Modding Blazer N4020X 4 LED driving lights

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
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I bought these for about $20 (purposely looked for cheap lights); the plan is to mount them to the front of a Club Car golf cart for some light out front to see while driving at dusk and at night, as well as to be more visible to others. I didn’t expect much, but connecting these lights to a 12-15v power source indicates they are not very bright (I found a YT video from mfgr stating 43 lumens), and the light is very scattered - I think as a result of the very fractal like reflectors.

They only draw 120mA per 4-LED light… which is obviously not much at all. Clearly a generic Chinese cheap emitter in these… but increasing current should yield considerably more OTF lumens. The problem?

I can’t get the darn things apart! Three screws, one main one in back, two on the side for the bracket that screws into a metal piece I can see inside. The hell?

They are similar/same to these: Blazer N4020X Driving Lights

Any idea what I may find if/when I open these up? I’m hoping there is just a basic sense resistor I can work with to increase current draw… if they’re direct drive, only pulling 120mA for four emitters… I’m kinda screwed as far as increasing output without replace the emitters and a driver inside each. Which… I guess I could do. They look like I could almost swap the guts from a C8 into these with a wider reflector, 12v driver and call it a day.

I would have bought something that was better out of the box, but I needed something I could take up to the cabin with me to install today; not 2-5 days form now, otherwise I could have just ordered from Amazon…

Anyone been in a similar scenario before? Thoughts on modding these on improving them?

They don’t look bad at first glance…

No clue what kind of emitter this is:

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The light is probably press fit together like a lot of cheap flashlights. Usually these require destructive methods to get apart. You either have to punch it out from the back or drill a hole into it and pull it out from the front with a screw. The LEDS look like 3 die 9v. I have seen these before in cheap indicator lamps that were driven at around 20mA. The ones I have don’t have a thermal path and aren’t designed for high power, so these are probably already over driven. Putting more current into them would probably burn them out.

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Thanks for the feedback…. I suspect you are correct. Once I had installed these about two weeks ago onto the cart, I found that despite being really bottom barrel in terms of the emitters and reflectors, they actually do the job. I believe the claimed 43lm output from the mfg is accurate. They have a very dispersed flood pattern, but two of them about 24” apart puts enough light about 15-20’ in front of the golf cart to make it drive-able in the dark.

I’m just going to leave them be… easier to just buy better lights in the future for this application, especially now that it’s already wired up.