So now finally to the roots of this light.
The other thread is a bit of a little hoax, its not a Klarus prototype :-(
The GTS print on it is photoshopped, but the rest is real.
Sadly I have to tell you it's a mod from me and will most likely never been sold this way, but it is not to hard to build if you have a spare XT11GT and put the driver of the XT12 in the XT11
just sealing the side switch and charger port of the XT11 with a spacer or sand down the XT12GTs head to make it fit on the XT11 middle section
I choose option one as I dont like build in chargers with silicone cover like the XT11GT has
Sanding down the XT12 head is pretty much the easier option to do this mod, then its just a swich of the lights hads and you are done
The XT11GT will have a larger gap between head and middle sections raised parts you may have to seal it as well as the o-ring may get exposed
so when did this idea came up in this thread user chrisc reported his review GAW light died the way of electronics, hot and with bad burn smell,
he got a replacement after he addressed that his light died,
so I contacted him to donate the light to me to do a review and a possible repair and/or mod of the light
I did already a teardown review and mod on my XT11GT Light, and I thought, hey lets try to lego XT11GT the side switch into the XT12GT and try to repair or replace the burned driver putting it in my XT11GT later.
Now I took the XT12GT apart the same way I did with my XT11GT before, heat itz up to about 80°C and get torque with an alligator wrench
I noticed some differences in the head and middle section design, first and most important the XT11GT and XT12GT position where the LED connects to the reflector is slightly different
in the XT11GT it sticks a little outside, while on the 12GT it is recessed
I removed XT12GT charger port with a lot heat to get the plastic part soft and applied force with a small screwdriver to lever it out not caring how bad it gets damaged
it is press fit but with additional silicone to seal the light
What I noticed right away is that the Charger has a diameter of 10mm while the switch retaining ring has an inner diameter of 12mm
it is press fit I am no CNC guy but did my best to get a 12mm hole in the old charging hole using a cheap box column drill with a normally long 12mm drill bit
I did my best to fix the middle section of the light on the base plate of the drill, which worked fine,
but the drill has too much clearance on the guiding and bearings for the drill bits drive
So I ended up with a 13mm hole due to rattling while drilling the hole up, should have taken a 11.5mm drill instead, also some minor scratched around the hole were around the holes edge
For my machine park and mechanical skills the hole is good enough and with glue I can make the switch cover fit,
but some minor blank aluminum is to be seen near the switch edge
dismantling the defective XT12GT
first thing I noticed was the collapsed spring on the driver,
the two round boards have same layout like the XT11GT, an even same markings XT11GT on em
so I took the switch apart, to see its spring as well collapsed and oxidized
after a fast inspection of the driver I could see one part burned on the boost driver board,
The middle section
it is slightly different from the XT11GT,
I never liked onboard charging with a silicone cover
The LED in the XT12 GT was mounted with some arctic silver like heat paste evenly and a very thin layer, compared my XT11 with a good amount of arctic silver
you see the machining to make the USB port fit is not done for the XT12, so the heat transfer to the body is a little bit better
there is no switch for the side button and it has 2 LEDs for the magnetic charger,
on the other side it has a non mounted USB micro port, just 2 contacts with leads on the board for the magnetic charge port
The LED is in good shape which is typical for a short circuit burned driver
Here we got the XT11GT which had already the E4 HD with dome replaced with a neutral white HI E4-3C,
for some unknown reason the XT11 board has 2 holes, that are useless just increasing the thermal resistance a little bit
I started to try to make the XT11 driver fit in the XT12 tube, so I filed down the USB connector and tried it out,
but it didn't fit, because there is no space machined out for it even if the diameter fits the depth not,
so I unsoldered the main blobs and bend the connector to get it off the board, as I was not planning to separate the 3 driver boards to get a full access to unsolder it,
but still carefully there are tiny resistors near the charge port
Here is a picture of the burned part on my working XT11 board,
I unsoldered the one on the XT12 board, but it was not easy as they have build in a double sided thermal path in the board to cool this thing,
which is well done from the driver designer putting the XT12GTS together
I added a small amount of blue Locktite to secure the head
you can see the charging port is not perfectly centered with the side switch as the XT12GT middle section is a little bit different
nevertheless the switch assembly fits in well, when I put the switch cover on top of it I noticed that I had the outer diameter not drilled deep enough
less than a half millimeter, so I sanded down the switch retaining ring a little bit
now glue in the switch retaining ring, also cover the silicone cover to make it airtight
After it was hardened within a spanner I removed the glue residue around the switch discovering it doesnt cover all of the scratches around the hole so I used a little black paint to make it look nicer
now we come to my XT12GTS photo with a good Photoshop job to ass the "S" and remove the scratches around the side switch
Original vs photoshopped
let me know if you like it