Surefire E2D Ultra issue?

Hi all.
I've got what I think is an issue, but wanted to consult others first before contacting Surefire.
My E2D Ultra has an odd issue with its switching it seems.
When it's been sitting for a day or longer, it comes on in low, but with a bright "pre-flash", then a second press gets low without the flash. It repeats this for a while, but eventually will come on again on high with the first press.
It almost acts like s voltage issue, but I only use Surefire cells, and two sets have done this, from different batches. It did not do this when it was new.
Does it have a standby drain that could be affecting current available after sitting for a few weeks?
Does anyone know what the voltage should read on good batteries? Not new, but not depleted either I mean. The last time it did it, I pulled out the batteries and put them in a 4sevens, which appeared to still operate at max output (r5 quark).
Could it be something as simple as cleaning and greasing the threads and contact areas?

I did search, but didn't turn up anything.

Any help appreciated.

Try a fresh set of batteries-I had a similar issue.

I've not known any Surefire E2D models to experience pre-flash and they all come on in high first. It wounds like you might have a bad contact somewhere in the signal path. You could try cleaning things and see if it happens again. It also could be an intermittent faulty tail switch. I'd contact Surefire and see what they can do about it.

Lodogg2221 said:

Does it have a standby drain that could be affecting current available after sitting for a few weeks?
Does anyone know what the voltage should read on good batteries? Not new, but not depleted either I mean.
Could it be something as simple as cleaning and greasing the threads and contact areas?

I did search, but didn't turn up anything.

Any help appreciated.

Click to expand...

Surefires that I know of don't have any parasitic drain. And a clicky switch would kill a path for any losses anyways. Regarding your comment about voltage range, new cells will typically measure 3.25 volts when fresh. Maybe 3.18 if they have not been used but exceeded their shelf life. I consider any CR123 below 2.90 volts worthless except for maybe some bench testing of LED's. At that level they don't have enough voltage or current capacity to do much damage unless your talking about the 5mm or smaller type.

And a definite he!! ya to cleaning both the talicap and the head threads. Not to mention look the center contact inside the head as well. I remember years ago I bought a user E2L off the old CPFMP and it would do something similar to what yours is doing. After taking off the head I noticed the black insulator/ plastic center post retainer had a crack around a portion of its circumference. Didn't look bad but what I didn't realize then was with the force of the batteries pushing against it when the head and tail cap where tightened it juts acted strange. Thankfully Surefire took it back under its warranty program and I got back a new head. YMMV.

Fresh set of batteries always worked for me. When the batteries are used for a while this seems to happen as the power is too low to operate as it should. I now pull the batteries and use the rest of the energy in something else.

Thanks guys. I'll try the suggestions.

Did you resolve

Any luck ???

Sorry guys for the CRAZY long delay in updating. Since I havent been able to resolve this, Ill call Surefire tonight.
I left it for a while, as we moved, and that is a nightmare all by itself, so I left the little things on the back burner until we got mostly settled.
So, heres whats happened so far.
Batteries arent the problem. Although when I swap them, it works ok for the first few times, then, after sitting a day or two, its back to its old tricks. The last set I did that with ran in my LX2, my EDC, for about 6 months before finally giving up to low mode only.
I did find an odd string like object in the head near the contacts shortly after posting this originally, and removed it, and cleaned the threads, lubed it and reassembled.
Thought maybe I had it. Nope.
Then it sat for a while, and I just dealt with the issue.
Lately though, I have a need for it, so Ive been toying with it more. Trying batteries, to no avail, and I also cleaned the threads again, and lubed. Took a lot of time on that, thinking something must be causing this in the electrical path, but that didnt help.
I tried a different tailcap too. No change. Actually 2 different ones. One from my E1B, and a spare e series I had picked up. No difference.
At one point I thought maybe the head isnt getting contact because its not tightening down, but that turned out to be nothing too.

