I received a new Zebralight SC50 in the mail this Monday and was just delighted. Love the UI.
Last night I went riding on my bike and used it on beacon mode for about 30~40 min with a brand new Eneloop. Might add that the temperature was about 8 degrees celsius.
And it all started this morning:
Using the same battery from last night, turned the light on and cycled through to beacon mode, and noticed the output of the light at this mode was not consistently at the High, but instead it was flashing in Medium and High with no obvious sequential order. Cycled through all the modes several times, reinserted the battery, and found the switch started to malfunction. The light sometimes did not respond to clicks and sometimes would not turn on at all. When cycling through the modes, the 5 Lm Low disappeared and was replaced by the 0.7Lm Moonlight Lo, but the Moonlight mode became extremely dim that the LED emitter just appears a white square with no glare whatsoever when you look into the reflector. Two levels of Medium were as they should be. Turned the light on High and left it on, but it turned off itself after about 10 seconds, and then could not turn on at all. Left it for a few minutes, it turned on at High with a single click, but died half way while press-and-holding the switch through one cycle and could not turn on again. After a couple of minutes, click and hold to turn it on at Low and cycle through to High, release switch, double click to beacon but it died again and would not turn on. All this was done indoors with temperature around 21 celsius.
Now, what's the problem? Has anyone experienced weird behaviour like this from an SC50 or SC30?
Then I put in a near new alkaline AA and the light was happily functioning as normal.
Alright it's the Eneloop. It's not that I didn't think about it, it's just that I didn't expect it. I know Eneloops are not at their best when taken straight out of the packet, but even at 50% capacity I expected it to sustain a regulated beacon well over 2 hours. And if it was the battery, why was light put out lower Lo's but OK in Medium modes?
Well I may be totally wrong here as I'm not any expert on batteries. Can someone advise how to get the best out of Eneloops? How much impact does temperature have on their performance? Is this a key issue here at all?
Not a big deal here but just thought I'd share the experience with newbies like me.
Last night I went riding on my bike and used it on beacon mode for about 30~40 min with a brand new Eneloop. Might add that the temperature was about 8 degrees celsius.
And it all started this morning:
Using the same battery from last night, turned the light on and cycled through to beacon mode, and noticed the output of the light at this mode was not consistently at the High, but instead it was flashing in Medium and High with no obvious sequential order. Cycled through all the modes several times, reinserted the battery, and found the switch started to malfunction. The light sometimes did not respond to clicks and sometimes would not turn on at all. When cycling through the modes, the 5 Lm Low disappeared and was replaced by the 0.7Lm Moonlight Lo, but the Moonlight mode became extremely dim that the LED emitter just appears a white square with no glare whatsoever when you look into the reflector. Two levels of Medium were as they should be. Turned the light on High and left it on, but it turned off itself after about 10 seconds, and then could not turn on at all. Left it for a few minutes, it turned on at High with a single click, but died half way while press-and-holding the switch through one cycle and could not turn on again. After a couple of minutes, click and hold to turn it on at Low and cycle through to High, release switch, double click to beacon but it died again and would not turn on. All this was done indoors with temperature around 21 celsius.
Now, what's the problem? Has anyone experienced weird behaviour like this from an SC50 or SC30?
Then I put in a near new alkaline AA and the light was happily functioning as normal.
Alright it's the Eneloop. It's not that I didn't think about it, it's just that I didn't expect it. I know Eneloops are not at their best when taken straight out of the packet, but even at 50% capacity I expected it to sustain a regulated beacon well over 2 hours. And if it was the battery, why was light put out lower Lo's but OK in Medium modes?
Well I may be totally wrong here as I'm not any expert on batteries. Can someone advise how to get the best out of Eneloops? How much impact does temperature have on their performance? Is this a key issue here at all?
Not a big deal here but just thought I'd share the experience with newbies like me.
