Lil black plastic doohickey came off my TL-3's LED

Lil black plastic doohickey came off my TL-3\'s LED

I've had my SL TL-3 5 watt Luxeon LED light for about a week. It's the focusable model, so I've been fiddling with the focusing quite a bit.

I noticed the next day I had it, that the bright spot of the beam would alter each time I focused it. It started to get irregular dark spots in it that would disappear as I moved the light closer to or farther from the wall. It wouldn't repeat the same beamshot twice in a row.

Also, it developed a brighter spot off center in the bright spot. I was becoming less and less impressed with the brightness of this 9 volt Luxeon Star light. I mentioned the anomalies to another member here and he hasn't had these problems.

I could actually tolerate looking straight into the emitter when it was on briefly, which I couldn't do when it arrived.

A little while ago I unscrewed the bezel and a little, black, thin plastic (vinyl, like shrink wrap?) popped up loose inside the bezel.

This little doohickey is a tube about .5" long. I tried to carefully replace it down over the emitter, but it must have been heat shrunk on. It's too small for me to get it on and I don't want to scratch the emitter dome or whatever that's called.

My congenital condition (5 thumbs on each hand) prevents me from work more delicate than twisting bezels and tail caps. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

So, I just left it out and reassembled the light. Now it is back to the original, rods-and-cones-searing brightness. The dark spot and brightspot-within-the-brightspot anomalies have vanished. The brightspot may not be as well defined on the periphery as it used to be, but I'm not certain, I'm still seeing square spots.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif
Is it necessary to put this doohickey back on for protection of the emitter assembly or sumpin' ?

BC

Re: Lil black plastic doohickey came off my TL-3\'s LED

BC- I assume that you are talking about the black "plastic/rubber" covering of the LED post. I imagine when it came off, it slid up and partially blocked the side spill and beam of the LED before it came completely off.

I don't have a clue what to do. I would probably call SL, and ***** a bit.

Did you disassemble the LED thingy, and remove the spring to inspect it ?

Re: Lil black plastic doohickey came off my TL-3\'s LED

Hey JohnK, I detached the emitter assembly with the spring from the reflector but I didn't detach the spring from the EA. It looks like this little black plastic tube would cover the white plastic post and on the top, curl over maybe 1/32" to protect the leads.

Can you see the white plastic post and the copper colored leads when you look at yours from the front? I can, now. I'm sure this was hot shrunk because it's a little smaller diameter than that white plastic post.

I suppose I better talk to SL about it.

BC

Re: Lil black plastic doohickey came off my TL-3\'s LED

All I can see is the emmiter itself, the black stuff covers up everything else.

Are you sure the white post is plastic ?

Re: Lil black plastic doohickey came off my TL-3\'s LED

[ QUOTE ]
JohnK said:
All I can see is the emmiter itself, the black stuff covers up everything else.

Are you sure the white post is plastic ?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure it's plastic, what else could it be made of?

I think that is how mine must have appeared before it came off, the black tube covered the white post and the crimp covers everything but the emitter.

Thanks, John.

BC

Re: Lil black plastic doohickey came off my TL-3\'s LED

You certainly should contact the Streamlight customer service. I guess they'll need you to send back the flashlight for repair or replacement.

Please let us know how you get on.

Al

P.S.
How comes these things always happen outside Customer Service 9-5 hours?!