M2R Pro burned holes in my pocket!

Yesterday I had rode my bike to an appointment I had for narrow band UVB light therapy for a skin condition I have. I'm required to get undressed to my boxers before I enter the both and was in there for 1 minute and 43 seconds. When I got out, I smelled something burning. Not something you want to smell coming out of what's essentially a specialized tanning both. I hurry and get dressed so I can let someone know of the smell. I get my pants on and immediately feel burning on my leg, so I quickly pulled my light out of my pocket. There it was, on turbo with smoke coming off of itf! What the ****?!?! It smelled horrible.

Turns out the ******* light actually burned holes in my 5.11 Taclite Pro's pocket. I know the label for them says they are a poly/ cotton blend, but that might not be for the pockets. Regardless, the melting point for polyester fabric is 482 degrees! Does this light not have temperature protection?

This isn't the first time the light had gotten turned on in my pocket either, but I've noticed it right away. Anyone wise have this problem with this light? It's a bad*** light, but damn, I'm too scared to carry it again.

Aaaaand this is the reason i've been complaining to Olight.
They all have time regulation. After 3min on turbio it will step down. Such a great regulation driver and poor protection.
Not saying it's awful having time protection but only in combination with temperature regulation like many others have (Zebralight for example).

Nothing else you can do except go to Olight Facebook group and complain like others do.
And it seems to me there is more and more guys with other issues and more and more complaints.
Olight need to upgrade electronics and emitters and NOT releasing new colors. That's not upgrade but throwing dirt in your eyes.

i found some protector awhile ago that simply like strip to protect it form accidentally start

Olight, yuck

Temperature regulation doesn't matter when a high output flashlight burns a hole in your pocket.

All temperature regulation does is prevent the light itself from becoming too hot. But that's not what burned a hole in your pocket. Rather, the burn is caused by the output of the light on turbo hitting the cloth of your pocket right in front of the lens. The cloth absorbs the light and heats up. If you have a reasonably high power light (and at 1500+ lumens the M2R is high enough) it can easily burn through fabric, especially if the fabric is dark color which absorbs light better.

Temperature regulation or timed stepdown would only save your pocket if the burning was caused not by the light coming out of the lens, but rather by the metal head getting too hot and conducting heat into your pocket from the metal touching it. But that's not what is happening. If the flashlight's head was hot enough to exceed the 459 degree temperature to set your pants on fire, you would have been burned instantly if you tried to touch the light, the switch would have melted and the battery probably would have exploded.

I lost a couple pockets in my Dockers a couple years ago to an Emisar D4 that accidentally turned on in my pocket and ramped up to turbo. At 4300 lumens output, it could burn a 1" wide hole all the way through a white cotton pocket in less than 10 seconds. The flashlight itself wasn't even hot... it was the emitted light on turbo doing all the damage long before the light's temperature regulation kicked in.

Some solutions for safer pocket carry:
- use tailcap lockout (I hate doing this since it slows down activating the light).
- use electronic lockout (I hate doing this for the same reason I don't like tailcap lockout).
- modify the switch or switch housing to reduce chances of accidental activation. In the D4 this can be done by gluing a washer around the switch boot to turn a raised switch into a recessed one. In an FW3A you can do this via the internal o-ring mod to the switch which makes the switch much stiffer.
- get a different light with a safer switch. Stiffer, smaller and more recessed switchers all tend to be safer for pocket carry. Zebralights are nice because of their deeply recessed switches.
- get a lower output light that doesn't have enough max output to burn a hole through your pocket.
- get a light with better firmware. Anduril UI works well. In Anduril you can manually set the max-ramp to just below what causes pocket damage. That way to access turbo you have to first turn the light on, then double-click. This lets you still access turbo fairly easily while greatly reducing the chances of accidental pocket activation.

It would be nice if a manufacturer added a sensor to detect objects right in front of the lens and then prevent the light from turning on. With such a system you wouldn't need any other precautions for safe pocket carry. Unfortunately, lights these days don't have that feature.

Proximity sensor is hard to do with a device that emits light. Anytime you passed something close enough to cause light to be reflected backwards the light would shut off.

There tailcap protection in it, unscrew it for 1/2 -3/4 twist for safety transportation
And you still can operate it with front silicone button

Unless I'm working with it, my lights are in mechanical lockout if in my pocket. MR2 locks out with the tiniest twist of the end cap.

turbodog said:

Proximity sensor is hard to do with a device that emits light. Anytime you passed something close enough to cause light to be reflected backwards the light would shut off.

Click to expand...

Not really.

The sole purpose of the proximity sensor would be to prevent the light from turning on accidentally while in the pocket. This means the sensor only needs to actually affect light operation when the light is off. If the light is on, the light assumes you meant to do that and are holding the light. The proximity sensor would not be needed and the firmware could ignore it completely.

Since the sensor would only operate when the light is off, the fact that it is contained in a flashlight as opposed to some other device is irrelevant to the electronic design.

My thought is maybe an IR proximity sensor mounted to an aux board and looking through a hole in the reflector through the lens.

But IR would not be triggered by pocket, pouch, backpack, etc.

