Prince from fivemega....

southpaw

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Oct 8, 2003
Messages
46
so I bought this light off of the B/S/T forum and I'm having a a slight problem with it which, from PM'ing fivemega, is probably not an actually problem with the light as much as a problem with my batteries. He has been very responsive to my PM's but I don't want to keep bugging him so I thought I'd throw my problem out to the rest of you guys. You'll have to bear with me...I'm new the incandescent side of things.

so in a nutshell my problem is the light (a WA 1185 powered by 3xaw17670 batteries) will not turn on unless I quickly tap the switch 3 or 4 times. If it's on and I turn it off, I can immediately turn it back on but if I wait more than 30 seconds or so I have to do the same thing (3 or 4 taps then it will turn on). So in pm'ing fivemega he has diagnosed the health of my batteries as the issue. So my question is how can I determine the "health" of my batteries?
 
AW's new 17670 cells are the only protected 17670 cells that can light up the 1185. Other brands of protected cells or AW's older protected cells will require multiple clicks in order to preheat the filament of the bulb, thus increasing its resistance and therefore reducing the current draw from the batteries below the threshold for the protection circuit. It is also possible that your cells are of the newer type but one of them has a protection circuit that is out of spec.
 
I am using AW cells I purchased for lighthound earlier this week. After having the problem and reading up on this a bit I've also order some directly from AW...maybe I'll have better luck with the ones I get from him. Anywho...I can "live" with having to click a couple of extra times...it's just not something I'm used to.
 
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I too have the same thing happening with my M6 and the same set-up. I have gotten used to it, but at first it caught me off gaurd.
 
That's definitely a battery problem. Could it be that Lighthound still has old stock of AW's cells? Hopefully, the one's straight from AW will work.
 
My M6 does the same thing as does my Mag Lite but I guess its a resistance issue in the mag lite. Any way to tell if the batterys are the newer type bought them in April 2008.
 
I was wondering the same (if there is any way to tell if I had an older cell). I'm gonna guess there is but I'd probably have to test the batteries with some equipment that I don't own...
 
I have two sets of 3 x 17670s - they both start the 1185 single tap , even when 75% or so discharged.
It may only be one cell causing the problem - only 1 has to shut down..
Some people who recently assembled the same setups have found double tapping required either all the time , or at some stage of discharge (around 50% or so)

I can't see a practicle way to test the cells individually as you would need to simulate the cold start up current requirements of an 1185.
 
Well I got my batteries from AW the other day and now my light works like a champ...one click and it's on! Woo hoo! Thanks everyone for your insight.
 
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