Arney,

No I haven't carried it in my pocket, it hangs on a biner off my belt.

Strangely enough the one time I did leave it in my pocket it worked great.

I checked when I replaced the batteries, no dust, no moisture, no cracks, nothing that would indicate and obviously problem.

BillLiptak,

Actually I carry an Arc AAA on the same biner as the photon.

It's a great light, but somehow I tend to use it when I want lots of light. For example, like for lighting my way down a dark stair well. Where if I just want to light the keyhole to my front door then it's the photon I use.

Granted the Arc AAA is a bit on the steep side price wise, I've had mine about 4yrs and I haven't once regretted the decision. Unlike some high end led lights.

JCWohlschlag,

Now that's exactly the kind of info I've been looking for. Will have a go, when I get back home.

The only reason I assume it was a photon III, is that all the latest III's have just one push button switch. I thought that was the evolution of the photons. I have one of the early slide switch's on the photon I, and I have one of the latest gen which just has the one push button plate/pad.

Thanks everyone that's made I contribution to this post. I'll be back with comments if it all goes pear shaped.

JCWohlschlag,

Ok tried your method, prized out the led and circuit board.

Using a paperclip I checked out how to make the led come on using the soldered points near the switch. For the first momentary high it was easy to determine which points on the switch are used to bypass the switch.

When I tried this on the second switch, the one for modes, no such joy. Using the switch directly gave no better results. So I believe the switch is dead and/or there's a break in the circuit. One of the legs on the switch does look broken, but the paperclip should have bypassed the switch. I don't have ultra tiny croc-clips so I may not have been able to make a good contact. However after 30 minutes playing around with allsorts of wire and contact points I should have made some contact, even if only briefly?

So what's next guys?