So right now, after all this, Im back to square one. Light, after sitting for a day or 5, comes on with a bright pre-flash (like some of the 4Sevens Quarks do), then low.
Most times, it wont change modes right away. After switching a few times, it will come on in high, but not full brightness. Then a few more, and its back to normal.
Almost like its got to warm up or something to work right. Ive wondered if there could be a connection thats iffy in the head that is affected by the heat, but generally, things work better cold than hot, or rather, they tend to stop working correctly the hotter they get in general, so I dont know.

Other than my R1 Lawman having a bad battery, this is the first real issue Ive had with Surefire in the almost 20 years since I bought my first. Im sure they will make it right, but I was hoping to avoid sending it. Oh well. Better to send it now, than to go another year with it unresolved!

Any updates?

Lodogg2221 said:

Sorry guys for the CRAZY long delay in updating. Since I havent been able to resolve this, Ill call Surefire tonight.
I left it for a while, as we moved, and that is a nightmare all by itself, so I left the little things on the back burner until we got mostly settled.
So, heres whats happened so far.
Batteries arent the problem. Although when I swap them, it works ok for the first few times, then, after sitting a day or two, its back to its old tricks. The last set I did that with ran in my LX2, my EDC, for about 6 months before finally giving up to low mode only.
I did find an odd string like object in the head near the contacts shortly after posting this originally, and removed it, and cleaned the threads, lubed it and reassembled.
Thought maybe I had it. Nope.
Then it sat for a while, and I just dealt with the issue.
Lately though, I have a need for it, so Ive been toying with it more. Trying batteries, to no avail, and I also cleaned the threads again, and lubed. Took a lot of time on that, thinking something must be causing this in the electrical path, but that didnt help.
I tried a different tailcap too. No change. Actually 2 different ones. One from my E1B, and a spare e series I had picked up. No difference.
At one point I thought maybe the head isnt getting contact because its not tightening down, but that turned out to be nothing too.

So right now, after all this, Im back to square one. Light, after sitting for a day or 5, comes on with a bright pre-flash (like some of the 4Sevens Quarks do), then low.
Most times, it wont change modes right away. After switching a few times, it will come on in high, but not full brightness. Then a few more, and its back to normal.
Almost like its got to warm up or something to work right. Ive wondered if there could be a connection thats iffy in the head that is affected by the heat, but generally, things work better cold than hot, or rather, they tend to stop working correctly the hotter they get in general, so I dont know.

Other than my R1 Lawman having a bad battery, this is the first real issue Ive had with Surefire in the almost 20 years since I bought my first. Im sure they will make it right, but I was hoping to avoid sending it. Oh well. Better to send it now, than to go another year with it unresolved!

Click to expand...

Lodogg2221 said:

Sorry guys for the CRAZY long delay in updating. Since I havent been able to resolve this, Ill call Surefire tonight.

So right now, after all this, Im back to square one. Light, after sitting for a day or 5, comes on with a bright pre-flash (like some of the 4Sevens Quarks do), then low.
Most times, it wont change modes right away. After switching a few times, it will come on in high, but not full brightness. Then a few more, and its back to normal.
Almost like its got to warm up or something to work right. Ive wondered if there could be a connection thats iffy in the head that is affected by the heat, but generally, things work better cold than hot, or rather, they tend to stop working correctly the hotter they get in general, so I dont know.

Click to expand...

I am having the same issue with a Surefire EB2 clicky. Like you it needs to warm up to work right, only turning on on low setting at first. And after a couple of presses will finally select high then low then high again as it is meant too. Same thing with several sets of batteries.

However I put the EB2 head on a old E2D body and switch and it works flawlessly. So I have no idea why it is happening on the EB2 body and tail switch.

