Photon Freedom - post battery change blues

kenk

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Joined
Dec 5, 2005
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11
OK, I just finished replacing the batteries in my Photo Freedom for the first time and now the light is acting flaky. The light flickers (not the well-timed flashing mode). It seems like there isn't a good battery connection, but I'm not sure what to do about it.

When I had the light open it looked like the foil strip that lies on top of the top battery was kind of wrinkled, like during manufacturing it was crunched and then flattened out as best possible. Is that normal?

Your help is VERY much appreciated.

Ken K.
 

leukos

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Joined
Apr 8, 2004
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Location
Chicagoland
The contact points on the Photon Freedom are pretty basic, so I can't imagine there are too many possibilities to consider. First, it's possible in the battery change that you unseated the circuit from the LED leads, maybe dissasemble and make sure it is snapped properly in place. The other possibility is that the "foil strip" across the top of the batteries does not have enough spring pressure on the positive terminal of the battery to ensure proper contact. You might need to bend it down a little with the batteries removed to make sure there is some pressure. Unless this thing got soaked, I doubt it could be corrosion as all the contacts are gold plated. Good luck! :)
 

Omega Man

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Nov 15, 2005
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I had issues with mine after opening, and it turns out I put the lid back on upside down!!
Make sure the side with "Photon Freedom Micro" is one side facing out, the other side will have a saying on it(mine says "Freedom of Religion" I think).
Hope this is the problem.
 

aileron

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Jul 28, 2005
Messages
133
Omega Man said:
I had issues with mine after opening, and it turns out I put the lid back on upside down!!
Make sure the side with "Photon Freedom Micro" is one side facing out, the other side will have a saying on it(mine says "Freedom of Religion" I think).
Hope this is the problem.
That's interesting.. mine says "Freedom of Thought" and "Be safe, always carry a Photon Micro Light" on the inside.
On topic, I had the same problem- flickering led that'd get better or worse as I squeezed it. I'd managed to unseat the circuit board while removing the batteries, and when I pushed it back in I missed one of the LED's legs, so contact was intermittant. I had to bend the LED legs up at a bigger angle to get them both back into the little holes.
 

Illum

Flashaholic
Joined
Apr 29, 2006
Messages
13,053
Location
Central Florida, USA
Try taking the batteries out, then use a eraser to rubb the contacts, then do the same to the batteries and try again...

the surface of the contacts may be coated with this frosty oxidated material.
I had a similar experience with two camera Li-ions...
 
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