Problems with Cree Dropin on the Maxfire LX

Just received my $14 DX Cree Dropin that's supposed to fit the Maxfire LX. I had been waiting awhile, but it felt like Christmas, so I walked away from my hot dinner, removed the batteries from my Maxfire, and then removed the bulb/reflector/plastic reflector retaining piece from the Maxfire.

I dropped in the DX Cree item #1343
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1343

and screwed the bezel back onto the light. The diameter of the drop in was not as wide as the original reflector, so it was sitting in there a bit loose until I fully screwed the bezel all the way down. Once that was done, things looked tight, so I reinserted the batteries and screwed the clickie back on.

Push clickie...no workie. Hmmm...removed the batteries to ensure the both positive contacts of the Energizer E2 Lithiums were facing the bezel end of the light...they were.

Re-screwed clickie and cycled it about 4 or 5 times...still no workie, not even a glimmer from the new drop in.

NOW THE PROBLEM:
On the fifth cycle...suddenly, the clickie locked up. Upon pushing in the clickie...it stuck in the down position, not springing back as it would normally do whether it was turned on or off.

Unscrewed clickie and the ~2mm worth of spring that normally sticks out of the end of it is now less than one half a mm. As I fiddled with that spring trying to pull it out with my nails, a little wisp of white came out of the clickie...it wafted it way up to my eyes 2 feet away and burned like hell -- definite scent of acid. Well the spring won't come out and looks like I porked my Maxfire. Well, at least the clickie. There was no smoke from the bezel end of the light, and the led looks as it did prior to insertion.

The batteries do not have any damage or leakage that I can spot via visual, and they are only a few months old, with less than 10 minutes total use. One thing I notice now after I look at the DX product page is that the Cree dropin unit I received did not come with the larger circumferential spring...mine does have the O-Ring, and what I received looks exactly like this (with the exception of the larger spring in the top right of this picture):





Did not having that extra spring short out my Maxfire or what happened? What's my best course for resolution?

bump...100 views and no ideas?

you just shorted your tailcap switch.That tailcap is as good as malfunction tailcap which mean you have to get a new tailcap
This happened when the drop in module shorted somewhere ( it happened to my Huntlight FT01-PJ within minutes after playing with it )
My advise - report back to DX - either get a refund or a replacement.
I feel sorry for you man......

Roger, thx for the reply.

I can get a new tailcap, but I'm curious as to what might have caused the short. Unless the dropin requires me to insert the batteries in the opposite direction than they are normally inserted? I put the batts in with the positive terminals towards the dropin spring, left the O-ring inside the dropin and basically just 'dropped the cree module in' the light.

Quite a kick in the gut, because as we all know, we wait and wait for our DX stuff to get here from Hong Kong, and build up our excitement the whole time. I was just hoping to drop the darn thing in and shoot out the nice white laserbeam I've seen others post pictures of.

So consensus seems to be that I have a bad dropin module? Since I didn't have that larger circumferential spring, I wonder if that had anything to do with the tailcap short and/or the module not lighting up.

Berto, you out there? I know you put one of these $14 modules in your Maxfire...did yours have the larger spring and did u include it when you installed?

I think this is because of the bad drop in module.
Just that.No need to crack head to find the cause of it.

You are the 2nd person (that I've seen) this month to have this exact problem.
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/161037

Yup, that happened to me (I started the thread that LGCubana links to above).

Now get this: I thought I had a bad module, so I put it in ANOTHER Maxfire, and it did the same thing, well, I didn't let it totally fry but it started to.

There is nothing wrong with the drop-in...I hooked it up to a regulated DC power source and boosted it all the way to 9vdc and it was fine.

I initially thought it was because I was using rechargeable 3.6 (actually 4.2) volt 123s.

It seems that some of the Maxfire switches can't handle the current draw of the drop-in.

:-(

I wrote to Brinkmann about getting a replacement switch.

P.S. This was with the $12.50 one. I ended up ordering another DX light (Benno) to put it in:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.903

Now it's not such a great bargain to me.

Thanks for the info Cubana and Vickers.

I didn't search for the problem because I'm on the forums regularly and didn't even see that post of yours.

Man, that's a bum-out...Berto said he used the $14 drop in in the Maxfire so I'm curious if he had these issues at all.

Damn, you're right not such a great bargain. Maybe I just send the module back to DX for a refund. I'm returning my MTE SSC P4 1xAA lights as well, because I'm not really very happy with the bright/dim cycling the beam goes through.

Does DX issue refunds or only replacements?

Hi Eskimonio

About the MTE SSCP4 1AA Light,i think you got the same problem like some other buyers. Here is the link to the page, http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1995
"ambientmind" posted how to fix it .

marco

Hey, I found the problem with my $12.50 drop-in.

I had already burned up one Maxfire tailswitch, then half-burned another (I think it might be fixable).

I received the BENNO light I mentioned above the other day, put the $12.50 drop-in in there, and IT started getting hot...wtf? Some kind of short somwhere, right?

I took it out and tested it with a multimeter and checked it visually and hooked it up to a DC power source on a bench etc. etc. and it all seemed OK.

Anyway, I took another look at it tonight, and underneath the little plastic part that is supposed to keep things from shorting out (between the two aluminum pieces that screw together) I saw a *teeny-tiny* piece of solder hanging off the positive side of the LED.

I flicked it away with a spudger and VOILA! it works OK now.

I think youre drop in has a short in it. mine just droped in and worked. some of the cheaper ones were shorting out and melting my springs I had to pull apart my modules and put a bigger o ring to stop the short.but all of my $14 ones worked good.


ps my $14 dollar one didnt come with the large spring so I didnt use it and it worked perfect.

Sorry to read of the damage and disappointment you guys had to go through.
In the original thread on these drop-in modules, it was discovered that a short is possible at the very same spot you described. Too bad you guys must have missed it.

I plan to do this mod to one of my Maxfires as well.

WNG said:

In the original thread on these drop-in modules, it was discovered that a short is possible at the very same spot you described. Too bad you guys must have missed it.

Click to expand...

The short on mine was different than that.

In that thread it mentioned that screwing the reflector down too much can short the two leads (which is true). They tried to fix that by putting a little plastic washer between the two aluminum pieces (this works OK, but you can still "pop" right through that washer if you screw it down too hard).

Mine actually had a little sliver of solder that was hanging off the positive terminal of the LED. Sometimes it would short out to the side (the negative return path) and sometimes it wouldn't.

Intermittent failures...ya gotta love 'em!

I was having similar problems, but on my 6p. After eliminating the possibility of it being the screw down reflector shorting it out, I realized it was something else. When I set the module in the body and tilted it, it would light, but when I pushed it down or tried to screw it down, it would cut out. I found out that the solder at the bottom of the module on the board was probably making bad contact with body of the module which makes contact with the flashlight body. When I screwed it down, it probably pushed the board up breaking contact with the module body. I then put new solder along and around the rim of the bottom of the module and it works perfectly now. Here's a pic of what I did, not a pretty job, but you won't see it in the flashlight, and it works.