I finally got all of the parts for a M2 together and thanks to the ingenuity of fellow forum members here I decided to up the power a bit. I got some 123 rechargeables with a Lumens Factory 9V LA and voila, I'd guess 150 very white lumens out the front with no regrets with the rechargeables. It worked great up until just a few days ago, when it just stopped working. I looked at the LA and the filament appears intact, next I thought maybe a bad cell in the batts, but sice i recharged them to 3.7V I don't have a means of testing them. Do any of you fine folks have any ideas or suggestions about this situation, I'd love to get this back up and running again. Thanks!
SF M2 project problem, help!
- Thread starter trouble
- Start date
Help Support Candle Power Flashlight Forum
scott.cr
Flashlight Enthusiast
If the light just quit it's probably the lamp. I wouldn't rule out the cells either, but they usually give you some type of warning before dying. Are your cells protected? Some protected cells will suddenly quit on you too (the protection circuit shuts off the battery so you can't over-discharge it).
Not much in a Surefire M2 to go wrong!
Not much in a Surefire M2 to go wrong!
They are unprotected, I got them from lighthound. they are pink and have 3.7V stenciled on them, I got the Ultrafire charger that has 2 settings, 3V and 3.7V, I charge them on the 3.7V setting. I figured that a 9V LA being under run on 7.4V would last longer than this one did:thinking: It had maybe an hour or so of total runtime on it. Any ideas?
First take the entire assembly apart and reassemble. If that does not work replace the lamp with another and see what happens. If those two tries don't net any results there may be a problem getting the juice from the batteries to the lamp so you could try cleaning all the contact areas. You could also try putting a small magnet between the batteries. If nothing works up to that point you may have a bad switch. Beyond that I don't know. I dropped my Leef light once and it would not light up. I took it apart and then back together and it was fine. I would recommend buying a DMM if you don't have one already so you know what the battery voltage is before and after charging. Maybe the charger is defective and not charging?? If so, you would not know without knowing the voltage of the charged batteries which should be very close to 4.20V after a full charge.
OK I tried taking everything apart and reassembling, I discovered that it's not the LA as it lit albeit very dimly and yellow. I had to unscrew the head about 1/4 of a turn to get that. I tried 2 different tailcaps with the same results, also tried a bit of tinfoil between the batts and that didn't work either. One of the cells was very hot when I finished so I stopped, does anyone recognize thhese problems? It would seem to be a battery issue from what I can gather but I have very limited experience with recharegables :thinking:
jumpstat
Flashlight Enthusiast
get some primaries and try.....if it works than chuck away those nasty unprotected cells.
SF 123's won't light the LA at all I tried that early on, I'm going to chuck those rechargeables as I really feel that they are the culprit here. Can you guys recommend some quality 123 rechargeables that will power the Lumens factroy 9V LA?
jumpstat
Flashlight Enthusiast
AW rechargeables. You can find him at the dealer section....Been using R123a, 17670, 18650 with Ultrafire WF-139 charger....good combi..AW sells both...have a look see
AW's seem to be good for rechargeables. For primaries: Surefire, Streamlight, Sanyo (Japan, not China), Panasonic, Duracell. There is at least one or two CR123A shootout threads, however they are a little old. I don't know of a recent shootout test but the ones listed above should give you satisfactory results. Look at some of the dealers on CPF or browse ebay and you can find them for under $2 each.
