U2 tailcap speculation and long term fate

Started this to speculate on the u2's tailcap and the long term fate of the u2.

tailcap:
Mine works fine. I saw all the bad tailcap data from the poll earlier and am wondering that maybe the problem is that the tailcap is bottoming out against the clip assembly?

Will someone who has a "bad" one remove their clip and test this.

Long term:
In the short time the light has been out, we're seeing a fair number of people have selector ring friction problems. Surefire's official line is that it is NOT user-serviceable. They say to send it in.

What's gonna happen when they start getting all these lights back as time goes on? Is accounting going to see this and tell r&d to design a revised version? Or are they gonna scrap the light? I'm sure they will play a wait-and-see for now, especially since they are still filling backorders (as far as I know).

But, bottom line, do we expect this light to be around a year from now? One reason I ask is that I'm curious. Another is that's I'm considering selling mine and hoping for a better version down the road.

In the event they kill the u2.... can you imagine what a $270 light will hit on ebay? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

That could be the problem with some of them, at least the ones where the light won't stay on reliably. That's the problem I had with mine. I had to really tighten the crap outta the cap to get the light to stay on, it was either bottoming on the clip assembly, or running out of threads, more likely the former I would think. The fix is pretty simple though, you just need to bend the three "ears" on the contact ring up a bit to make earlier contact with the tube. The problem is that it's kinda tough to do without going too far and having to bend them back down a bit. One of mine developed a crack in it from bending it back down. As soon as SF has more caps in stock, I will be requesting a replacement.

I don't think this is the problem with the people who are reporting that the light clicks on and stays on though. That sounds like a tolerance issue of the contact area inside the switch.

Peter

How do you remove the clip?

I just took mine off. I took less than a minute.

Remove the tailcap
remove the tailcap oring
slide the plastic ring that covers the clip off the end
clip slide off

clip can also be put back on backwards

Just removed the clip and it did help.I am going to bend up the tabs a bit and see if that helps.

As far as I can tell the tail cap on my L5 is the same as the U2, either one will work on the other. I have had my L5 for about a year now and never had a problem with the tail cap (but it is not black like the U2) Has any one else had problems with the L5 tail cap? This should give us an idea of how the U2 cap should hold up.

I have both an L5 and a U2. I tried the L5's tail cap on my U2 but it didn't seem to make contact. No trouble with the U2's tail cap on the L5 body though. Perhaps a tolerance issue? I guess I'm one of the lucky ones with the U2's tail cap working correctly right out of the box. A few scratches and a bluish tint to the beam, but overall I'm happy with mine.