i think I understand now, so both the negative and positive wires run through body of the flashlight to the PCB except that the negative runs outside of the PVC sleeve and the positive wire runs inside the sleeves alongside the batteries to the PCB. Or am I missing something? Seriously, thanks for all the help!
No problem. I'm glad to help.
You're right, but, you're overcomplicating things a little bit.
First, you don't need to run a wire inside the PVC pipe. The red line in my diagram just shows the direction the positive charge is headed. There's no wire. As long as the prong of the switch hits the back of the battery, the two batteries are touching, and the 2nd battery is touching the spring, the positive side of the circuit is complete.
The wire that runs outside of the PVC (negative) only needs to be there to make contact with the inner wall of the flashlight case. The negative circuit runs from the wire through the inner wall of the flashlight to the outer ring of the circuit board. You can't solder to aluminum (or very well, at least), and the wire is just there because it gets pinned between the PVC and the inner wall of the flashlight. It keeps a good connection this way. You don't have to run it all the way to the circuit board.
The 4 solder points on the very outer part of the circuit board make contact with the wall of the flashlight. This allows the power to jump from the switch to the wire, to the wall of the flashlight, and then to the circuit board (or, actually in reverse order).
The mod looks just like your detonator but i must be doing something wrong... My guess is that I screwed up the circuit board and I'm grounding it someone. Either that or maybe I broke something on the size m coaxial atomizer connector. I think I'll try different wires as well.
