Battery Type and NovaTac Flickering

I've noticed that the flickering of my NovaTac 120P's appears to be worse when using rechargable batteries than when I use primary CR123's. With new, fully charged RCR123's (650 mAH 3.7 volts) as opposed to CR123's the flickering is prolonged and severe- not just a few pulses after changing levels. I charge the RCR123's in a Ultrafire WF-138.

This could have just been a coincidence and is therefore not a real difference, but one evening of experimenting seemed to show a difference. Is this possible?

Is the problem really that the flickering is worse with batteries that are somewhat depleted then with batteries that are fully charged? I was using fully charged RCR123's at the beginning of my experiments last night, and the primary cells I was using were not fully charged. However, the RCR123's seemed to lose their charge and cause "step down" of the output of the lights very quickly. Is this because I was frequently changing the output levels of the lights to see if flickering would result? Would the charge of the cells last longer if I turned on the lights and kept them on one level?

The next question that comes to mind is: would the light perform with less flickering with a different RCR123 cell? Perhaps AW's cells? That should obviously not be the case, as the light should not be designed that way- it should perform acceptably with many different brands of cells. And most of the cells are made by the same few manufacturers, anyway, if I'm not mistaken (I'm not an expert on cells).

NovaTac agreed yesterday to examine the two lights and give them a checkup to see if anything is wrong. I think something is definitely wrong with them, as they should not flicker as badly as they do using ANY decent cell. The flickering is intermittant, but it's severe when it happens. I should be able to use rechargables in them, or I'm not getting what I paid for. The result could be dangerous for some of the consumers the light is advertised for- law enforcement, military, personal defense needs, etc.

Anyone else have similar results with their lights? I want to advise NovaTac of this, if others have had similar findings. Thanks for the help.

I agree that battery type may have something to do with the severity of the flickering. After swapping to a fresh BatteryStation RCR and doing another battery detect, one of my Nova's started behaving nearly normally, with only a flicker or two when switching between primary and secondary.

My 85P started pulsing when I changed between Primaries and RCR's(AW).
Even when I put a fresh primary in it would pulse when I changed modes, Then I did a complete reset and a detect and it is operating fine. Still it was flickering/pulsing it almost went back to Novatac. As of right now all is well, and it has a company supplied radio shack 123 in it and no flickers. Guess when I install the RCR I'll have to do another detect.

Howdy mightysparrow,
Sorry to hear you are having some issues with your lights. First of all, what kind of RCR123 batteries are you using. All RCR batteries are not created equal, and even good manufacturers have duds occasionally. I guess what caught my eye was when you said this:

"the RCR123's seemed to lose their charge and cause "step down" of the output of the lights very quickly."

Do you have any way to check the voltage of your fully charged "hot off the charger" RCR batteries? They should read 4.2 volts, and you should get at least 25-30 minutes on Max (120 lumens) before the light steps down to the next level.

If you are not getting that kind of runtime I would suggest trying a different RCR123 battery.

Of course I'm hoping you've already tried all the other suggestions that seem to help with this light, such as checking the little silver retaining ring in both the tailcap and the head to make sure it is tight, and cleaning the threads, and possibly even using Deoxit on the contact areas.

Hopefully one of those suggestions will help with your problem, but at least NovaTac has very helpful customer service and I'm sure you will be able to get this resolved one way or another. Good luck.

Thanks for the responses. I ended up returning the lights for a refund, for a variety of reasons I won't go into here. My experience and your comments are helpful, however, as I've learned a few things that will help me choose lights that will hopefully work better for me in the future.

Yep, I don't think the NovaTac is everybody's cup of tea. I'm willing to put up with the little quirks because I absolutely LOVE the beam on this light, along with the flexibility afforded by the many options and easy to use UI.

I noticed that you are interested in the new HDS twisty. I've got a feeling that the super rugged and reliable qualities of that light will appeal to a wide range of CPF members. Happy hunting!

I think you would have liked the old HDS more, even though it's similar to the Novatac. The HDS has more care put in to making it.

