Streamlight Sidewinder

[filerunner]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and have a question for anyone who owns a streamlight sidewinder. I just bought two online and all the lights work fine but the blue light just throws a blue ring with a dark center at any brightness. This doesn't seem right but both units do it. Does anyone know about this? Thanks, Dave

 

[bitslammer]

Colored LEDs are notorious for having beam artifacts such as you describe. I have a Sidewinder and all 3 (red, green, blue) of the color LEDs have some degree of rings in them. I solved this by just putting a small piece of Glad Press & Seal over the Color LEDs. Now it has a nice smooth flood with all 3 colors.

It's a shame that you should need to do this with a product, but I think manufacturers are reluctant to do anything that might diminish brightness. In this case I don't really mind because the choice if left up to me as to how/what I choose to do.

 

[filerunner]

Thanks for your reply. I called Streamlight repair dept. and the lady I talked to tried a couple of sidewinders she had there and they were th same way. She said I could send them in if I wanted to but she wasn't sure they could correct the problem. I told her I'd just keep them and see how it goes. I don't know how much I'll use the blue light anyway.