Faint flash from Arc4+ when off?

I went bushwalking this weekend and whilst snuggling down for the night in my bivi bag noticed a faint flash from the Arc4+ every four seconds or so. At first I thought it might have dropped into Find Me mode for some reason (I normally have that off) but after going through the menu and switching Find Me on discovered that it was actually off - Find Me was much brighter. Even switching Find me off or removing the battery to reset the Arc, the faint flash would still be there. It is just like Find Me but very dim.

I hadn't noticed this before so cannot say if it's new or always been there. Only on that night in the pitch black when the Arc was almost next to my face did I become aware of it. It is quite invisible in ordinary daylight. It's still doing it now.

So, is this normal? Programming error or feature?

There's a thread somewhere a few weeks back that dealt with this kind of thing. I think it had something to do with the cold affecting the battery and the circuit thinking that it was resetting or something like that...

-Jason

It's a feature; or part of one. The "Ready For Service" feature has this as a side-effect.
Turn it off in the feature menu, and your faint flash should go away.

As KDC said, it shows when the Ready For Service feature is on. It's generally not visible unless the light is cold. I had never seen it on mine so I put it in the freezer for a while. My wife and son were pretty merciless in their teasing when they discovered it /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

When the RFS is turned on, the software turns the uC on perdiodically to drain any residual charge on the input capacitors through the LED. This creates a very dim flash. If this were not done, the unit would take forever to reset when then power is changed because of the hefty capacitor on the input.

I am thinking it may be more visible when cold because the LED becomes more sensitive to voltage at lower temps.

Turning the RFS off will shut off this housekeeping function but the light will take longer to reset. If you want to have the RFS off but also speed up the reset, press the button inside the head with your finger when you open the pack to change the cells. This will drain the capacitor within a few seconds.

Peter

Thanks guys. Searching for 'cold' brought up better results than 'flash'!! It was very cold that night so perhaps that's why I'd not seen it before. Maybe stuff like this needs to go in a Q+A section in FAQ? But I'm happy there's nothing wrong with the light. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Took only the Arc4 (and a candle lantern for general camp light) with me. Lower power level to watch food cooking. Level 1 to look for critters. Double and triple clicking and click+hold is now second nature. A wonderful light. The only drawback is CR123s are expensive in Australia. Cheapest I've found is AU$10 each! I miss the 2AA body from the ArcLS.