I have a Nitecore P16 that my friend gave me, and I’ve been using it for a while. I attempted to take it apart and I successfully removed the bezel, o-ring, reflector. But I can’t go any further. The MCPCB is secured by a single screw. The driver doesn’t seem to come out by screwing either directions. Does anyone have an experience in tearing down a Nitecore P16 (P15, P16 TAC, etc…), or a Precision Series light? I really don’t have any idea on how to take it apart.
Photo here
No experience with the P series but from what I’ve found Nitecore is very set in their ways. This is what I’d guess…
I doubt the screw is holding the driver in, it’s likely just for some sort of grounding point. Every Nitecore I’ve taken apart is the same way: the driver is glued in from the battery tube side and the driver PCB to body tolerance is very tight. If it were on my bench first thing I’d do is solder an 18 gauge wire onto the driver’s outter ground ring at 12 and 6 (both ends of the same wire so you’ve made a finger loop to pull). Make sure you’ve got a good solder joint on each side, a cold solder has zero chance of working. Now apply some pull force and see if it comes that way. Just this works for about 25% of the lights I’ve worked on, if it doesn’t the next step is to insert a poker tool down the LED wire hole and press from the inside.
I’m 99.9% sure that screw isn’t holding the driver in.
Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll try again some time soon.
It worked 