Dead LED Flashlight? Tell your story here!

Who had a LED flashlight die on them? Give the make and model of your flashlight and tell us how it died. I don't want this to be a bash/flame thread, just a thread to share your sad stories of dropped flashlights, fried regulators, leaky orings, bad switches.................etc.


I had an early version of an ARC AAA bought in 2001 die on me. It had a bad connection between the head and the regulator circuit and would not turn on. Peter/ARC replaced it quickly and without hassle.

I also had the two plastic posts on an Opalec Newbeam module break off while removing it from one Mag to another. Opalec replaced it quickly and without hassle.

The battery contacts on my Princeton Tec Aurora have lost their spring tension. I have not got around to replacing this flashlight.

I look forward to hearing your stories.

Thanks,
Ben

Not really die by themselves, but I've killed more sammies than I'm willing to admit. Oh, and one of the last ones just died from one day to the other.... :thinking:

Chinese 1AAA - 5LED flashlight (no brand name).
First day I had it.
Dropped it on the cement floor in the basement.
Dead.

Dorcy 2AA 4-LED flashlight. A drive transistor went into thermal runaway after operating the flashlight continuously for about 5 minutes. I opened up the head afterwards and saw bar-b-que chips.

Xnova 2AA 8LED. I performed some shock tests with it (in the name of science, you know). I threw it about 5 meters up and it came down on a concrete floor, no problems. 10 meters, still no problem. 15 meter, still no problem. 20 meter, death! However the flashlight didn't survive the 20 meter test, I was impressed that it survived the 15 meter test.

Harvested a Lux V from a KL4, then replaced it with a Lux III TV1J. Lasted for a while. Now, it won't put out more than a lumen. One the upside, I'm waiting for a Wiz2 (750mA) and a Lux III UX1L from the Sandwich Shoppe to mod the KL4.

ArcLS ... wanted to show it off by holding it in a pool at night ... and it flooded.

Inova X5T ... my glove box light ... lost one LED recently, and no idea why as it was never used.

bk

Princeton Tec Aurora-one of the 3 LED's dimmed down to a faint glow for no reason I could determine. Store swap out no problem.

Early run Infinity...batts in backwards...poof

My Surefire L2 is giving me fits because suddenly it's shifting deeply into green and getting dimmer so it's going back to Surefire.

Everything else has held up just fine.

I remember that thread, shame it was dead. It would have made a nice flood type light.

A 7 led c. crane unregulated light. It runs from 3 c cells (bought at the local seashore shop). 1 led started turning on and off about once/sec. C. crane swapped the led assembly no problem.

LumenHound said:

I remember that thread, shame it was dead. It would have made a nice flood type light.

Click to expand...

I found a 46 LED light from another seller and so far it works great. The only thing I hate is that it uses two 3XAAA carriers

some 3xaaa 14 led light.

they didn't glue the head properly and it dropped out!
figure out that the head doesn't even fit the dang body which was smaller.

so i took super glue and glue it up. the nxt day, the plastic "len" fogged up with something and the connections where all crap up by some white thingy

why don't anyone make a 3xaaa IN parallel!! then we can use lion to pwer them up!

Inova X1, is it the X1? The 1AA model with the very focused spot light.

Became intermittent and I decided it was because of corrosion around the body of the light where it connects with the tail cap. So I took some very fine sand paper to that and cleaned it up nicely. It worked again for a short time and then conked out again and no amount of sanding would bring it back.

Actually, just for this thread I took it out again (it's been sitting on the shelf here mocking me for months) and took it apart and just banged that internal spring positive connector in there up and down a few times and got it to flicker once. Then banging it hard on the desk brought it back to life! At least temporarily

I'd better play with it tonight as tomorrow it will probably die again.

The only other light I've had fail was my own fault for playing with the PWM circuit on a target river rock lantern and frying the input transister revealing a beautiful puff of it's magic smoke

I dropped my Nuwai Q3 (while switched off) on a marble floor from about 3-4 feet. It died. No light, no flicker, no nothing.

I took the tail cap out and all the innards. Didnt seem like there was anything broken or loose. I put it back and ta-da it miraculously came back to life.

I had a Lambda Illuminator from Kevin's original run (have to get in the way-back machine for that one). I hate to say it, but it flickered from the beginning and later died.

I also had an Eternalight that didn't last too long. It started to flicker after a moderate amount of use, the rubber covering the buttons peeled up as well. Needless to say, I never understood the hype about these.

Great sad stories guys. Keep them coming. On one hand I hope there aren't too many stories of dead flashlights and on the other it makes for some interesting reading. This thread came from the theory that LED flashlights are supposed to be more durable than incandescent flashlights. LED flashlights aren't indestructible, so I am curious what kills them.

I've had very good runs with LEDs. The only story I have is the 41 LED light I bought from ebay that came with 1 dead LED. Soldered in a new LED and it works fine. Oh and the switch broke in another 10 LED light but replaced the switch and it's fine now too. Well then I suppose there's the really cheap plastic and nasty 3 LED from Bunnings. I could never get the thing to fit together properly and the design was so horrible I pulled it apart for the LEDs, one of which ended up as a replacment for the 41 LED light. Of course there's the tailcap switch problem with the 11 LED light I have. Well maybe I've had more problems than I first thought Lol. Even so that's nothing to the incan problems I've had. Rotten things. I swear I'll never buy another incan again. Except maybe for that nice little spottie... nooooo! Must resist. The bulb will only blow. Hate that.

Lightwave 2000 (one of the first LED lights)

Someone I knew at my church had one and on a camping trip; he had the batteries run out. Seeing that he had some spare Ni-Mh; he loads up on those but accidently installed one of the batteries in reverse.

I think it created a short or something because he told me when he picked up the light several minuites later; it felt very warm and made a hissing sound (gas escaping) when he opened it. The batteries were too hot to handle so he ended up dumping them on the ground. It did get hot enough to melt the solder on the Circuit board where the LEDs were and ruin the light.

Two lights I bought on Ebay at different times:

One was called the "Saber Flashlight"; has three white LEDs in it. From day one, the tailcap kept popping off, like the threads were {censored} up or something.

The other was being sold as the Tactical Gear ''HID'' Flashlight; also with three white LEDs. After being given The Smack Test for my website, it failed to work anymore. There's an intermittent somewhere in the bezel.