Nitecore Defender Infinity Diagnosis Please

So i have a couple questions regarding my new NDI. It's my first Nitecore and my first programmable/variable light so...

-Is it normal for it to flicker when ramping up or down?
-My tail lockout does not work at all...only when i completely remove the tailcap. Is this par for the course on this light?
-And there is a "loud/audible" whine when on high ranging from fifteen seconds to until i lower the output. I've read of this before, but is it normal for THIS light?
It's the Silver edition NDI and i like the looks and feel, but i would like to make sure it's o.k.
Awaiting diagnosis...:sweat:
Thanks.

...AND i am now getting a real nice bright pre-flash that is quite intrusive on initial start up when set on low...so far this one is just a pretty face...any suggestions besides the obvious send it back?:sigh:

Flicker on ramp is normal, it's not an "infinite" ramp, but jumping between very small levels.

The silver NDI has no lockout since the threads are not anodized.

The whine sounds like "inductor whine" which is also rather common. It varries based off the type of cells you are using. Lower resistance/higher voltage usually means quieter.

personally i dont worry about minor glitches, its a 3 mode light,

adjustable,

if you can set it the way you want it...enjoy it.

if before your 1 year warranty is up you hate it send it back.

but give it a few weeks to settle in.

maybe give it a little wipe down (inside) with an 'ear bud' carefully.

perhaps some lube is where it shouldnt be?

I don't have the NDI, but the Extreme which is the 123-cell equivalent.

I have to say at the start that this is one of my favourite lights - it's small, powerful, and there's just something about the beam that I really like.

But - it has been quite temperamental, with flickering and unusual switching from time to time. It does seem to need clean contacts to function well.

One thing that really has helped for me is running it on RCR123s. It's like a transformed light - it just seems to work much better on the slightly higher voltage.

If you have access to 14500s and a charger, it could be worth a try !

Thanks for the help guys. Maybe i've just been spoiled lately by my Quarks:twothumbs; not knocking the NDI, just that the Quarks are definitely speaking to me.
The silver NDI is not an inexpensive light so i expect a certain level of satisfaction from it...having said that it sounds like my problems with it are not really problems at all, but rather simply things i just do not find appealing in a light. Of course this may change in the future since by my standards, in comparison to the guru's that frequent this place, i am just a newbie to the hobby.
I really do like the look and feel of this light and the beam is decent too. It's running on E2 primaries It looks like this one is going to go back though in spite of me really desiring to keep it, but it's that damned bright pre-flash that i get nailed with when i turn it on in low mode that seems to be cheapening my whole experience with this thing...
Anybody else got the pre-flash with their's?
Is it common?
Thanks.

I get the pre-flash sometimes on the Extreme, but only within a few seconds of having switched from high. The rest of the time it switches absolutely fine on low, it's just those first few seconds, so although annoying, I can live with it.

If your NDI is doing it all the time, that's wrong and it should go back.

Clean the threads, replace the clicky or clean and Deoxit gold it.

glockboy said:

Clean the threads, replace the clicky or clean and Deoxit gold it.

Click to expand...

What he said. Mine was flickering wildly on all levels. I wiped all the threads down with a t-shirt and it's solid again.

If you keep getting a bright flash after cleaning all the threads and contacts something is wrong and you should send it back.

+1 to everyone that said you have to clean the lube out.

My NDI did everything you mentioned and more out of the box (randomly shutting off, etc.). However, cleaning the lube off the contact surfaces in the head and body fixed everything...for a while. It only seemed to take about 3 days of use before that horrible blue lube would work it's way off the o-ring and back into the contacts...at which point the light would become "possessed" again. I eventually stripped ALL of the blue lube off the light and replaced it with small quantities of Nyogel, just on the o-rings. This mostly works, although I still need to clean the contact surfaces about once a month, or risk flakiness.

The other problem I had with mine is that the "pill" was actually loose out of the box, which made for some extra flakiness, since the pill would spin inside the head when I tried to switch modes, and make intermittent contact at various levels of "tight".

Does anyone have a good way to tighten the pill inside the head? I ended up using 2 Q-tips to torque against the exposed electronic bits on the back of the pill, which didn't even seem like a good idea at the time, but it worked. I supposed I should just loc-tite it into the head, but that seems awfully permanent...

If I didn't like everything else about this light, I would have sold/trashed it already, but I like the interface when it works, and I happened to get a really nice tint R2, so I don't want to get rid of it.

However, I can't really consider it a "reliable" light, so it doesn't get EDC'd very much if I think I might actually need it... :ironic:

Bring you NDI to Walgreen and look for a tweezer that fit the two slot on the pill and tighten the pill.

grunscga said:

The other problem I had with mine is that the "pill" was actually loose out of the box, which made for some extra flakiness, since the pill would spin inside the head when I tried to switch modes, and make intermittent contact at various levels of "tight".

Does anyone have a good way to tighten the pill inside the head? :ironic:

Click to expand...

Slots? The negative contact ring has a single slot, but it spins freely on the pill anyway. Aside from that, unless I'm missing something, there are no slots visible on the pill from the back of the head. All I see are the positive & negative contacts, 1 tiny resistor (I think), and 4 other ICs. I'm pretty sure that none of those are really supposed to be torqued.

Ok...I just looked at the picture of the NDI head on light-reviews and it is completely different from what mine looks like. The one on light-reviews does in fact have slots. My R2 NDI does not. :shrug: There has got to be a way to tighten the pill without pushing on the ICs...right??

glockboy said:

Bring you NDI to Walgreen and look for a tweezer that fit the two slot on the pill and tighten the pill.

Click to expand...

Got picture?

The NDI switched from the old style PCB contacts to the D10 ring style switch mechanism a while back, hence the confusion.

This is exactly what mine looks like.

It's look like the D10.
Get the plyer and bend the pin tip or get the dental pick and pick the brass ring out, and used the tweezer to tighten the pill.
Here the picture of the D10.