Maglite Flashlight Policy Changes

[Lenp]

MAGLITE FLASHLIGHT WARRANTY UPDATE:

Effective May 20, 2014 Maglite will cease operations at ALL of their their Warranty Service Centers in the U.S.A. and Canada.
All repairs are now to be done only at their office in Ontario CA. This was a corporate decision that does not involve any Service Center performance or their value to Maglite customers. Unfortunately, because their website is not well maintained, it currently makes no mention of this. It still lists a few of the service centers, but, they will cease operation on the termination date.

Additionally their website now shows charges for their current 'lifetime warranty' repair for each type of light. This ranges from a few dollars to more than the light is worth when shipping to CA is included. They are pretty obscure, so you will need to go to the section of the site that offers the product manuals, open the manual for the type of unit you have , and read the fine print that refers to their 'shipping and handling' charge for warranty service.

As a WSC, serving the East Coast for several years, I can assure you that we are now packing up materials and supplies for return credit, and no further repair work will be performed.

If anyone wishes to try repairs their own incandescent Mini, C/D, Recharger or D-LED flashlight, I may be able to offer some tips if you contact me.
(I can't post them since it's called ''proprietary'' information!)

The end of a era........!

[MrAl]

Hi Len,

Since white LEDs came about things in the flashlight industry changed a lot. At first i thought Maglite would go out altogether due to too much competition. They need to put white LEDs in everything though if they havent already.

[Lenp]

Hi Al,
Maglight makes these model LED's, MiniMag, D-2 and D-3, recharger, as well as several 'tactical' flashlights with multi LED's. I offer no comparison since I don't have intimate knowledge of them or the competition. The service centers were not permitted to stock LED parts with the exception of the D-cell LED models.

There's a tremendous user base of incandescent Maglites. I had a 6 state area on the East Coast and processed over 1800 units in less three years, and all those were incandescent. Many police departments still use the older halogen lamp recharger, and I regularly got boxes of 30 plus from several agencies for service. This unit has been around for years, and if you watch the cops-n-robber shows, look for a black 3D cell sized flashlight with two silver rings behind the head. That's the Mag recharger.

I personally feel that they shot themselves in the foot last year when they discontinued the original recharger and introduced the new LED version. Both of these units can be charged from 120V or 12V, so police cars are equipped with the charger cradle. The older and newer cradle are not physically interchangeable. Many police departments are slow in adopting them because of the problem of getting them mixed with different units in their inventory. Also, since the LED's use charge pump circuits, there is an operating cliff edge. Low battery means lights out. Not a dim down warning like with incandescent lamps. Technology allows the LED switch module to provide multiple operating modes, and the cliff edge problem could have been solved with warning blinks near the end of the charge.

Some departments have told me that with these customer unfriendly changes, they will start researching other lights, like Streamlite.
Their LED units seem adequate but others have taken the technology a few rungs up the ladder, and since Maglite is owned by a single entity, there probably isn't much discussion about product designs or company policies.

And so it is.....

[aretallack]

Not sure about in other parts of the world, but here in SA the Maglights have been surpassed by the LED Lenser brand. I love my old Maglight, but can't deny that the my LED Lenser has the edge on the Maglight.

[Externet]

Hello Len.
Smells you have some kind of connection to Maglite.
Picking at your knowledge, am searching for a 3 'D' cell fully waterproof to ~30m+ depth flashlight for scuba purpose.
Is there such animal that you may know of ?
Is there any Maglite flashlight (antique or not) with a magnetic slide switch outside and a reed switch inside ? Is there any model that can be truly waterproofed ?
And, what does T6 mean ?

[Externet]

Duplicate deleted.

[Lenp]

Hi Externet,

Yes, as was said in the first post I was a WSC for almost 5 years and repaired the C/D-cell both incandescent and LED , their MiniMag and Recharger units. Others had to go to the factory in California since they would not stock the WSC's with those parts.
Currently the C/D models are available in 2,3,4,5, in C/D Cell and and in limited availability, 6 D-Cell. The LED is available in 2,3 D-Cells

Note:
Recently Magite stopped production on all of the legacy PR-x series traditional flashlight lamps, and introduced a halogen bipin with a socket adapter as a direct replacement. It is brighter, with better spot control compared to the PR series. It will fit their units, but no others!

