Novatac 120P Malfunction

This evening I was walking the dog. We were on residential streets with few streetlights so I normally turn on a flashlight when a car approaches. I reached into my pocket to grab my Novatac, carried bezel up clipped inside my front pocket, and fumbled the flashlight as it came out of my pocket. It flew about four feet and landed on the asphalt. When picked up the light initially it didn't seem to work at all. When I tapped it on my hand I could feel something that felt sort of springy inside. Normally this light is completely solid if you tap it and I'm sure it wasn't the clip because I had it clamped to the body with my hand. I figured that the spring the surrounds the battery had become dislodged in some kind of weird way. I got my Wee NS out so I could see while I unscrewed the tail cap. Everything seemed fine inside and I put the light back together. It would then work but only if I pressed extremely hard on the tail switch. I walked on home thinking about how the 120P had just scratched itself from my survival flashlight list. That's too bad because I used to really like the light.

At home I took the light apart and inspected it. I literally couldn't find anything mechanically wrong with it. I replaced the protected AW cell with a primary and reassembled the light. The light worked perfectly. When I put the AW cell back in it worked again normally. What the heck is going on here? There is a scratch on the edge of the tail cap that shows where the light hit when it landed. I'm telling you the little fall shouldn't have broke a beer bottle much less disable a $170 flashlight.

So what happened here? Clearly something was initially dislodged (the springy feeling) but that went away while I was still out. Did the light controls get switched to some locked up mode?

I don't know but would like to know

Later,
HB

That sounds like a good question for Novatac customer service, which is excellent I might add. Thanks for asking fellow CPF'ers first though. It's often nice to be able to contribute a helping hand to a member, but without seeing pictures of the light, it's difficult (for me at least) to diagnose the problem. Talk to Jesse @ Novatac, he's been a great help whenever I call.

Check all your interior retaining rings, if they were loose to start something may have jarred loose. I've dropped my 120P hard several times, no problems at all. But when I first got it, the tail ring was loose and gave me all sorts of problems like you're describing.

I would have a hard time trusting that light again.

Check the retaining ring in the tail.
What is the serial number of your light? If it is a lower serial number, it is possible that the dome switch inside the tail dislodged, especially if the retaining ring was not tight.

Just call and ask about it. I've talked to Jesse and Joe and they are both very helpful and friendly. Great customer service.

Hogokansatsukan said:

Check the retaining ring in the tail.
What is the serial number of your light? If it is a lower serial number, it is possible that the dome switch inside the tail dislodged, especially if the retaining ring was not tight.

Click to expand...

The s/n is 11720. I don't know if that is considered low or not.

I did fiddle with the retaining ring in the tail cap. I had intended to disassemble the tail cap to see how things were put together and if something was broken. I found the ring very tight. Tight enough in fact that I could not loosen it to check the innards with the primitive tools I had available at the time.

Literally the light looks new except for the couple of little scratches on the tail cap where it just hit the ground. Like I said I don't think a beer bottle would have broken on that little tumble.

I'm planning to give Novatac a call on Monday to see what they have to say. I'm going to try and remember to take the light to work on Monday so I can shoot a couple Xrays of the light and particularly the tailcap.


Regards,
HB

11720 .. I think thats considered low Loctite is used on the retaining ring. Try putting the tailcap in a ziploc bag and placing it in boiling water for a couple of minutes ... that should loosen up the loctite