Have you tried thin Lexan sheets? Or maybe even some cassette case filed to circular shape?
I believe some CD cases even had matte surfaces that contributes to diffusing as well if you need it.
Anyway an update to what happened with my light
I eventually tried Fichtenelch method by prying the LED star.
lols
This guy is tough man
Got the whole thing out eventually with a strong POP shooting the lens and reflector far
Did manage to get everything to work even when I cracked the star AND the LED itself. One corner of the XPE was chipped off but it didn’t harm the die itself other than some EXTRA CLEAN DEDOME
Well this is the first time I manage to dedome an xpe sized LED cleanly leaving no residue or pulling too much phosphor.
I got this
Assembling it all back and give it a shine with the slight warmish neutral tint (of course the infamous green tint is there)
There seems to be less rings after a dedome. But it is still there.
(Pic shows the dedome on the left versus the Convoy C8 with XML2 U2 1A tint)
I am overall impressed with my failures despite scratching a lot of its beauty.
All I need was just some scotch tape to cover the leftover rings.
I do suggest filing the stock lens to a smaller diameter if you plan to reuse it. I filed mine and it is still a tight fit but enough to pop it with a small plier
I wanna ask something. Is the SOS mode on your unit blinks on low power or is it that way since factory? Mine blinks on low.
Plus the SOS isn’t SOS but rather SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOS
Thanks for sharing the details of this light with us. I’ve been looking at it and considered if I was gonna buy one… but if a light is very difficult to be disassembled it is a no-go to me.
But considering its price point I think it is still quite a handy light to have, especially using it around the house or make it as one of your backup lights at outdoor.
Yet another observation in the wild of a self-reviewing “so-so” flashlight. I’ve seen it on this one, and found mentions elsewhere of that pattern in other lights going back a few years.
Mind you it has so far happened to one light?
Only because its cheap it gets bad attitude :D? Thats not budget friendly attitude :D!
Cant dissemble for easy modding? Well, its not meant to, like most of lights, so its your fault, not the lights :)!
To get my lens out, I drilled a hole in the center of it then pulled with the drill bit still inside. So I was left with a lens (donut), the edges were still in perfect shape. What I did was fill in the donut with Gorilla super glue (which dried very clear) and sanded the glue down with fine grit sandpaper. It’s not perfect, but I think it’ll work just fine.
I still haven’t decided what to do about the o-ring yet.
A 14500 can hold a lot more energy than an eneloop, so I did the new driver more for run-time than for high performance. The most it can do is 1.14amps, but I will probably run it at 760ma.
Those of you who have taken it apart, do you know if it would be possible to put Cree MC-E RGBW LED in it? What modifications should be done then? Bigger hole in reflector, different driver?
I know its out of stock now at GB/BG, but been wondering.
Could as well mod my UF-H2 which hasnt been stellar anyway.
- Cut a bigger whole in the reflector (but the reflector is conical, so it will just get shorter and shorter the more you cut)
- Find an mcpcb that will fit an MC-E with wire pads to fit inside (I would say impossible, the solder pads are already very close to the emitter and it’s only an XP-E)
Find a 15mm e-switch RGBW driver (which I don’t think currently exists.)
You could make it a tiny bit easier if you used an RGBW XM-L2 instead of MC-E, but you still have the driver issue.