SureFire L4 with Crooked LED or Reflector

beezaur

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Apr 15, 2003
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I got a new SureFire L4 the other day, and it has either a crooked LED or a crooked reflector. I haven't decided which. The beam is great, color is great, and it is about as bright as my L2, so I'd rather keep it than send it in.

What do you guys make of this?
l4offset5ng.jpg


Scott

Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting
 

easilyled

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To me that seems a very minor imperfection - mine is also not
perfectly centred.

I also noticed that at the very inner part of the rim in the bezel,
that the outline of the O-ring is at one point not quite
continuous and has a slight silver mark on it.

I came to the conclusion that this is likely due to the fact that
the reflector has a lip on it over there that helps to keep
the O-ring in place and is probably intentional.

One can get quite obssessive about these things :wink:
but the end result is the most important. Mine has a
perfect beam with a perfect white tint and is VERY bright
so I'm very happy with it.
 

beezaur

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The only thing I am worried about is the possibility that something might be out of allignment to the point that it will not be reliable elecronically. The LED is as far out of allignment as is possible; it is touching the reflector on one side. Obviously something went wrong during manufacture.

It is only a reliability issue. I truly don't care about cosmetic aspects on something like this.

Scott

[edit to add:]

I haven't seen a picture of a KL4 opened up. Is it a star inside? I am thinking that the LED should be locked in place mechanically and can't move from side to side. I don't want the leads to have been placed under tension by a shifted LED, ready to break at a slight bump. If the LED is secure and the reflector is what shifted, then who cares. That is an optical issue, and it is fine that way.
 
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easilyled

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In the picture you supplied, yours doesn't look excessively misalligned - not
radically different from mine.

I think its quite easy for the appearance to look off-centre even if there's
only a millimetre out in the positioning of the led/relector/or hole in the reflector.

When I've played around with my Nuwai Q3s which have looked off-centre,
by opening the head up and trying to reposition the relector or led-module,
only a light difference in positioning can centralise the led.

However I don't think it usually affects functioning/reliability adversely - if yours is working reliably at the moment, there's no reason to assume it won't
continue to do so.

However I'm sure Surefire would replace it for you if it was something that was causing you concern.
 

greenLED

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beezaur said:
The beam is great, color is great

From the pic it looks like the source of light is in the right spot (reflector all yellow). From your comment it seems that it's not affecting performance. Don't know about the electronics or if you banged the head real hard (a fall) that might shear the Lux dome. :thinking:
 

beezaur

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I dropped it last night -- four feet onto concrete, right on the bezel. Still works.

I emailed SureFire about the eccentricity too. They were not alarmed, but said it was not normal. Whether to return is up to me. I'll just keep it with its crooked little eyeball. If you guys aren't worried about it, then I'm not worried about it either.

Scott
 

cslinger

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Mar 3, 2005
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Nashville, TN
I emailed SureFire about the eccentricity too. They were not alarmed, but said it was not normal. Whether to return is up to me.

The next time somebody asks if Surefire is worth the money, this is why. The company says this is not a defect, your light works fine and they still give you the option to return. That is customer service above and beyond.

Chris
 
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