Any Cure for the Kroll??

I've acquired some Kroll tailcap switches to help me turn my growing pile of minimags into mod material.

The problem that I've noted, is that when I power a light on with the Kroll, it doesn't always stay at full brightness. This seems to happen with about 1 out of 3 that I've tested..

In other words, when I depress the switch fully, it is at maximum brightness. When I let off of it to let it run, brightness drops off. This happens about half the time. If I smack the light around a bit, it will come to full brightness eventually. I've tried blowing them out and cleaning them with out luck.

Has anyone found any certain brand of contact cleaner or other product that will solve this irritating problem? Thanks in advance...

There's no way you can fix the problem. Krolls are like that. You gotta live with it or find some other clickie switch.

That annoys the heck outta me too...

I too have had that problem with the Kroll, but I have found a solution. Just take some rubbing alcohol and pour some into the side of the switch where the side spring is and click like crazy. The alcohol will dry quickly and will clean the internal contacts of any corrosion which is what's causing the less than perfect connection. You might want to remove the rubber end cap first as the alcohol might puddle up in it and take longer to dry completly. Works great!!

Originally posted by Slick:
I've acquired some Kroll tailcap switches to help me turn my growing pile of minimags into mod material.

The problem that I've noted, is that when I power a light on with the Kroll, it doesn't always stay at full brightness. This seems to happen with about 1 out of 3 that I've tested..

In other words, when I depress the switch fully, it is at maximum brightness. When I let off of it to let it run, brightness drops off.

This happens about half the time. If I smack the light around a bit, it will come to full brightness eventually. I've tried blowing them out and cleaning them with out luck.

Has anyone found any certain brand of contact cleaner or other product that will solve this irritating problem?

Thanks in advance...

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Slick,

Ken Cooke alias, "Imworking" this was the problem I told you about with the Kroll tailcaps. I order the Ram Tailcaps from Outpost.com and you were right. They switch on easily and only 50% of them worked right. Anyway, don't say I did'nt warn you. Its those two little wires that are intergrated with the plastic threads that are causing your problem. Make sure you don't hear a clicking noise when you are screwing the cap into the back of the Mini M*g.

Thanks guys... I was kind of afraid that this was a commonplace annoyance/problem. After having poor luck with the Ram switches, I thought I'd give the Krolls a go.

I'm just extremely picky about what goes into mods that I sell to other people. I stake my reputation on every light I sell and just don't feel right selling something that might not be 100% (unless the customer specifically asks for it). While only about half of my Krolls do this from the start, my fear is that this could begin to happen to a switch AFTER the mod gets sold.

I'll give Ratdog's "saturation" method a try..

Someone needs to "invent" a better tailcap switch!

I wonder if you could buy just the tailcaps from brinkmann?

I've had good luck with using conductive grease on the various springs. Too much is worse than none though, for some reason. The other way to "fix" it is to simply unscrew the switch from the light and try installing it again. That solves about half of my initial problems with the switches.

Yes, what we need is a REAL robust modding switch! I have it designed pretty well in my head - just can't come up with the funds to make it fly.

Had problems with my mini coming on at times so I replaced it with a switch similar to the Kroll from another light I bought years ago. Light would be dim at times unless I clicked it a few times. Got fed up so I bought a Kroll, same problem. Now I just took my Opalecs, Inretech, Pill and put them into Brinkmann's and Craftsman lights. Either the bottom click or the body mounted push switch models. Much better.

Just as an update, I might add that this problem happens much more often in lights that have very low current flow..

For example, I have a 1W white Luxeon "pill" in a minimag direct drive with 3 2/3rd AA's. When these batteries drop below half charge, this problem happens all the time. I noticed that with the batteries freshly charged, it rarely happens.

In a second example, I have another minimag with a 1W red/orange Luxeon direct drive on 2 lithium AA's. Using a pair of lithiums with 30+ hours on them, this problem rears it's ugly head frequently.. Switching to fresh lithiums, the problem goes away.

I have a McLux in 3x123 and have not completed building it yet, but given the results mentioned above, I don't expect it to be a problem at the current level 3 123's will give. I only had asked how to remove the Kroll from the McLux in case it did become a problem later on. I just thought I should mention this, so nobody got the impression this was a problem I had with my McLux.. Now, if I could only find a decent white 5W lambertian to finish this this up!

In summary, I believe this problem becomes MUCH more obvious when low current is going through the Kroll.

I've had the same problem with the Brinkmann switch. With a Badboy installed, it thought it was a poor mans' L1.

i got a quick way to fix it. remember, your mileage may vary.
screw off your kroll. Take out the spring. You will be able to see that there was another, smaller spring inside the tail cap. use a small screw driver to take a small part out and slip the bigger spring towards the small slit. It should work fine after that.

cheers

Shiftd,

That's the exact method I'm using right now, seems to work better I think..

-YC

good to hear that.

I was having trouble with my Arc LS2 switch and followed Ratdog's advice about using rubbing alcohol. It worked great! Thanks for the tip Ratdog.

Originally posted by Slick:
........... Now, if I could only find a decent white 5W lambertian to finish this this up!
..................

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Slick, a quest many of us are on!

- Don

Upadate - I waited until my batteries were running low enough that the flickering problem was chronic.

Using the time honored theory that "more is better, so too much outta be just right", I removed the boot from the Kroll and dropped it ito a "nyquil" cup and poured in enough alcohol to submerge it. Then I proceded to click it on and off for about 2 minutes while fully submerged.

I blew the swith out with some arasol duster and replaced the boot, and install it. Problem GONE... Very good call Ratdog