Change battery by removing head vs removing tailcap?

So I recently purchased a lumintop IYP07. As I'm reading the manual it says to only change the battery by unscrewing the head section and changing the AAA battery that way. It said to never remove the tailcap to change the battery. My question is why? I looked on YouTube and some other places and found a comment of a guy who had one that the threading on the tailcap section locked up and when ge contacted the company they said it was his fault for removing the tailcap to change the battery. I looked mine over and can't see anything special about it. It screws off and looks like any other tailcap I've ever seen. I even screwed the tailcap on and off 50 times with the battery inside and it still works fine. The guy on YouTube must have got a defect. I dug out and looked at the paperwork for the lumintop tool AA 2.0 that I've been EDC'ing everyday for several months now, and it said also to change the battery through the head. Ive changed the battery out at least 15 times now through the tailcap and it's still fine. I rarely ever read the manual for lights so I'm not sure if others say this as well, but what's their idea behind changing the battery through the head? What could be so damaging from changing it from the tailcap side? If the tailcap side is so fragile, why is it removable in the first place? Some lights don't even have removable heads, and the tailcap is the only way you can change it.

Does it have an electronic tail switch? If so like on the new lumintop they recommend changing batteries from the front so the switch pieces don't fall out. Just a guess.

thermal guy said:

Does it have an electronic tail switch? If so like on the new lumintop they recommend changing batteries from the front so the switch pieces don't fall out. Just a guess.

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I don't believe it's electronic. It has mode memory, if that answers anything. It feels just like the tail clicker on my olight i3t, ultratac a1, stream light protac 1AAA, etc. I just took it back apart and looked at it again. Shook it, even tugged the spring a little. I can't see it falling apart, short of beating it with a hammer lol.

The absolute only thing I can think of is that when screwing it on or off, the tail cap spring presses against the battery and rotates and might break loose from inside the tail cap or it gets in a bind and bends. But I have ALWAYS changed the batteries on every light by removing the tail cap. And as I stated, some lights don't have removable heads, so you have no choice BUT to remove the tail cap to change the battery.

I was bored and the manual was laying around and i read it. Big mistake. If I hadn't read anything, I would still be changing them through the tail cap with no worry. But now I've read it, and its stuck on my mind now lol

Look inside the tailcap. If the tailcap has a screw-in retaining ring in it to hold the switch in, sometimes twisting the tailcap begins to loosen the retaining ring leading to flakey function or a light that just doesn't even turn on until you tighten that ring. If you don't happen to have a snap ring pliers or similar with you in the field to put in the holes/notches in that ring to tighten it when you change your battery you may be left with a non-functional light. That is my best guess. I have had this happen with lights with switches installed in this way.

nbp said:

Look inside the tailcap. If the tailcap has a screw-in retaining ring in it to hold the switch in, sometimes twisting the tailcap begins to loosen the retaining ring leading to flakey function or a light that just doesn't even turn on until you tighten that ring.

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That is a legit idea. I can even recall seeing a YouTube video showing how to use needle nose pliers to do it

I looked over a few more owners manuals and looked at some lights last night. I found some of the lights that don't have heads, still have that retaining ring set up in the tailcap. I saw the two indents in it to tighten it with. Thus without a head, the tailcap is the only way to change the battery. And some lights that had a removable head, had a retaining ring setup or it was situated in the threads of the head, thus possibly working something loose in the head if you remove it to change the battery.

And with the random instruction manuals i looked at, all of them but 1 said to remove the tail cap. 4 said to remove the tailcap and 1 said to remove either the head or the tailcap. But none specifically said head only.

I think I'm done worrying too much about it. Sounds like problems can come either way if possible and that other problems may occur. I've always done it by the tailcap and I've been fine, maybe by luck. But I'm gonna keep my pliers close by lol

A quick call or email to them would probably clear this right up. Who knows it could just be a generic instructions that they left that in.

Jason Hui, the owner of Prometheus Lights/Foursevens, advises to always use the head end of a light to remove/replace the battery. The reason is doing so puts much less stress on the battery - spring interface.

Chauncey Gardiner said:

Jason Hui, the owner of Prometheus Lights/Foursevens, advises to always use the head end of a light to remove/replace the battery. The reason is doing so puts much less stress on the battery - spring interface.

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I can see that. I did a little test. I noted where markings were on the battery in accordance to the pocket clip. I screwed the head on and off several times and the battery didn't move. I did this also with the tailcap, and just one time made the battery rotate at least 90 degrees. So when done by the tailcap, it moves the battery, and as the tailcap is getting tighter, it's still twisting the spring inside. Thats probably why I notice that some of the negative end of the battery gets chewed off the size as the tip of the spring. But when done by the head, its just "dropping" the battery in, and it's done with no stress on the spring.

I emailed Lumintop, so we'll see what they say.

Needless to say, theres nothing much you can do with lights that don't have a removable head though.

Could be it. I load all my Malkoff lights from the head. The tail spring REALLY digs into my 18650's if I load from the end cap

Well I got a reply back from lumintop. They said its fine to change from either the head or tail cap. Only the fw3a that thermal guy mentioned is the only one they say to purposely change from the head.