Thank you everyone for all of your feedback. I kept ponderng to myselff how I keep on accidentally turning this light on on turbo in my pocket, it's happened before, but I've always caught it early. I'm either somehow double clicking the side switch or something somehow is managing to push that tall switch all the way on, but only briefly.. Both seem unfeasible to me, but I'm thinking it's the tail switch, I don't think anything would be able to deliberately push that tail switch that far in without me noticing and quickly enough to turn it on and not go in momentary mode. This completely eliminates the option of locking out the tail as some have suggested. Beside though, any light that requires it to be locked out during EDC is not with carrying in my opinion.

As far as temperate protection, proximity sensors and other high techsolutions to this problem, well I'd rather them just design a better switch.

Not familiar with your light... but maybe change the programming to NOT come on to max setting at first? I know this type stuff is available on HDS and some other lights.

turbodog said:

Not familiar with your light... but maybe change the programming to NOT come on to max setting at first? I know this type stuff is available on HDS and some other lights.

Click to expand...

Programming? There's no programming on this light. Still it's double click on the side switch for turbo or quickly pressing the 2 stage tail switch all of the way in which I don't think the latter is the problem.

Got it.

I loosen the tailcap so it doesn't turn on in the pocket, though more often then not I use the holster it came with. I haven't melted my pants with that light but it's because I learned my lesson when my zebralight sc600 melted through my pocket.

I don't know if it happens to the newer Olight but I used to be able to get my older m2r (the one that takes 18650's) to come on when my keys would brush over the tailcap.

defloyd77 said:

Yesterday I had rode my bike to an appointment I had for narrow band UVB light therapy for a skin condition I have. I'm required to get undressed to my boxers before I enter the both and was in there for 1 minute and 43 seconds. When I got out, I smelled something burning. Not something you want to smell coming out of what's essentially a specialized tanning both. I hurry and get dressed so I can let someone know of the smell. I get my pants on and immediately feel burning on my leg, so I quickly pulled my light out of my pocket. There it was, on turbo with smoke coming off of itf! What the ****?!?! It smelled horrible.

Turns out the ******* light actually burned holes in my 5.11 Taclite Pro's pocket. I know the label for them says they are a poly/ cotton blend, but that might not be for the pockets. Regardless, the melting point for polyester fabric is 482 degrees! Does this light not have temperature protection?

This isn't the first time the light had gotten turned on in my pocket either, but I've noticed it right away. Anyone wise have this problem with this light? It's a bad*** light, but damn, I'm too scared to carry it again.

Click to expand...

I've had that happen to me twice with the M2T and it IS the tailcap getting pushed in just far enough to lock it on...I started to carry it other places than my front pants pocket. With the bezel up. A stiffer spring may help with it but I'm not sure I would want that. A more fully encompassing guard would likely be more helpful than to change the spring or lock it out. I like my M2T because it has a "proud" button, I've just adjusted to it for carry.

lightfooted said:

I've had that happen to me twice with the M2T and it IS the tailcap getting pushed in just far enough to lock it on...I started to carry it other places than my front pants pocket. With the bezel up. A stiffer spring may help with it but I'm not sure I would want that. A more fully encompassing guard would likely be more helpful than to change the spring or lock it out. I like my M2T because it has a "proud" button, I've just adjusted to it for carry.

Click to expand...

Did the M2T have the same switch as the M2R Pro? I've been playing around with the switches on my light and I just cannotpicture something pushing the tall switch that far in and quickly enough to turn it on and not just go into momentary, especially without me feeling or hearing it. The side button is another story. Not only is it easy to press and silent, but I noticed double clicking for turbo doesn't need to be done as quickly as most of my other lights that use double clicking in the UI.

Not the same, the M2T more resembles an old 6P tailswitch in diameter and protrusion. Perhaps CarpentryHero's experience isn't isolated. One of my experiences wasn't that the light stayed on so much as that I crouched long enough for it to begin melting things. Actually now that I think about it, I think it was while I was in my car driving and I happened to move just so and it was held on until I started feeling the heat on my hip.

CarpentryHero said:

I loosen the tailcap so it doesn't turn on in the pocket, though more often then not I use the holster it came with. I haven't melted my pants with that light but it's because I learned my lesson when my zebralight sc600 melted through my pocket.

I don't know if it happens to the newer Olight but I used to be able to get my older m2r (the one that takes 18650's) to come on when my keys would brush over the tailcap.

Click to expand...

I thought of that as I carry my keys hanging by a carabiner, but couldn't get it to turn on that way when I tried deliberately.

EDIT: After playing around trying to get this to work, I noticed if I did it just right with something steel shaped just right, it would turn on in turbo. I guess it's the magnet pulling on the steel just right to push the switch in.

EDIT 2: I just now tested my previous theory with my actual keychain and tried to replicate my findings with the only steel item that would come in contact with the tail switch, a pico widgy bar and could not get it to turn on the light no matter how hard I tried.

defloyd77 said:

I thought of that as I carry my keys hanging by a carabiner, but couldn't get it to turn on that way when I tried deliberately.

EDIT: After playing around trying to get this to work, I noticed if I did it just right with something steel shaped just right, it would turn on in turbo. I thinkitn's the magnet pulling on the steel just right to push the switch in.

Click to expand...

Yep, got rid of mine after melting a hole in my printer of all places. Magnetic charging/switch issue.