I wanted to do a small guide on how to disassemble Keygos M12 or even many zoom flashlights, for those who don't know.
Were gonna need some basic ingredients:
common sense
two hands
two thin screwdrivers
Here we go.
Start by unscrewing the bezel
Now you can reach the pill
Unscrew the pill
Almost out
Pill out with plenty of threads
Now you can reach the place where O-ring should be. Mine came without one. Having a piece of elastic wire instead of a suitable O-ring is the reason the zoom level and head might be unstable. For instance the head will move while riding a bike and flashlight is used on a bike mount. Even vigorous shaking will move the head.
To reach the emitter, unscrew the XM-L "lid"
Take out the tin lid, SLOWLY and VERY carefully. I managed to carefully pull it out via the hole in the middle. Be careful not to touch the LED dome cause it might break.
Take out the plastic spacer
Clean up the factory debris. Note the two small solder balls, they were stuck to the green emitter board, I scraped them off with a a small screwdriver. You don't want things like these dislodging by themselves and making contacts where they shouldn't. Clean out debris where ever you see it.
Check the thermal paste and add some if needed. Not too much, though. It should not leak/spill/ooze out after you press the emitter back to it's original place
Plenty of debris on my driver, clean this out as well.
Carefully lift it out with one of those screwdrivers
Driver details and easy access if you want to swap the driver.
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There is room for improving this flashlight, like adding an O-ring or changing the driver for a better one. But all in all it's a pretty decent flashlight even stock. My driver has no visible flickering on mid and low, which makes me think it's current regulated.
I might add more stuff to this post as I go about inserting an O-ring and painting the emitter surroundings matte (flat) black.
Some of the members already did some upgrades. Do add your photos, links and posts and make this thread more useful.
Best wishes,
Viktor
P.S.
Special greetz to cehowardGS. Hope this helps reaching the o-ring. ;)
Thanks for this super help. I have one M12 and one on the way. I was getting ready to sell them both, because I didn't like the way the zoom slips when I have it mounted on my bicycle. However, reading this I might be able to fix it..
When I turned on my Keygos M12 for more than 3 minutes I saw and smelled smoke. I have disassembled the pill and found some piece of transparent film under the emitter. Also the lid has not tightened firmly. All these makes thermal contact bad. Be aware.
The similar to the insulator you can see over the emitter. But this one is not round but clipped. So it is not occasionally dropped to the bottom of the pill.
I bet that custom insulator was clipped by whoever was assembling it. He/she must have been proud to improve on the originally bad design. It's clipped so it would allow the wires to go through holes. :)
For those who aren't very good with English, that up there was a joke.
Keygos M12 is usually a great light. I'm sorry to see some bad assembling in this example.
My M12 came with thermal paste, clearly visible from my pictures.
Viktor, I am afraid of these enterprising innovators My one had a bit of thermal grease too, but when I dropped this insulator away I have replaced these leftovers by the new thermal grease.
I like this light too, but they definitively need to improve their quality control. At first, they need to do something with the grommet over the tin lid in order to tight it firmly. This grommet had a lot of scratches from unsuccessful attempts to tight it. I have drilled two more holes for tightening it properly.
Also I was forced to resolder the contact spring back to the driver PCB. It's fallen off. Also, when I shake the light it rattles because of backlash between the pill and the head. The lens is rattles too although the bezel is tightened. Also, the central hole in the my tin lid seems to be pretty big. Is it for SSC P7 emitter?
Same here about lens rattling and 26650 to 18650 adapter clicking. One makes sound when you shake the flashlight sideways, the other when you shake it along it's axis.
Very thin o-ring is what's missing under the lens to keep it in place.
It's not perfect out of the box, I agree.
But for the price, it's worth it, in my opinion. Few small tweaks and it's near perfect.
I think it was betweenrides that suggested a wrap of tape on the adapter as an easy fix.
I wish I knew how to disable the blinkies (so I could save $5 on swapping the driver)
most of us, except boaters and bikers, don't like disco modes, but I've noticed that almost all non-flashaholics that I show my lights to seem slightly more impressed when those are included
That is why every light includes blinky modes.... regular people will rather buy the light that has blinky modes, than the one without them.
What sells is important.
Those that are selling more expensive lights than the mainstream listen to the wishes of the more educated buyers, hence IOS and CNQG that usually have lights without blinkies.
I could not find any reason to use blink mode despite I am biker. I is irritative, provokes headache and one fine day it will be a cause of oncoming driver's epilepsy. So I use continuous mode for the both head and rear lights all the time.
Well, if my bicycle could reach car and motorcycle speeds, I would have NO USE for blinky either. However, since my bicycle, a road bicycle too, will always be sub speed to cars and trucks on the road, I will use a blinky rear at all times. On the front, blinking in daytime only.
On the blinking rear, on bicycles, I can be fairly safe in saying that blinking rear is universal.
My one had a bit of thermal grease too, but when I dropped this insulator away I have replaced these leftovers by the new thermal grease.
