Just found a diamond in a pile of normal looking rocks

I was browsing a FS board and found a 4 flat A2 Digital Aviator for $80 shipped. It comes with a box, but the anodizing is a little rough around the edges. Regardless, I am super stoked that I have a 4 flat in my collection, and for cheap!

:twothumbs:twothumbs:twothumbs

Scooooooooooore!!!!

Great score!! 4flats are amazing!!

Congrats on a great find!

Awesome! A2s are cool, but 4 flats, even cooler!

5 four flats, 2 rounds.

Have one New round and one new (mint, basically new) four flats/flat bezel that came also in a mint/new cross-hairs nylon pouch.

It's cool that one of each are users, so those are the ones with Tad drop ins, others stay stock.

Still can't land a red LED one though....still looking for one, but all I really want is the LED ring. Maybe I should try WTB.

Good sir, I now have TWO red LED aviators. Let's make a deal.

PM your way.

Bad news friends. There is something wrong with the light. I swapped parts with my known good A2 and something is not working in the 4-flat parts list. I thought I had narrowed it down to the tail cap, but it seems that the regulation in the 4 flat is now allowing the bulb to turn on. A known good bulb, known good (fully charged) batteries, and a known good tail cap in the 4-flat body is not turning on the bulb at all. The 4 flat tail cap in the round body with a known good body and same batteries is not turning on the bulb in the round body either. So, I am thinking something happened to this light, maybe over voltage?

Is there anything I can do to make the 4 flat work again? Can I scavenge parts from the round body and put them in the 4 flat, and then send the round body to SF and have them fix it? If I do send it to SF, they are going to give me a new Aviator in replacement aren't they?

ETA: I finally narrowed it down to the tail cap on the 4 flat. I cannot get it to work with either bulb in either light, but swapping heads and bulbs does work in either light. Whew. Hopefully SF has a spare A2 tail cap laying around, or I can get someone here to show me how to dismantle and trouble shoot the tail cap on the 4-flat tail cap.

Fitment between parts is not 100% compatible among the (earlier) "4-flats" and (later) "3-rounds" generations of A2, particularly the lamp and (occasionally) tailcap

If you can find a DIY for disassembling the 2-stage tailcap, I'd be interested to see it as well. As far as I can tell, the plastic plunger underneath the rubber button is epoxied into the rest of the switch assembly, making the switch impossible to remove without destroying the plunger. But I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

If you have an L2 or Lx2, try the tail caps on your A2. I believe they both have the 10ohm resister.

Bill

I did couple of resistor swaps and small contact legs mod on mine. They are not so reliable so i've listened Tana's advice and soldered bigger resistor with the same specs as SF.
Plunger is snug fit into top part of the switch. Once you remove the boot put some plastic or even enough of paper around the tailcap and pry with 2 flat screwdrivers.
Don't do it like you're opening a beer bottle but gentile and slooowly.
After some sweating plunger will just pop out and the rest of the switch will drop down.

Interesting. Thanks.

How many ohms for that resistor?