I have a couple of these, and they seem to be defective.
I bought these to hang on the ends of my kayak if I got caught on the water after dark, so they need to be waterproof, but not to 600 feet. I have head-mounted lights (Pelican 2420's) and will have reflective tape on the sides of the kayak eventually, so the flashers don't need to be real bright. They're not really standard lighting, but they're so limited in power I don't expect they'll cause much of a disturbance anyway.
One thing about them is certain--due to the boating use, I MUST be able to turn them on and off with wet hands.
They turned kinda hard at first, so hard that I didn't think I could turn them with wet hands, so I put some silicone grease (Superlube) on the seals and threads and reassembled them. That helped a lot at first, but after 30-60 minutes they end up even tighter than before. The ring seemed to soak up the lube.
So then I ground some of the o-ring faces off with a sanding drum on a Dremel, and re-greased them, and they worked great for a short time, but end up even harder than before. This was the first grinding, where I gave one side of each o-ring a slight flat "face" grinding.
So then I ground some of the o-ring faces off with a sanding drum on a Dremel, and re-greased them, and they worked great for a short time, but end up even harder than before. This was the second grinding, where I made the outer edge of the o-ring a 90º angle.
So then I ground some of the o-ring faces off with a sanding drum on a Dremel, and re-greased them, and they worked great for a short time, but end up even harder than before. This was the third grinding, where I cut even more off the outer edge of the o-ring a 90º angle.
The things work great for a couple minutes after being lubed and reassembled, but I come back 30, 45 minutes later, and cannot turn them by hand at all. They are so tight now that I need to use a wrench to unscrew them.
I'm 6'2" and can lift 150 lbs pretty easily, this is not a problem of me being slight of build. They are now so hard to unscrew I wonder about using TWO wrenches, one on the lens and one on the body. I am somewhat afraid that the clip will bust off and what's left of it will rip my thumb open.......
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WTF???
What material are these rings made of exactly?
I plan to keep grinding the little b*&#$&@ down again and again until they work; there's little reason to stop now, but I don't know how much of the o-ring will be left. If I end up grinding them so much they won't seal against water, then I give up--they are simply crap, and will go in the trash. That would be kind of surprising to me though, Pelican has a pretty good rep.
Has anyone else had this problem with these things?
What lube did you use that actually made them better?
I've used Superlube on numerous other items that used o-ring seals, and never had this problem..... I even used the same Superlube on the seals in the Pelican 2420's and they do the same thing, but nowhere near as severe as the mini flashers seals.
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I bought these to hang on the ends of my kayak if I got caught on the water after dark, so they need to be waterproof, but not to 600 feet. I have head-mounted lights (Pelican 2420's) and will have reflective tape on the sides of the kayak eventually, so the flashers don't need to be real bright. They're not really standard lighting, but they're so limited in power I don't expect they'll cause much of a disturbance anyway.
One thing about them is certain--due to the boating use, I MUST be able to turn them on and off with wet hands.
They turned kinda hard at first, so hard that I didn't think I could turn them with wet hands, so I put some silicone grease (Superlube) on the seals and threads and reassembled them. That helped a lot at first, but after 30-60 minutes they end up even tighter than before. The ring seemed to soak up the lube.
So then I ground some of the o-ring faces off with a sanding drum on a Dremel, and re-greased them, and they worked great for a short time, but end up even harder than before. This was the first grinding, where I gave one side of each o-ring a slight flat "face" grinding.
So then I ground some of the o-ring faces off with a sanding drum on a Dremel, and re-greased them, and they worked great for a short time, but end up even harder than before. This was the second grinding, where I made the outer edge of the o-ring a 90º angle.
So then I ground some of the o-ring faces off with a sanding drum on a Dremel, and re-greased them, and they worked great for a short time, but end up even harder than before. This was the third grinding, where I cut even more off the outer edge of the o-ring a 90º angle.
The things work great for a couple minutes after being lubed and reassembled, but I come back 30, 45 minutes later, and cannot turn them by hand at all. They are so tight now that I need to use a wrench to unscrew them.
I'm 6'2" and can lift 150 lbs pretty easily, this is not a problem of me being slight of build. They are now so hard to unscrew I wonder about using TWO wrenches, one on the lens and one on the body. I am somewhat afraid that the clip will bust off and what's left of it will rip my thumb open.......
---------
WTF???
What material are these rings made of exactly?
I plan to keep grinding the little b*&#$&@ down again and again until they work; there's little reason to stop now, but I don't know how much of the o-ring will be left. If I end up grinding them so much they won't seal against water, then I give up--they are simply crap, and will go in the trash. That would be kind of surprising to me though, Pelican has a pretty good rep.
Has anyone else had this problem with these things?
What lube did you use that actually made them better?
I've used Superlube on numerous other items that used o-ring seals, and never had this problem..... I even used the same Superlube on the seals in the Pelican 2420's and they do the same thing, but nowhere near as severe as the mini flashers seals.
~
