More reliable: electronic switch or clicky?

As the title suggests, is an electronic switch (HDS, Zebralight, etc.) more or less reliable than a clicky (foursevens, e-series, etc.)?

An electronic switch is a momentary switch coupled to some circuitry. A clicky is a latching mechanism. In theory, if you stay within the power rating of a clicky, don't bash it, and don't get it wet, it'll last a few thousand cycles. The same is true, though, of electronic switches. It's a tossup. An advantage with a clicky is that you can replace a failed one with tinfoil. An advantage with an electronic switch is more input and the potential for very high current. Clickies top out at about 2A and only switch input.

My understanding is that electronic switches should be more reliable than clickies. This is because a clicky switch is mechanically more complex with more moving parts to wear out.

Inside a clicky switch is a tiny rotating cylinder with ridges and notches on it. It's similar to the cylinder you see inside a typical pushbutton ballpoint point. Very often those ridges and teeth are made out of plastic. If they wear out, the switch will cease to function properly.

In contrast, the mechanical portion of an electronic switch is basically just a simple momentary pushbutton. It can be very small with few moving parts. There's no need for an internal latching mechanism that can wear out.

Another advantage of electronic switches is that main current does not flow through the switch. This allows use of a much smaller switch with thin wire, while a conventional clicky must be thick and strong enough to take main current.

All switches fail at some point. With equal engineering and quality control electronic switches and momentary switches run about equal in my book. I will say that mechanical switches can be a bit more forgiving to water ingress, depending on the design.

Valpo Hawkeye said:

As the title suggests, is an electronic switch (HDS, Zebralight, etc.) more or less reliable than a clicky (foursevens, e-series, etc.)?

Click to expand...

a high-quality electronic switch should last a lot lot longer. just look at your computer mouse button

a clicky on the other hand not only has mechanical components that wear out but the actual contacts also degrade rather quickly because they do spark upon contact. forward clickies seem to fail more often than reverse

Theoretically, I do believe electronic should be more reliable - there're fewer significant moving parts and I've never had a problem with a mouse (as mentioned above) or TV-type remote switch. In practice however, I think the flashlight industry is going through some transition pains as it shifts over from mechanical to electronic clickies. This is purely anecdotally, but I like following the failure posts and I seem to read about a lot more problems with lights with electronic clickies (although hard to isolate the problem), than with mechanical clickies (easy to isolate), and I have to believe mechanical clicky lights still significantly out number electronic. It seems that about half the mechanical clicky failure threads here can be resolved by simply tightening down the clicky retaining ring, or disassembling and cleaning, whereas the electronic clicky light failures need to go back to the manufacturer. It also makes you wonder why some dedicated electronic clicky manufacturers only offer 1yr warranties, while the industry seems to be on more of a 2yr standard.


I still prefer old school mechanical clickies for now. You have a good chance at a field repair, can easily service the rubber booty, and at a minimum bypass it with piece of tinfoil (often turning it into a twisty light). Mechanicals are cheap and easily replaced, swapped with a similar light, and I think a manufacturer with decent CS would have no problem just sending you guts of a mechanical without having to mail your light back to them.

My clickies on my laptop still work after checking my Ctrl and + buttons....................so i could zoom screen and read your reply reppans




I would also go with electronic,in fact i have not had 1 go yet,had a few clickies fail over the years though.

ven said:

My clickies on my laptop still work after checking my Ctrl and + buttons....................so i could zoom screen and read your reply reppans




I would also go with electronic,in fact i have not had 1 go yet,had a few clickies fail over the years though.

Click to expand...

haha.. That's what I get for typing offline and cutting and pasting here ven .

I'm kinda surprised at you favoring electronic - your most recommended (well in the small EDC category) seem to be mechanical and the most disparaging remarks I think I've read from you where with regard to an a CPF-favorite electronic clicky light - you know that most of the QC issues with that light are the due to the e-clicky.... right?

I would trust the electronic more for lasting. But for personal preference I like the feel of a nice forward clicky more and it's more likely that you will be able to improvise a solution to solve a clicky switch gone bad.

Hmm, as an interesting observation from the computer world, any enthusiastic gamer will tell you about the number of advantages of a mechanical keyboard. While I'm not citing this, difficult on a phone you know, the life rating for a mechanical keyboard is 15+ million actions per key. A high end membrane keyboard is rated at 2 to 5 million. A standard membrane keyboard is rated even lower.

Now, I'm not sure how well that applies to the electronic switches used in lights, but I felt it relevant to our computer references.

As a side note, I have an old computer mouse from the 90's kicking around some where. Still works perfect. So does my Maglite from around the same time

SimulatedZero said:

Hmm, as an interesting observation from the computer world, any enthusiastic gamer will tell you about the number of advantages of a mechanical keyboard. While I'm not citing this, difficult on a phone you know, the life rating for a mechanical keyboard is 15+ million actions per key. A high end membrane keyboard is rated at 2 to 5 million. A standard membrane keyboard is rated even lower.

Now, I'm not sure how well that applies to the electronic switches used in lights, but I felt it relevant to our computer references.

