Noob question. Can I directly swap the XP-G R4 for the XP-L and it will play nice with the stock driver? Or should I just do XP-G3? Thanks.
Edit: FYI. Bezel was removed from head with force. no heat required.
I did a Nichia 219b swap into my LD20 a few years ago, the head was a real pain to open, I shorted the LED with the reflector but once I got it working the beam was excellent.
The XP-L should fit on the board the XP-G is on, I find it easier to buy pre-mounted LEDs and just solder the wires to the driver.
No idea about driver behaviour with a XP-L, hopefully someone can chime in and give advise.
What did it take for you to open the head? I still haven’t gotten into my Fenix LD10’s LED.
it should work fine with stock driver.
whether you’ll get improvements is minute. your real concern is to open the head.
I need to know a better way to open my Fenix LD12 without scratching it so I could swap a 219c
Brute force and swearing. I didn’t own strap wrenches back then so used bicycle inner tube to grip protect the anodising and pipe wrenches.
Heating it might help. Good luck!
Good point I forgot to mention, the stock driver does ?700ma-?1A on turbo, you’re not going to see any massive gain in output other than LED efficiency improvement.
I hate trying to open glued lights… but I always try it for some reason…
You often have to use heat, I just use an old grill lighter and heat up the head as much as I can. Try to guess where the threads are and heat that exact spot… Then I try to open it while its hot…
Lately I have been using the bottom side of an old, thick mouse pad. The rubber is very sticky, and prevents me from getting burned…
Sometimes I STILL cant get it open, by then I’m so frustrated I just crank on it with wrenches, which ruins the finish…
Gains would be a bonus and not my main goal. I’d like to convert whatever lights I can over to neutral white. I clamped the LD10 in a bench vice between rubber material. It was cut from a home depot thin floor mat. I wrapped the same material around the head and used an adjustable wrench that has teeth. Came off pretty easy. My LD01 was quite easy also. So far I have yet to get the PD35 and four sevens Quark Pro apart. Those things are stuck on pretty good. Even tried heat as other members have suggested but no go.
i’ve already ruined my my four sevens light. it was my first attempt at opening a light and i tried bicycle tubing but the teeth from my wrench broke through it. ah well. no turning back now. i cant stand the tint on this light.
It’s been years since I’ve opened a Fenix light but I remember that I’ve put the head in 3 or 4 ziplock bags, each time removing as much air as possible, then boil it for a good 10 minutes. When you take it out, act as fast as possible, put it in a vise (with a lot of rubber protection) and use a strap wrench.
Almost all Fenix glued. Simple heating using heat gun will remove it easily. I opened 8 Fenix E05 with success.
Heat the head of the flashlight and measure the temp whenever possible. In my case I kept the temp below 120C because E05 uses TIR PMMA lens. LD10 seems to use reflector, I don’t know.
Then after you’re sure the entire head is evenly heated to ~100 - 120C use circlip plier or tweezer (there are two fastening holes) to turn the driver anti-clockwise. Don’t use brute force, the driver board is soft. If you can’t get it in the first try, try to heat it longer (not hotter). The thread locker need sometimes to soften, and when the whole head cools it will hardens back.
At it’s current level swapping to 219C or XPL won’t gain you measurable (by eyes) output, but you should get better runtime. XPG R5 has smaller die, swapping to XPL/XPL2 HD will give you almost almost twice bigger hotspot. Newer LEDs have lower voltage, this should give you slightly better regulated runtime. And the lumen/watt efficiency will be improved because lower output voltage is easier for the boost driver used in this light.
- Clemence
Excellent and detailed post Clemence ! :+1:
Along the same topic. I managed to get my PD35 open and it has a copper 15dia sinkpad. I was thinking of getting an LED with noctigon before but maybe i should attempt a reflow? Or is the noctigon mcpcb superior?
Noctigon is indeed superior. So far it’s the best DTP board. The only thing from Noctigon which I don’t like is the red color.
If you’re just swapping the LED while keeping the rest as is, there’s no point switching to Noctigon. Most Fenix DTP boards are already good enough, even for mild hot rodding. Reflowing is easy and can be done easily with many household stuffs.
- Clemence
Thanks for the feedback. I don’t mind the red as the insulator will block it. I’ve never reflowed so maybe a good time to try. Unless I go with XP-L. I was just on fenix’s website and latest emitter is XP-L. I know very little about them. It is just farther throwing but same hot spot as XM-L2 ?
I’ve taken apart couple fenix lights and a~7 year old 4Sevens. I use a small butane torch lighter and heat up the bezel evenly all around, and then an ice cube around the perimeter to anneal the thread lock adhesive. I then use strap wrenches combined with a small bench vise, and crank the snot out of it to get it to unscrew.
This 4Sevens had a green tinted XPG2 that I replaced with a neutral XP-G3. The mod went very well actually, despite its age I still use this light all the time. Love the sub-lumen firefly mode, despite being brighter with the new XPG3 its still very useful for preserving night adapted vision.
Thanks for tip. I used heat and vice but no ice. Didnt have strap wrenches. I damaged the ano but once i did that i didnt care anymore. Finally got it off.
It has a green tint also. Prefer warm/neutral.
Probably the AR coated lens . Some make everything green . try a clear lens
Never thought of that. I’ll check the tint in candle mode.
I just realized i had one of these in a drawer. Any measurements on the diameter and thickness of the board?
For the Fenix LD10 the board dia is 10mm and thickness of 1mm.
For the foursevens QP2A-X the board fia is 13mm and thickness of 1mm.