Increase piston travel on Nitecore D11.2?

I've noticed the switch on my D11.2 is not very reliable with the head tightened fully. Sometimes it will not turn on, sometimes it will go right to a flashy mode, or ramping will not work correctly. Usually loosening the head will improve the reliability, apparently by increasing the piston travel.

So is there a way to increase the piston "throw" distance on my Nitecore D11.2? I'm thinking possibly a larger O-right or something to stop the threads before they normally bottom out? I suppose a shorter battery should do the same thing, but I really like running Eneloops in this.

Thanks

You can shorten the piston a tiny bit. It still needs to stick up above the body, just a hair, but it works. I used to do this all the time on all my d10s. Go
Slow. If you go too far, you have to start sanding the body to fix it.

It works, but you need to be careful.

Of course, that's so simple, how come I couldn't think of just doing this.

Thanks!

It's better to just try to fine tune the pill. sounds like you might tighten the reflector and pill for more room. If i tighten the refletor and pill too mutch or too little on my d10, i get switch issues. Try different batteries. Some are longer than others, and some work better than others. I have problems with one of my aw14500 cells. It's a little bit longer than my others, and they barly fit but works ok (stiff short travel piston).

jorn said:

It's better to just try to fine tune the pill. sounds like you might tighten the reflector and pill for more room. If i tighten the refletor and pill too mutch or too little on my d10, i get switch issues. Try different batteries. Some are longer than others, and some work better than others. I have problems with one of my aw14500 cells. It's a little bit longer than my others, and they barly fit but works ok (stiff short travel piston).

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Thanks for the tip. Although I have tried tightening the pill as snug as I can comfortably get it, which seems better than slightly looser, it is still very stiff with little to no travel.

I will try regular alkaline AA's, and 14500's this evening to see how it changes piston travel.

What effect would shaving the piston length down have? What's the reason not to take this approach? This is my first piston drive light, sorry for all the questions.

Tighten the reflector too. If the reflector is loose, the pill will stop when it hits the threaded reflector. If you can tighten the reflector 1/2 more turn or so, you might get more room for piston travel.

The reflector is in quite tight, but I was able to get about 1/8th a turn extra tightness on the pill without going crazy with force. I noticed it improved the reliability of the switch although the piston throw still feels largely the same.

I tried an alkaline AA and an Ultrafire 14500 with no change in piston throw. This makes me think the battery spring is working properly to absorb any difference in battery length, and that the switch is bottoming out on the piston sleeve rather than the battery. I'll confirm it with a battery spacer before sanding down the sleeve.

Haha the extra long aw 14500 in got have killed two d10's. Crushes the driver and snaps it in two if im not careful when i tighten the head fully. I have marked it now with a tape so I know not to use that one in a d10. The only thing left is starting to grind down the piston