The standard C/D and the LED's are all made the same with the exception of the reflector geometry and the switch assembly. In the standard versions the switch assembly is also the lamp socket, and in the LED version the switch also mounts the LED. All other mechanical aspects are identical. Maglite never made any depth claims to my knowledge, only that their units were waterproof. There are 'O' ring seals between the lens and face cap, the face cap and head, the head and barrel, and the barrel and tail cap. The simple mechanical push/push switch is sealed with a rubber switch seal that is fitted into a groove in the barrel.

In my unofficial opinion, the 'O' rings, if properly maintained, may well hold up to the 30M depth, but the switch seal may collapse and leak. A possible fix may be to use some cyanoacrylate adhesive in the seal groove to prevent it from breaking loose. The standard plastic lens may fracture so perhaps a polycarbonate lens could be fitted. I believe at 30M the pressure is about 58psi so maybe a water filled chamber made from PVC pipe and would help to evaluate the success.

There were two versions of the C/D units. The older one can be identified by an all numeric serial number (123...). The newer ones had a C or D prefix plus the cell count as the first part of the serial number( D4123...) The newer, most common units can be disassembled easily for inspection with one difficulty. The switch and lamp socket are all one assembly, and it must be removed by passing a torx driver through the hole in the switch plunger after the seal is popped out. This will allow you to loosen a setscrew that fixes the switch in place in the barrel, and provides a ground for the lamp socket. Once the set screw is loosened, the switch comes out the rear of the barrel. The older switches used a hex set screw and a threaded spanner ring that encircled the lamp socket. After the set screw was loosened, a special tool loosened the ring and the switch came out the front of the barrel.

All the newer production units use the star (torx) set screw, no spanner ring and the switch comes out through the rear.
The star bit measures .088" or 2.26mm across the points, which Is close (neglecting some wear) to a T-8 size.

But, here's the rub...
The torx bit shaft must be the same diameter as the bit end for about 1.5" so it passes through the switch hole (don't try to make the hole larger!). Most available bits have a shaft that grows larger past the bit and will not pass through the switch hole. Mag made a special bit available to us that fit into a handle. I am sure they are available someplace else but I never found them outside of the company! Maybe some judicious grinding or lathe turning could modify a standard tool. Once you get the torx set screw is out, I certainly would replace it with a common hex set screw!

The old Mag website had complete drawings of their flashlights so you could see the seal placements, but in their infinite wisdom, their site upgrade this year seems to have deleted those drawings. I am sure they are still someplace floating around on the web.

I have no knowledge of any other manufacturer's models or any that use a reed switch.
T-6 may refer to a torx driver size which measures .066" / 1.70mm. Too small for the set screw in the MagLight!

Hope this helps!

PS: If this seems like a direction to pursue maybe we could collaborate to make it happen!

[Lenp]

Vern Note:
White screen, off to La La Land after SUBMIT, but, It did post????

[Externet]

Thanks for your helpful elaborated response, Len.

I would have to try an empty D3 maglite with their orings well lubricated to check how deep can it go dry.

What is your opinion on sliding a ~2 inch long piece of bicycle inner tube over the switch and choke it with clamps (or nylon ties?)
to attempt preventing the original pushbutton switch rubber from imploding at depth ?

These are all T6:
----> https://duckduckgo.com/?q=t6+flashlight&iax=1&ia=images
What is T6 in the flashlight world ?
Miguel

[Externet]

Deleted duplicate, again.

[Lenp]

As a test the inner tube probably would work. As a permanent solution i would leave the switch seal in place so the sleeve doesn't press the plunger at depth. You might consider large shrink tubing. Some is available with a thermal adhesive liner. If that isn't practical use regular heat shrink tubing but brush hot glue on the barrel first. I'll bet that wouldn't leak!

In the 'light' of LED's I now think that T6 is referring to the popular Cree XML-T6 LED