Needle nose pliers (is that what they’re called?) would be good.
Haven’t got one myself, did have one like it but with flat bits, but can’t seem to find anywhere… (lost in some unknown dimension)
Have one with a bent beak though.
But i usually use my sturdy tweezers.
Sometimes i drill the holes a little wider for pointed pliers.
My Leatherman has rather small tips too.
I usually get it turned loose eventually.
But sometimes those rings are threaded anti clockwise…
Yeah I haven’t met a retaining ring yet that was a match for a set of small precision needlenose pliers. I find tweezers easier and faster to maneuver, but they just don’t have the strength for breaking rings loose, or fully tightening them. So I always start with my needlenose to break the ring loose, then switch to the long electronics tweezers to spin it out the rest of the way.
A very important point. Convoy especially likes to do this. Be careful.
I bought a couple of the BG switches linked above. They seem decent quality. I put one in an old tube light, and indeed it does work. Unfortunately, the light it gives off is a very dim blue, and the light has become the dreaded next mode memory. It does work though.
I cancelled the order for the 19mm switch.
I received my S41S XP-G3 today (yippee! BRIGHT!!) and it’s not gonna fit.
So now i ordered a 16mm switch instead, because the hole in the tailcap is just 14mm, so 16mm is enough.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/16mm-12V-LED-Illuminated-Momentary-Push-Button-Switch-Short-Body-total-length-21mm/32440604575.html
The switch PCB already has pads to solder SMD LEDs and resistors on by the way.
But the switch itself is rather flimsy i.m.o.
I’d like this too, I’ll pm you after the holidays…, no rush…
fit just fine,the switch lights ,but i cant power on the flashlight (need to mod it i guess with resistor),the only problem is the aluminimum spacer between the switch and the rubber block lot of light,of course you can drill it.
If your light won’t come on at all there’s some other issue besides the bleeder resistor. Are you sure the switch board is making a good connection to the flashlight body?
thanks for point it out,update some sand paper and now its perfect fit before i thought was ok but it wasnt ,now works just fine with this driver ,all modes are working.
which size SMD works in these BG blue-lit tailcaps
I see a lot of different SMD sizes — I’ve been looking for amber:
https://www.aliexpress.com/popular/amber-smd.html
The switch bought separately has two 0805 LEDs.
Astro, BLF light that came with the lighted tail cap used one 1206.
Many other Astrolux, BLF and Kronos lights already have the same board used on the lighted tail models but No resistor or LED installed.
Either 0805 or 1206 will fit.
Wow, ten for $5 or hundreds at a penny apiece. Cheeeeap …. Extras! Someone should make light-up earrings or piercings out of these things …
Just bite down on a bimetal strip to power them ….
If I were to swap these in place of the blue ones, I bet I’d need to change a resistor, right?
Voltage table here: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/100-pcs-SMD-SMT-0805-Yellow-Super-bright-LED-lamp-light/1267031_1889424846.html
Any update. I’m very curious
They have a latching switch: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/16mm-12V-LED-Stainless-Steel-Latching-ON-OFF-Power-Push-Button-Switch-Power-Symbol-Ring-LED/32440576534.html
So…
Sigh…
This is typical for me, i always want stuff that either doesn’t exist, is made of unobtainium or is too expensive…
I received the 16mm push button switch today.
But guess what?
That 16mm is the size of the hole it fits in…
So i actually need a 14mm one, but they start at about 7 Dollars a piece…
Yes, that’s about twice the price of a 12mm or 16mm one… (WHY??)
What i could try is make the hole in the tail cap wider, but it’s thick stainless steel, which is tough…
I did swap the switch though, the stock switch is flimsy, so i put in one of these beefy ones:
That ‘flimsy’ switch handles 10+ amps fine though…
I think the beefy one will have less resistance, but perhaps nothing significant.
…plus i made it extra difficult to put some LEDs there… :weary: :partying_face:
bumping my ignorant query:
If I were to swap in these [yellow or orange, specs differ] in place of the blue ones, I bet I’d need to change a resistor, right?
Voltage table here: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/100-pcs-SMD-SMT-0805-Yellow-Super-bright-LED-lamp-light/1267031_1889424846.html
interested in the lighted tailcap too. 
This may help too:
Only $1.31 at the moment.
I’m pretty new here, but let me say that questions like this are not ignorant, at least not in my opinion.
The resistor value is really used to set the current through the LED. If you change out the LED to one with a different voltage drop, it means the current will also change (assuming the resistor stays the same). So in the end, it generally will still work. What you might need to do is change the resistor to get the appropriate brightness you are looking for.
Going to a higher resistor value will make the LED dimmer, and make the drain on the battery less. Of course the opposite is true as well.
You can do the following equation to estimate the drains on your battery:
(battery voltage - LED voltage drop) / (switch LED resistor + driver bypass resistor) = current
For my convoy S2+ build, I tried the following configurations using the switch from banggood linked above:
Driver bypass was 231 ohms in all cases.
1) 2k resistors for each of 2 LEDs in the tail switch (1k parallel equivalent). For a fresh battery, this gives (4.2V - 1.1V) / (1k + 231) = 2.52mA.
2) 511 ohm resistors in the tail (255.5 parallel equivalent). For the same battery, this gives (4.2V - 1.1V) / (255.5+231) = 6.37mA.
3) 231 ohm resistors in the tail (115.5 parallel equivalent). For the same battery, this gives (4.2V - 1.1V) / (115.5+231) = 8.95mA.
Using my 3400mAH battery down to nothing, this yields the following times to a paperweight: 56 days, 22 days, and 15.8 days respectively.
This isn’t exactly correct as the battery voltage will droop with use, so the current drain will be less with a partially charged battery (4.2V in the equation is actually a variable, not a constant). Maybe using 3.7 would show a more true average.
My results were that case 3 looked the best, but is pretty ridiculous in it’s battery drain. Especially if you wanted to use an 18350 instead of 18650. The 2k is really not visible with ambient light, but if the room is dark you can clearly see the blue ring.
As far as the fit in an S2+, I had to do some minor filing around 2 of the 3 switch boards I tried to use in order to fit it in. It was more taking off the imperfections in the board from where it’s mounted during manufacturing than anything else. I would say I took off less than .5mm all the way around.
I also had to change out the gasket around the “piston” of the metal S2+ switch, and replace the metal washer with a nylon one.