Paul,

Nice spec list on the photons.

I've been trying to locate a miniscule size, reliable, momentary switching, red LED light to hang on my Short-wave radio tether for low profile use at night (quick check the freq without waking the wife).

Not being able to find an Inova 1 or a Photon 1 or 2 for sale, I went into my son's room and pinched the photon 1 I gave to him many years ago. I had forgotten how much better the momentary switching is on the Inova. The photon seems to need to be pushed "just right" to get the light on steady. Too much pressure needed too. I pulled it apart and finally checked out the switch. It is as simple as it gets. When you are pressing down on the light body it just pushes one of the LED legs onto the side of the battery. I would like a bit more contact area. I'll probably do something to increase the contact area for a better connection on both sides of the cell. At a minimum I'll shim the body to keep the cell from jiggling and put a bit of conductive grease on the contacts.

I've never had to open up one of my Inovas, so I don't know how they accomplish switching. I'll have to dig around to find one of these for a bit of exploratory surgery.

From my feeble memory, I recall the momentary switching of the photon 1 and 2 was never impressive. The slide switch of the Photon 2 isn't quite as good as the Inova slide switch in my experience. I've owned 5-6 of the photons and inovas over the years.

The exposed LED on the Photon was still an issue. I clipped a small piece of electrical tape and wrapped it around the base of the LED. Much less spill, but still not protection for the LED (compared to the Inova). My original photon light ended up with a fractured LED on my keychain. The light output reduced dramatically after the failure.

I went back to Target one more time to play with the new Inovas. The momentary switching just isn't there for me. Most of the time I needed a couple more pushes on the switch to get it back to "off" mode. The glowing body pretty much removes it from competition anyway.

Comparing old to old, I still think the Inova did more "right". Comparing new to new, I don't like the photon or the Inova (for my needs). Looks like I need to start from scratch and start looking for a new solution.

Cheers, TR