You'll either love that feature or absolutely hate it.

Seems to crop up more with aftermarket J arms.

Agreed, funny about all those " FleaBay" arms we see along with so-called "Mil Spec glass" for both PVS-14's along with 3x magnifiers.  

I do not trust any automatic shut-off system except the ball detent mount, and that's because even my English lit-studying ass can understand how rotating the electrical contacts away from each other is a fool-proof shut-off system.

With just about any other system, it's far too unreliable--as so many have reported, they have a tendency to shut-off when you don't want them to, but not shut-off when you do.

WRT the Wilcox mounts versus the Norotos mounts, not only is the activation system designed slightly differently, but the angle which the NVD lays when stowed is quite different as well, being much closer to vertical with Wilcox mounts, while the Norotos effectively points the NVD totally backwards.

The problem is that not only is the auto-shut-off system particularly reliable to begin with, it is basically hell if you find yourself in unconventional positions.

The simplest and easiest thing to do, which has already been suggested, is to simply cover the contacts with electrical tape (this works for the Norotos dual dovetail as well) and forget about it, and simply turn the device off and on diligently.

~Augee

You probably trust that 0.02” of Chinese vinyl in your car and home and a whole lot of other electrical systems without even realizing it.

Sure, ripping the whole mechanism put of the J-Arm is a more “permanent” fix, but also a bigger pain, not that it’s all that difficult, just not, IMHO necessary when two little squares of tape will solve the problem much more... “cleanly.” You’re also talking in some circumstances, guys with issued devices, and while a J-Arm isn’t that hard to replace, you’re still destorying a piece of issued equipment, and while the military might get replacements by the box full, some cops are pretty much stuck with whatever they were issued, and it’s up to them to go find a replacement on their own if they need to.

Generally speaking, once I install a J-Arm, it’s on there, I’m not removing or replacing it regularly except for PMCS, at which point you inspect the tape situation, and replace it again if needed for the $0.005 that an alcohol swab to remove any adhesive residue and two more little squares of electrical tape will cost you, but again, if you’re not removing and re-installing the J-Arm all the time, it’ll last a while.

Again, if it’s your own piece of gear and you’re good with ripping out the electronics, all the better, no big deal—the whole system has so many components spread over so many different part assemblies, which contributes to how unreliable it can be, but it makes it easy to identify a weak point and disable it, too.

~Augee