the voltage...11.79v. It just won't take a charge. Still waiting for Justin to return my email.

Talk about bad luck.......

 

[windstrings]

sounds like the battery was dead..... the self drain issue would cause it to be dead upon arrival, but a quick charge should give you some life to run the light a while.
sounds like yours may not be accepting a charge.. make sure your charger is putting out the proper volts.. could be a bad charger.

Arriving doa could be one issue "common", but not charging could be another.

 

[SunFire900]

I'm pretty sure the charger is o.k. and is acting like it does because it is getting bad feedback from the battery after the voltage reaches its maximum of 11.8v. Also, I've charged my single-mode battery with the same charger, with normal results. The charger light goes from red to orange and then steady green with no red and green flicker at all.

If the LED's won't even glow when you receive the battery and when you charge it, it won't charge past 11.8v, then it's probably defective.

 

[windstrings]

Wow.. the LED's won't even light..... I can rub my head with my hand and make an LED light!

Does sound like your battery is toast..... I'm sure they will get you another.. these things happen and it obviously isn't the norm.

 

[SunFire900]

To be clear, Windstrings, the LED's didn't light on arrival, but when I put the battery on charge they did light up brightly. It seems that the low v. cutoff had actuated and was reset immediately by the charge current.

 

[windstrings]

If I remember right.. thats what mine did.. but it accepted a charge fine and worked great after that.
My whole issue with that battery was the fact that the main reason I use and want LiIon is not because its light, but because I can trust it when I go to use it as it has tremendous shelf life.
NiMH has a crummy shelf life as it commonly loses about 2 - 5% a day.. that means a month of storage could render it dead.
NiCad has terrible memory issues and does not compare.

If this happening with LiIon, I see it was a circuit malfunction or poor worksmanship and so I call it as I see it.

By the very nature of what you use a search light for, it needs to be able to be stowed away until a crisis or special need such as a breakdown etc.

I returned mine because of that issue... some folks don't care.

The Light seems great other than this battery issue that should be rectified by now.... they don't make it easy to modify and put in your own battery pack either.... the vendors that sell this light should consider an alternative.. maybe thats why its as cheap as it is?

I hate to be brutal, but that seems to be the story to me.

 

[Twinkle-Plank]

Does it feel solid? and is the build quality comparable to fenix?

 

[SunFire900]

You can't really compare this light w/any of the Fenix lights. It is much larger than any Fenix and definitely not an EDC light. The finish on mine is flawless, but it is not HAIII. In fact, I'm not sure what the finish is, but it really doesn't matter to me. It looks great.

Solid? Solid enough to crack skulls I think. Not that you'd want to, of course. A more solidly built equivalent light would probably cost (and weigh) nearly twice as much.

I agree with windstrings that the battery is probably the weakest part of the light and the use of higher quality cells would be a welcomed improvement. 🙂

 

[BVH]

And using new cells may have already happened in their production. Early lights obtained about 40 minutes of runtime and newer owners are reporting 55 +.

 

[SunFire900]

windstrings:

I find that I can read the battery voltage from the two outside poles of the battery at anytime whether switched on or off (??). I can't quite figure this out. It's the same on the single mode and dual mode batteries.

In your review I believe you said that there is no voltage at the poles when the battery is switched off. I don't think that is correct. The battery could be shorted [] even while switched off.

Any thoughts?