Heininger 5552 Flexi-Lite Flexible Lighted Magnetic Pick-Up

This arrived with dead batteries but that's not the reason for the two stars. This product is an engineering enigma. You've got this beautifully machined aluminum battery comparment/handle with no-slip grip. Water proof switch, o-ringed cap, heavy duty coated flex neck and an LED light built into the end. Wonderful. Then you get the business end and ...wait a minute......where's the magnet? Oh...it's stuck to the side of the flex neck. Hmm... so, you pull it off and stick it in the end of the tool where it belongs, and as soon as you pick up an object the magnet falls out again. Nice. The head is brass so it's not going to stick to that, no glue, absolutely nothing to keep the magent on the tool. I hate sending things back, so just to make the thing work, I took the end off, used a vise grip to make the magnet slot out of round and provide an interference fit, beat the magnet in with a mallet, now it's working fine. What were they thinking? It's like they ran out of money when it came time to engineer the most important part of the product.

I just recieved this to day,first off the cheep batteries that came with it exploided inside it and I had to clean it with electric motor cleaner (no problem)the light is not as bright as I expected(but gets the job done)and the magnet strength is average (again acceptable)do not expect to recieve a top quality product here although the handle is rather nice.

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I should have foreseen the problem when I opened the package.

The lamp flickered, it looked like a poor contact so I checked to see if the caps (battery end-cap and the light end cap) were secure. The battey cap was okay, but the light end cap was loose. I snugged it up a bit (less than a quarter turn) and the lamp no longer flickered. Solved that easily?

Not really, because when I tried to use the light while working on some equipment (the reason I bought it), the lamp flickered again. I checked the lamp-end cap, and it was still loose! Upon closer examination, I could see that the threads were defective; the female cap and the male body could not be secured; a little pull and the cap simply came off in my hand. Then I could see that the wiring (from the battery compartment to the lamp) was badly twisted and frayed, obvious that the flickering was caused by a short or break in the wiring.

It appears that someone, likely on the assembly line, tried to secure the lamp-end cap to the body, it just kept turning and twisted the wiring to the point that it frayed and shorted; of course they solved their problem by shipping the thing to the customer.

It now "swims with the fishes", this is junk, beware.

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I purchased this as a White Elephant gift for my car clubs annual gift exchange. This was one of the only gifts that changed hands a number of times and was fought over. It is incredibly handy and will save the day when you invariably drop a nut, bolt or screw into the deep recesses of the engine bay or elsewhere. I'm going to buy one for myself too.

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