So another delayed update.
I got tired enough of it that I sent it in to Surefire. Original email reply with RMA stated 2 week turn around time. Seemed fast to me, and it was, as in, too fast. It actually took 7 weeks. That process was much more of an ordeal than it should have been.
As I said, we moved a while back, and they had the old address on file. Now, I changed everything I could on my online account, and the old address isnt even listed anymore. The way I found out was that I called to get a replacement clip for my LX2, and they sent it to the old address. When I called about a status update on my light after 4 weeks, I confirmed the return address with them at that time. They said it would go to the new address. Fast forward 2 weeks, and I called again, just to verify, since we were now beyond any time frame I was given for repair, and guess what? They again verified the correct address. A few days later, I got a shipping notification. A few days after that, I checked it for tracking info, and while doing that, I actually opened the attached file to see what they did to it, and though it listed no repair info, it did list the return shipping address....to my OLD address. I had to call UPS, and get it held at the local office, then try to get over there and pick it up.
All seemed well when I unboxed it.
Fast forward to now (a bit of insight here on the use of the light, its basically a backup only, I do EDC it sometimes, but it doesnt see much use, its mostly used as a backup to my Lawman at work) and as of tonight, its back to its old tricks. They list a 2.25 hr runtime on the light (down to 50ish lumens I believe). No way. Its had MAYBE an hour, and thats pushing it. Batteries show 3 volts. New batteries are 3.2. Surefire batteries only.
This light should work just about exactly like the EB1 backup did/does. It comes on in high until the battery will no longer support that mode (or close to it anyway), then low only.
This one isnt doing that at all. Its probably close to 300 lumens when it starts acting up. No way it should do that.
Anyway, long story long, now I get to get back on the phone, and try to get someone to actually understand whats going on, because apparently while they had it, they did nothing but put new batteries in it and call it a day. Ill be calling Surefire in the morning, again, to see what they want to do this time around.
Will try to post an update once I get it back again.

I may try to get a few quick videos of what its actually doing, since its still doing it.

Sounds kinda like my ordeal with Elzetta lol. Alpha was having serious flickering issues, so I sent it in. Was clearly the tailcap acting up. What did they do? Polished the threads and sent it right back. Still flickers to this day; really don't know how they couldn't have seen it. Oh well.

RF11 said:

I am having the same issue with a Surefire EB2 clicky. Like you it needs to warm up to work right, only turning on on low setting at first. And after a couple of presses will finally select high then low then high again as it is meant too. Same thing with several sets of batteries.

However I put the EB2 head on a old E2D body and switch and it works flawlessly. So I have no idea why it is happening on the EB2 body and tail switch.

Click to expand...

I thought initially that the tailcap was the problem. Replaced it, and same thing. I honestly think now that there is something up with the way it reads the voltage of the batteries, and how it determines if its got enough to come on in high. Its got to be regulated or controlled somehow, because it wouldnt do the bright flash before instantly going to low. Its like it tries to do high, then thinks it cant, so it switches. Very odd issue, and one would think they could either fix it easily, or replace the head, or just tell us that they have no fix, and that the runtime is way lower than what they stated, since mine has never turned on in high mode below about 200 lumens. Most times it doesnt even get that low (Comparing to the LX2).

Have to applaud your patience and tolerance for this kind of crap, guys. If I had spent Surefire or Elzetta money only to get this kind of a product and customer support, I would have been foaming at the mouth. Sometimes, the incompetence or arrogance behind these high price tags is astounding.

It's interesting because I hear some incredible customer service stories about SF but then some bad ones like this. I'd like to hope that for the most part they're good? Thankfully I haven't ever needed to use it.

But back on topic, I have the same flash issue happen with some of my chinese lights like Sunwayman. It's set to low but when I turn it on, it quickly flashes high before going to low. Never could find out why.

I'm having similar issues with my E2D Ultra. It'll do that pre-flash as well, and it'll also switch from low to high just by being jarred. I've had this light since 2014, and it's had more issues than all my other 16 surefire lights combined. I've cleaned the threads as Surefire instructed, it's been sent back to them previously for repair for the intermittently switching to high mode, they've also sent a replacement tail cap, which fixed the issue for awhile, but it's back to the same problems. They're sending me an RMA and shipping label so I can send it back for them to look at, but that'll be who knows how many weeks before I get it back.

I also had the same problem with the Surefire EB2 I had. Annoying to say the least. Ended up getting rid of it.