MS12.2 - emitter upgrade

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Thought it may be useful to anyone who wants to upgrade theirs to 70.2

I wish I had taken more pictures

Bezel, glass and reflector removed, it is glued, but after being run on turbo a few times weakens it. Soldering quality not the worst but not the best.

Desoldered and MCPCB removed, lots of thermal interface paste! There is a brass insert/plug which I believe is attached to the primary heatsink that the fan surrounds.

Emitters desoldered, I found the best way was to use the back of a cast iron pan on the gas hob, as trying to maintain temp on a large MCPCB using hot air was challenging.

Not impressed with the poor adhesion, probably a contributing factor in the high failure rate of the DX80, in my opinion they have used a solder with a low flux content to avoid having to manually clean the board.

While the board was hot, i took the chance to clean off the old solder (I wish I had got a pic but the contact between the thermal pad and board was not great)

The resistors are just 0 ohm bridges for 12V Cree configuration. I am not sure why they didn’t just increase the heatpad like this

New emitters flowed on using good old 63/37 leaded solder, bit of a mess with the flux… Top tip, clean it off while its cooling with an artists brush and 99% IPA

Tested each one, to my surprise they all worked first time.

Board cleaned, PCB varnish applied to resistors, ready for reinstall.

Reinstalled with MX4 and resoldered

Success!

2

call it insufficient pics, but I’d say that’s a balanced amount of quality pics.

very clean transplant. Loved it.

3

Thanks buddy

4

Tnx!

5

Maybe hold fire on this, just had a battery cut out, i think perhaps in turbo it runs a direct drive and cant handle it.

6

Beamshot required :smiley: :smiling_imp:
Nice work :wink:

7

Nice work on the mod. Well done. :beer:

8

That factory re-flowing sucks big time, nice job on the clean replacement of those leds, what did you use as a hot plate for reflowing?

9

It’s a no go anyone considering this. I think its direct drive on turbo and when its hot (lower resistance) it trips the battery safety short circuit. Oh well lol

10

You could use slightly lower drain batteries, see if that helps.

Great led swap btw, and amazing that expensive flashlights are delivered with such lousy-soldered leds.

11

No, MS12 has a battery pack, its not possible to use other batteries.