PM6 Beam shape

I just got in 6 PM6's and all six had the nastiest beam shapes. The beam had the shape of an eye and the hotspot was all the way in the corner of the beam. Upon inspection, I found that the bulbs were not centered in the bulb holder and this caused the nasty beam.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I too think the PM6 beam is fugly, looks like a football to me, but then again I wasn't going to use this light in its stock form. However, many find it acceptable for a $30+ light. You can try some LDF on it and see if that helps.

I fixed this annoying problem by doing these two minor mods:

1) Added a flashlightlens.com diffusing lense
2) Mounting the SF Wide Beam Diffusser cap

In using both of these filters the beam has become very well behaved. It is very useful as a flood and when you flip-up the SF Beam Filter it gives it a bit more throw and a narrower beam; with just a hint at the underlying issues that you mentioned. The M6 is kind of like a yellow-ish L-4 when it is dual filtered in this way.

Otherwise-the ultimate fix for those M6s is getting McGizmo mods for them head-2-toe /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

A-6

I must have got lucky (or looked at many or all the lights Frys had looking for a centered bulb!) but mine has a fairly well centered spot, blending into a beautiful spill!

You COULD try nudging the bulb towards center, but it may be to solidly mounted....

Joe,
The bulb is too solidly mounted. I started this thread because I had two other PM6's that had great beams. I got in touch with Pelican via e-mail. They sent e-mail back wanting to know what my order number was. I e-mailed back to say that I got them from a vendor other than Pelican.

I'm beginning to feel that not buying directly from Pelican is going to affect the way they handle this issue. I guess I'll have to wait and see. It's just funny because I've never had Surefire ask me for an order number. They were just willing to stand behind their product.

I guess I'll just wait and see where this leads. I know it's just a $30 flashlight (6 of them), but I could have bought G2's at that price too.

I must have gotten lucky too. Mine has a nice hotspot right in the center and to my eyes it looks round. I dont use the beam adjustment. I jsut adjust it to where it looks the most even and leave it.

Im surprised how it doesn't get too much dimmer before the batteries finally poop out. The other night it stopped working and I thought the button was messed up or the bulb burned out. I cahnger the batteries and lit right back up. My scorpion really gets dim and I change the batteries before they're completely spent.

The two that I had before the last 6 that I ordered are beautiful. Perfect beam! That's why I ordered the other 6. QC is lacking somewhere.

Bummer.

Next time I make it out to Frys (or find 'em somewhere else) I'll look at a bunch with an eye to centered bulbs. In the meantime you could try swapping LMs around a bit.

[ QUOTE ]
Mim said:
...I'm surprised how it doesn't get too much dimmer before the batteries finally poop out. The other night it stopped working and I thought the button was messed up or the bulb burned out. I cahnger the batteries and lit right back up. My scorpion really gets dim and I change the batteries before they're completely spent.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mim,

That's only one of the PM6's excellent features noted in my review and confirmed by Brock's chart

Brightnorm

Review

PELICAN M6 TAKES ITS PLACE AS ON OF THE THREE BRIGHTEST 2x123 LIGHTS


Brock's Chart

.

Still no word from Pelican.

Update. I emailed Pelican again and they responded the next day. They said that they hadn't received my previous email due to system upgrades and apologized.

What can I say? I'm a happy camper now. Without question, they are sending me new LA's for all 6 lights to see if this fixes my problems and if not they offered to replace all of the lights.

I'll update when the replacement LA's get here.