Defective Fenix E01 although the pill is OK

Hi all,

I have a Fenix E01 which I bought a few years ago. It was used only occasionally, always indoor in dry conditions, and stored in the same conditions.
It is still in pristine condition, but it suddenly stopped working.
I tried several batteries (alcaline and rechargeable), and tested the pill and LED by connecting a battery to its + and - using two wires. It works fine.
Therefore the issue is the body. The springs looks firmly attached to the bottom of the body, and every looks in order and clean inside as far as I can see. The ledge, where the - contact is, is perfectly clean. I cleaned everything with DeoxIt, then tested the circuit conductivity between the spring and the ledge: nothing, the circuit is open somewhere.
I know this is a cheap light and I can get a replacement for about $10, but I don't like the idea of trashing a light whose LED and circuit work fine.
Any help to repair it would be appreciated, thanks.

:thinking:


I would try to remove the spring and replace it with a piece of aluminum foil just to test. My guess is that the spring is not touching the base of the body. I can't figure anything else...

EDIT: removed some instructions, wrong light.

If the tube is not anodized on the inside, then just temporarily stuffing a ball of tinfoil between the spring and the battery tube wall should get it working. Either way, if you have a DMM, you can test the tube by dropping a battery in and touching + on the batt, and the tube edge for -

But agree the best would be to figure out how to remove the spring and clean underneath it... probably just some corrosion under there. Can you at least rotate the spring in place with hemostats? might break loose / scratch off some of the corrosion.

Thanks derfyled and reppans for your quick reply.
I didn't imagine removing the spring was that easy. After doing so, I cleaned the bottom of the body, stretched the spring a bit to increase pressure, and put it back into the body (which was a bit more difficult). Now my E01 (in fact my mom's) is back to life!

As a future note, take an eraser to the contact points on the pill, in addition to a q-tip to clean out the tube, and a piece of foil and/or removing the spring to clean the contact points.

It's a lot more fun to repair a light than to buy a new one.