Yeah, stay away from the fancy 120P. It's not the batteries, its the circuitry of the light! Mine has the same problem. I tried everything from changing to different batteries to cleaning out the light to re-tightening everything - and the problem still persisted. I eventually return the damn thing to get another one and guess what? - same problem!!! So i refunded it.
Fancy circuitry=more problematic circuitry.
And to pay that much for this light- you'll expect to get a light that at least should light up without any flickering eh? Hell, a $2 plastic light would give me less trouble!
Hell, even Surefire is starting to look good to me - and u know how much i hate Surefires?!
I'll just stick to me Fenix lights from now on...

skyline_man said:

Yeah, stay away from the fancy 120P. It's not the batteries, its the circuitry of the light! Mine has the same problem. I tried everything from changing to different batteries to cleaning out the light to re-tightening everything - and the problem still persisted. I eventually return the damn thing to get another one and guess what? - same problem!!! So i refunded it.
Fancy circuitry=more problematic circuitry.
And to pay that much for this light- you'll expect to get a light that at least should light up without any flickering eh? Hell, a $2 plastic light would give me less trouble!
Hell, even Surefire is starting to look good to me - and u know how much i hate Surefires?!
I'll just stick to me Fenix lights from now on...

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skyline_man, I'm sorry you had such bad luck with your NovaTac lights, however, let me assure you that not all the NovaTac lights suffer from those problems. Mine functions beautifully, and has the most gorgeous beam I've ever seen.

I like my Fenix lights too.... excellent bang for the buck, but not perfect either...... and yes.... even Surefire lights have been known to have problems. It happens. Nothing is perfect.

I think the fine line we walk when dealing with this new generation of technologically advanced lights is to find that acceptable level of reliability and features that fits our own personal style.

For me, the feature set which the NovaTac offers easily makes up for any small quirks that I've had to deal with. For you that may have not been the case. I'll be interested to follow your search for the perfect light.

Yes Fenix lights do have problems - but they don't cost a fortune either!! You see, the way i see it is that if im going to pay $160 for a chunk of aluminium and LED - I expect it to work flawlessly, no ifs, no buts.
And when it doesn't then that's when it pisses me off. Im not like other members who would try to justify their purchase by making up excuses for their underperforming flashlight. I am honest and when my expensive, tactical, high performance light doesn't work properly - i let it be known.

Honestly, how hard can it be to make a light that lights up properly? And Im sure it doesn't cost Novatac much more money to make the 120P then it costs Fenix to make their P2D, so why does it cost triple the price of the Fenix, yet doesn't work as well?
If you bought a Ferrari or Porsche, and it breaks down on you while you are just cruising around and not driving it hard, would you be dissapointed and angry?

skyline_man said:

Yes Fenix lights do have problems - but they don't cost a fortune either!! You see, the way i see it is that if im going to pay $160 for a chunk of aluminium and LED - I expect it to work flawlessly, no ifs, no buts.
And when it doesn't then that's when it pisses me off. Im not like other members who would try to justify their purchase by making up excuses for their underperforming flashlight. I am honest and when my expensive, tactical, high performance light doesn't work properly - i let it be known.

Honestly, how hard can it be to make a light that lights up properly? And Im sure it doesn't cost Novatac much more money to make the 120P then it costs Fenix to make their P2D, so why does it cost triple the price of the Fenix, yet doesn't work as well?
If you bought a Ferrari or Porsche, and it breaks down on you while you are just cruising around and not driving it hard, would you be dissapointed and angry?

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I'm sorry you were disappointed with your light. That is an interesting analogy with the high priced, high performance cars, as many times they can also present their own challenges because of the nature of their complex systems which are designed to eek every last ounce of horsepower and torque from the engine.

BTW, there is a big difference between making a light that turns on and off, and making one that can do all the things the NovaTac does. It's the inclusion of those features that make the light's circuitry necessarily more complex.

It seems to me that you have overlooked many of the advanced features found on the NovaTac light, many which cannot be found on any other current production light in the world. Maybe those features and options aren't important to you, in which case I hope you find another light that is more suitable to your needs.

I think you might be very interested in the new HDS twisty:

http://www.hdslights.com/Twisty.html

This is the newest light from the gentleman who designed and built the original HDS EDC, which the NovaTac was based on. This new light has taken a minimalist approach to help increase reliability under tough conditions. Of course, in order to do that, the many useful features and options found on the original light (and the NovaTac) have been eliminated, but it's nice to have choices.

Good luck in your quest.