As a side note, I have an old computer mouse from the 90's kicking around some where. Still works perfect. So does my Maglite from around the same time

Click to expand...

well today's "mechanical" keyboards are premium products for a niche market so it's expected that they use very high quality switches. but i could remember quite a few "clicky" keyboards going bad on me during the PC XT / 286 era. this was before membrane keyboards became de facto. but i think it's safe to say that membrane keyboards last longer than a low-quality clickies...

A flashlight with an electronic on/off switch could draw a small current from the battery even when the light is off.

An electronic switch just needs to make a momentary contact carrying a minuscule amount of current, as such it could be a membrane switch rated for a few thousand cycles, a better membrane switch or low-end snap-action switch rated for a million cycles, or a higher-end snap-action switch good for 10 million+ cycles. I would likely never see more than tens of thousands of actuations from a switch of any flavor, so the operating lifespan isn't a concern for me so much as other factors such as how well it's implemented to handle whatever stresses it experiences in use ... popped solder joints, cracked PCB's, or switch housings that fail under the stress of normal use are going to be more troublesome.

parnass said:

A flashlight with an electronic on/off switch could draw a small current from the battery even when the light is off.

Click to expand...

This they do. One either accept this or locks out the cell whenever the light is stored in order to eliminate it. Idle currents can be surprisingly low for many designs - on the order of microamps or less.

Overclocker said:

well today's "mechanical" keyboards are premium products for a niche market so it's expected that they use very high quality switches. but i could remember quite a few "clicky" keyboards going bad on me during the PC XT / 286 era. this was before membrane keyboards became de facto. but i think it's safe to say that membrane keyboards last longer than a low-quality clickies...

Click to expand...

More niche than high-end specialty flashlights?

idleprocess said:

An electronic switch just needs to make a momentary contact carrying a minuscule amount of current, as such it could be a membrane switch rated for a few thousand cycles, a better membrane switch or low-end snap-action switch rated for a million cycles, or a higher-end snap-action switch good for 10 million+ cycles. I would likely never see more than tens of thousands of actuations from a switch of any flavor, so the operating lifespan isn't a concern for me so much as other factors such as how well it's implemented to handle whatever stresses it experiences in use ... popped solder joints, cracked PCB's, or switch housings that fail under the stress of normal use

Click to expand...

+1

I would personally go with a mechanical switch with a spare, electronic switches, as mentioned above usually have a small parasitic drain. This could become a real issue if another component goes bad and a short is created. Either or, go with your gut preference and get a spare. More importantly, buy a quality light... Surefire, Malkoff, HDS, McGizmo ect.....
I like many others have reported, have had "popular" (key word) non domestic brands with electronic switches flat out fail for no reason, they seem to be more fussy. Not to say this applies to all non USA brands obviously, its a big small world we live in.

reppans said:

haha.. That's what I get for typing offline and cutting and pasting here ven .

I'm kinda surprised at you favoring electronic - your most recommended (well in the small EDC category) seem to be mechanical and the most disparaging remarks I think I've read from you where with regard to an a CPF-favorite electronic clicky light - you know that most of the QC issues with that light are the due to the e-clicky.... right?

Click to expand...

I would not say electronic my favourite,just potentially more reliable from my experience reppans..........thats all.I do like clickies more in general..............it depends on the light tbh,edc then rear small rear clicky or infinite control(or both together)edc keys then twisty preferred for size advantage,larger lights i prefer on the side. I really like the tm15 UI and switch for example...........and the tk75vn

In most of my work uses i find rear clicky more user friendly with momentary............so like both and preferences are more on use rather than reliability as issues can and do happen with both types,my experience has been more issues with clicky over electronic.........although the issues are in my case not significant by a long way and its possible that my clicky lights also far out weigh my electronic off the top of my head:thumbsup:

Which light reppans please,as i have many edc lights all i will know is if i have recommended it then i have had no issues long term(so to speak).

Regards ven:thumbsup:

I have only one electronic switch(S15Ti), oh and a nitecore E25 or whatever the 2xaa cheapo is. I much more prefer the forward clicky. Nothing matches the speed of draw imo. But now I'm wondering when one will break on me. How many clicks, how dam many.

AnAppleSnail said:

In theory, if you stay within the power rating of a clicky, don't bash it, and don't get it wet, it'll last a few thousand cycles. The same is true, though, of electronic switches.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure electronic switches are rated for a few hundred thousand cycles, if not a few million.

SimulatedZero said:

Hmm, as an interesting observation from the computer world, any enthusiastic gamer will tell you about the number of advantages of a mechanical keyboard. While I'm not citing this, difficult on a phone you know, the life rating for a mechanical keyboard is 15+ million actions per key. A high end membrane keyboard is rated at 2 to 5 million. A standard membrane keyboard is rated even lower.

Now, I'm not sure how well that applies to the electronic switches used in lights, but I felt it relevant to our computer references.

Click to expand...

It doesn't apply at all. "Mechanical" computer keyboards still use electronic switches. They just use a more robust mechanism for pressing that switch than membrane or rubber dome keyboards. This is in no way analogous to mechanical versus electronic switches in flashlights.

parnass said:

A flashlight with an electronic on/off switch could draw a small current from the battery even when the light is off.

Click to expand...

In the case of HDS flashlights, the parasitic load is actually lower than the battery's natural discharge rate, meaning that there is effectively zero parasitic drain.