Opinion on ARC AA

Hi cpfers,
I admit I am a little bit late here but I got hold of two ARCAA, thanks for Benhard for making it possible.

Upon inspection from inside out let me start from the outside.

The body is well designed. The knurling is non-agressive so it's friendly in your pocket with other mates such as your keys and other torches. Despite the soft knurling design, I still find it very easy to use. It looks stolen from the ARC LSx series but heck it's a good design. There's little bit variation of HAIII in color. I don't know if it's an improvement of coating technique or the blemished ones are gone during the 'seconds sale'. I can see the all round inscription is back, love that! New tail design is useful innnovation, good for converting into long running candle light.

The head and bezel is a blown up ARC AAA, it gives an extra amount of side spill, hot spot is accompanied with a ring of light.

Inside, what I am not satisfied with is the form ring. Like the ARCAAA, it's too wide causing it to wipe off lube from the inner walls of the body. For a someone who like to disassemble and assemble it's no good. The form will suck up some amount of grease and stain the batttery. I've then mod the form ring to a smaller one, I am happy for now.

This is one great light to have! despite the cost./ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I agree with you about the foam retainer. I've thought about it, but never vocalized it. The one improvement on the AA retainer over the AAA retainer is the much larger center hole. When I change out the retainer on a AAA, I use a hole punch to make the hole bigger before I install it and I like it a lot better.

I think that making the OD of both retainers smaller makes a lot of sense. It would not remove and soak up the lube as easily, and it would be less likely for the edges to be torn up by the threads and get in the threads. In fact, I wonder if the black stuff that I clean out of the threads is a result of the foam retainer and not the friction of the aluminum threads? If so, that makes a great deal of sense why it causes problems if not cleaned out.

Peter??

As much as I like the rattle-free feature of the Arc, I hate that foam retainer getting torn up by the threads. So when doing the rollcrimp fix on my trusty Arc AAA (I never leave home without it) I peeled off the foam pad, cut away the sticky side and just dropped it inside the battery tube. It works like a charm ! Once in a while I use tweezers to get it out and check the bottom of the barrel for corrosion but it never gave me any troubles. Maybe that'll do the trick for the AA too...



Chris

Chris,

Marvelous mod! Thanks for sharing! Now I don't need to shave the form ring /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif Glad to know that there are people who share the same pain.

Vince.

I too have never vocalized the fact that I'm not thrilled with the foam pads in my AA and AAA. I think the AA is better because it seems to be made of a sturdier material and doesn't seem to hit the threads as much, but my AAA's was ripped (not actually that dramatic, hehe) from the head because of contact with the threads when changing batteries. Simply making the ring smaller so that it clears the threads without touching them would solve my only issue with the AAA and would also help the AA a little bit.

I used a standard nail clipper to trim the foam ring to size (really easy). It took less then a minute. What made it so simple was the curved cutting edges of the clipper work well with trimming the round outer edge of the foam ring.
I also like the "drop the foam ring into the bottom of the tube" idea as mentioned above.

After this discussion, I trimmed the retainer down with a pair of scissors on three AAA heads and one AA head. On the AA, I also halved the thickness. They all work better. The AAAs came out very nicely - the retainer is now dome shaped and clears the threads. The AA is functional but doesn't look as nice. I'll post some pics when I figure out how.

Not quite sure what you folks are talking about. I've never had an issue with the foam rings in any of my AAA or AA lights and my AAA gets used several time per day for over a year now.

Sometimes my AA has a strange feel when I'm turning it on. Sort of spongy but no light and I'm turning it hard enough to make it light. I back the head out a turn, go in again, and then it feels and lights like normal. I've wondered if this is the AA pad somehow rippling and bunching up. No way to tell since I can't see inside the light when I'm doing this. There aren't any telltale bunching marks on the foam later on. Anyone else have this?

I actually mentioned the "drop the foam ring into the battery tube" idea to Peter (and sent him demo units with my LS mod), but he didn't comment on whether he likes it or whether he plans to change the way those rings are installed now /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

Dave, my AA does the same thing sometimes.

not a big deal, but maybe i will try a trimming mod before i gift it to a friend.

Bob

The foam is a problem. On my AA it looks like it is getting twisted inside the light.
Most times the light comes on, but sometimes I have to unscrew a little then re tighten to get light.
I think the foam is the cause.

Just a suggestion for trimming the foam (and for making a ring for an Ultra) would be to use a .45 ACP or 44 Mag case.

Put the ring on a hard surface, place the case over it and tap the case with a hammer. Presto! A trimmed and perfectly round ring.

I've been having the problem where my Arc AAA only lights up 4 out of 5 times. So I dropped the foam to the bottom of the tube as suggested by several people here. However, the light still behaves the exact same way. Just doing simple on-off-on-off-etc tests, every 4 or 5 times the light won't come on. It's not a big deal, since it only takes a second to go back to the 'off' position and turn it on again, but I now doubt the foam was causing my problem.

Ithink it's a design flaw causing the problem... The power supply depends on an oscillator to provide ample power, and sometimes it just doesn't start... this is just an explanation by someone who doesn't know anything about electronics, but I think I'm on a track here...
Besides that, I think the arc lights are very good /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

SRue, I've had that problem with certain batteries, but only after they've been in the light for a while. After I switch to a new battery, the problem goes away. I've only had it happen on two batteries, so I'm not sure if its an electronic problem or a couple of odd battery problems.