some bad luck with my last 2 streamlights

Jayne

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My pro-tac HL-X died in the middle of a class. You fiddle with the tail cap and eventually it might work. Relegated it to toy status until I get it figured out. Replaced it with a TLR-1 HL, worked fine.... until tonight I pulled the rifle out of the safe and went to do some dry practice and nope.... light is dead. Unmount it, open it up, close it, and it works again. Batteries have less than 15 min on them in both cases.

Both using streamlight batteries, both basically safe queens between classes. No harsh environments, no drops, no nothing. Both purchased new in the last 9 months.

I would not trust my life to these things based on my last two purchases. Shame. My EDC light has been running for years now, and the rechargeable house light also works without fail. What's happened to QC in streamlight land?

We'll see what tech support says. Maybe they'll tell me to go buy some surefires. :)
 
Don't the stream ligts come with a Life Time warranty? I'd ask CS to replace both lights or risk losing a customer
 
Don't the stream ligts come with a Life Time warranty? I'd ask CS to replace both lights or risk losing a customer

Sorta. Lifetime except on things that fail (bulbs, electronics, etc). Not sure exactly what's left, I guess the housing could fall apart.

We'll see what they say, I emailed them last night.
 
Sorta. Lifetime except on things that fail (bulbs, electronics, etc). Not sure exactly what's left, I guess the housing could fall apart.

We'll see what they say, I emailed them last night.
I'm carrying the protac also, the first bellt sheath pretty much disintegrated, so I gave that one to the wife, and bought another, the one I have seems to be hard on batteries as well,not to the extreme yours is but a new battery every three months, I checked it this morning and it needs another battery after just a month with only light use
 
Their customer service is excellent in my experience.

But it sure would be nice not to have to use it!
 
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@Jayne it seems that you're a one person wrecking crew when it comes to gear. Everyone else seems to get good service from most anything that you seem to trash within the week. When you think it's everyone else, look around, it may be YOU.....
Streamlight has always stood behind their products so I think you'll survive, yet again...
 
I bought a ProTac HLX a few months ago. Within just a few minutes on high it gets almost too hot to touch. I dont know how all these torch mfrs are doing 1000 lumens or more in a small handheld light without either burning the user or starting a fire. Have had good luck with my surefires but I had a bad batch of their batteries that neither the reseller or surefire wanted to do anything about. And when I say surefire, I did not have the patience to wait on hold longer than 15mins to talk to somebody there. Either staff up your call center, vendor it out (Bangalore ugh) or just tell folks to email for CS. I have surefires next to or with all my home and self defense guns. I dont think you can 100% depend on any battery or flashlight to work when you need it. I have terrible luck with batteries. To the OP, pls let us know how it works out with Streamlight.
 
@Jayne it seems that you're a one person wrecking crew when it comes to gear. Everyone else seems to get good service from most anything that you seem to trash within the week. When you think it's everyone else, look around, it may be YOU.....

And I always say I'm so easy on gear. Honestly I don't get these lights. The new one was used in 1 class, then put away.

All my older lights on the HD stuff around the house all work, it's just these new super-powerful ones that aren't going my way. the 400 lumen versions just keep on keepin' on.
 
And I always say I'm so easy on gear. Honestly I don't get these lights. The new one was used in 1 class, then put away.

All my older lights on the HD stuff around the house all work, it's just these new super-powerful ones that aren't going my way. the 400 lumen versions just keep on keepin' on.

Personally, I don’t get the hi-brite stuff for 99% of weapons mounted lights. I run the old 300 lumen SureFire X300 or standard TLR-1 300 lumen light on my HD handgun, carbine and shotgun. Like you said they work great and only had one problem with a TLR-1 which was my fault for breaking the paddle switch off at the base which Streamlight actually replaced at no charge. Now I do have a couple handheld 1000+ lumen lights handy ... I like having both handheld and weapon mounted available just in case. To me 300 lumens is good enough for HD weapons distances ... to bright can mess with my own vision especially indoors.
 
They showed back up today. One unit says "bad LED, bad switch, replaced" and the other says "test OK, returned". So one is still useless, the other has some new parts.

Bummer it's the TLR1 that's still useless, I wanted that one back most of all.
 
Virtually all lights give a 30 second burst at the rated lumen output, then step down to 50% or more, and continue to dim as heat accumulates or the battery is exhausted. This is why Surefire's run times are silly. Sure it's 1500 lumens initially but the run time standard they use allows for output to fall to 10% of initial, meaning the stated 1.5 hours includes the output falling to 150 lumens.

The only manufacturer I know that doesn't game the run time is Malkoff. His usually step down 10-15% (which he clearly states in the lumen outputs) and then maintain it for as long as the battery lasts.

I typically see about a 2-3% failure rate on the streamlight scout clones. I would not trust one for duty use.
 
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