When buying a Novatac and Surefire light, you are really pushing the law of deminishing returns. When u buy a flashlight, there comes a point where u don't get what you pay for. To me, the Novatac 120P just past that point. And did you know that they've raised the price to $189 now? Blatant rip off!!
Anyway thanks for the suggestion but that twisty isn't for me. I don't like twisty's, they're a pain to use. And $165 for that? They've got to be kidding me!! I rather get a Fenix twisty!! Come to think of it, I've got a P1D Q5 already, and IMO its the best twisty out there.
Maybe i think ill try the Novatac 120T, it has 3 preset levels so less chance for things to go wrong there.
If my 120P didn't have that low level flicker problem, the spring falling out?!! (how stupid is that design?), the tail switch retaining ring coming lose, the uncentered LED, the mismatched anodizing then yeah, it would be the perfect EDC light.
But then if the Fenix P2D had a forward clicky, better knurling, a better UI - then it too would be the perfect EDC light.
Conclusion, Fenix wins.....
I reckon that if Novatac contracted a Japanese company to manufacture the circuits of the 120P, then i reckon there won't be any quality issues at all!! U know, Americans aren't very good at creating anything electronic..

Coincidentally, I found a brightness configuration that COMPLETELY eliminated my flickering. I had to lower my primary and secondary brightness levels one each and raise my minimum level up one (second from the bottom) and now the problem is gone. I'm not saying this makes it right. We paid for a light with 21 problem-free levels. I have still sent a service request to NovaTac, but I'm not sure where that will end up. At least for the time being I have a 120p that's behaving.

I just recieved my 120P from LA Police Gear. It took forever to get here, but that's a different story. Anyway, the 1st thing I did was to set the low-mode to the lowest setting possible. It's that same level that I run in my other 120P. After setting the level, I powered down the light, turned it on and triple-clicked only to find it flickering in low-mode.

So far this is the 1st thread I've found in my search about the flickering, but I wanted to know if this is a wide-spread issue.

WTF?

My 120P has never flickered. If it did, and I was certain that I was using good cells, I would simply call Novatac and get a replacement. That's a no-brainer. Novatac has a vastly superior warranty to Fenix or any Asian light I've seen, and there is good reason for it. It's called Build Quality.

robo21 said:

My 120P has never flickered. If it did, and I was certain that I was using good cells, I would simply call Novatac and get a replacement. That's a no-brainer. Novatac has a vastly superior warranty to Fenix or any Asian light I've seen, and there is good reason for it. It's called Build Quality.

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Yep, I also have a Novatac that has never experienced this issue. That's why I was surprised when this one started with the issue right away.

I doubt it's a widespread issue, but if the "flickering" is what I think it is, then it could potentially be a very old issue. The Novatac lights almost certainly have a very similar circuit and program compared to the original HDS EDC series lights. More than a few HDS owners noticed their light would flicker on the lower settings.

It was sometimes described as a brief flash of light, perhaps 2 to 5 levels higher than the current setting. It occurred at periodic intervals, but the time period never seemed to be consistent. Sometimes it would happen every two seconds, others times it would be every twenty.

My HDS Basic 42 did it (and still does). Generally, changing the setting up or down one notch will change (or eliminate entirely) the flickering. Often changing to a different cell chemistry (primary to rechargeable, or vice versa) would also affect (or eliminate) the flicker.

After HDS was merged with / acquired by Novatac, the HDS sub-forum was dissolved. Otherwise, I'd probably be able to search through there and find my old threads discussing this issue.

Good luck with your flickering Novatac. Change your brightness setting, or change your battery type. If that doesn't work, call them up and demand an RMA. Hope the next one doesn't do it. :shrug:

I've read about the flickerig issue on here too and seen the flickering from someone who captured it on video, but none of our 120P's or our friends 120P's have had any flickering issues and most of us use these lights on the lower levels much of the time.

My new unit is flickering on the lowest-level setting, at a consistant rate, after running for 1-3 minutes.

Howdy this_is_nascar, sorry to hear about the flickering issue. First I would try all the generally well know tips for dealing with this, as they have resolved similar issues for many folks.

1. Check and make sure both retaining rings are tight (in the tail cap and the head unit).
2. Clean and relube the threads and clean all battery contact surfaces.
3. Do a factory reset, then take your battery out for 5 minutes, and make sure you are using a either a freshly charged RCR or a new primary.

If none of those help, then contact customer service at NovaTac and I'm sure they will be able to resolve the problem for you. I ended up having to send my first unit back because of that issue, but I have been totally pleased with my replacement light since then. Good luck.