Is My Cateye TL-LD1000 Defective?
 

I've been using an LD1000 for the past couple of months and have noticed on a couple of rides where the brightness level simply disappears. I would fiddle around with it, ie. opening it up and closing it, and the brightness level would come back.

Is there something wrong with it? Are my batteries giving out? It can't handle bumps? (I ride on city streets only.) What?!

Thanks and Happy Holidays! :)

Make sure the end cap is very carefully closed. wipe the contact springs with a little alcohol. Try a different brand of batteries. Some of the contact buttons on the ends of batteries are longer than others. Try and find the longer ones. Don't get fingerprints on the contacts after wiping them with alcohol.

If you ride in very cold wether and then bring your bike into the warm house condensation may get the batteries wet. Open it up, take the batteries out and let it dry overnight.

2many is right - it's likely the contacts. I had the same problem. The battery contact "springs" are really just flat coils - I pulled mine just slightly so they stuck out a bit more & made better contact. Works fine now.

I dunno, mine does exactly the same thing. It goes dim until I whack it.

If I put fresh batteries in it, it's fine for three or four weeks. Then it goes dim unless I whack it again. I put in new batteries and it's fine for another month.

I think there's more to this than dirty or "tired" contact springs.

The new TL-LD1000 that I bought has an extra support to hold the batteries in place that my original taillight did not have. Before I ever got this new version though, I had an inkling that the batteries were shifting inside the light and causing a bad connection. My light had the same symptom of going dim after big bumps and just needing a small "adjustment" to the end cap to make it brighter. I added a small shim (some folded up paper) to hold the batteries in tighter and haven't had an issue since. Seeing this same fix on the new light confirmed my thinking about what was going on. Prior to the shim, I tried bending and cleaning the connections and a few different brands of batteries with the same bad results.

If my post is unclear, I can take some pictures when I get home today of my old and new lights showing the differences and my paper shim (it's so very impressive :)).

I had the same issue and added a shim as well. Mine are small pieces of tin foil. Plus, I changed out the batteries. The shim is directly below the spring. I pulled the spring out, placed the small pieces of tin foil, and replaced the shim.

Ive had a few blinkies Schwinn etc did same thing. Just whack em.

I used to work with a Raytheon ATC radar that would blank out just when
things start getting busy. Maintenance guys worked on it for months with
no luck. In the mean time we just whacked it in right place with a stick and
all the airplanes re appeared:D

You will hear endless technical reasons for the cause.

Even the best electronics just needs a good beat down......

I whack my blinkie on a regular basis. Otherwise I get the same dim LED issue.

try changing the batteries. I have an LD1000 and I've found it gets progressively dimmer as the batteries run out.

good point, I forgot that. :o

Wow!!! Thanks for all of the great suggestions. I'm not too crazy about whacking something but I will try the others out unless I become very frustrated, then, I'll look for a big stick. :D

In this case, it's not progressively getting dimmer, it's like high-beam/low-beam. Well, very low beam. Then you whack it, and high-beam again. That wouldn't happen simply with weak batteries.

Email Cateye about the light, their service is good.

My LD1000 does the same thing; Now I just run the Superflash instead.

me too, which is why some of my posts are lower case only. HA!

My Cateye light also fades out, whack, and its back, usually. Does this on 3 different style batteries. I guess Cateye quality is right down there with Performance Viewpoint.

I've had to rebuild every single Performance Viewpoint Flashpoint 9 led flasher i've bought in the past 3 years (6-8 of those suckers). I used to swap them out for new ones when I had a return to ship back. The contacts are very poorly designed. They quickly work lose from normal use, shift upwards and short out on the back of the circuit board. The flasher will then get dim or quit completely. Which is why I always use multiple rear flashers.

I use crazy glue to anchor the contact to original position and a teensy piece of electrical tape to insulate against the board. Then eventually the darn button starts acting up and won't close the circuit. The only reason I continue this exercise is the lights are cheap on sale, really bright and have a relatively wide angle of dispersion due to the lens molded into the cover.

Why can't someone make an inexpensive, durable, bright flasher?

I ran Vistalite Eclipse flashers for 3 years, and never had a bit of trouble with the 3 or 4 I owned. Of course they aren't very bright by today's led stds.

I've bought 3 cateye ld1000s from nash/perf - 2 had noticebly dimmer leds, which seemed to be the leds themselves. I returned these and kept the "bright" one. So be aware the LED quality varies (and newer more efficient leds come along without a product revision).

they should sell these in pairs, with a free tube of Forte crazy glue
http://www.performancebike.com/shop/...tegory_ID=4322

ridiculous!

I concur, I bought an LD-1000 while in Japan earlier this year, and noticed it started to have this dimming problem after the Summer Solstice. I e-mailed their customer care address and was told to send them the unit. I got a new one back very shortly after. The new one has been working fine ever since.