Yet another attempt at modding a Zebralight. This time my SC52w.
I was able to get the bezel off. I used a hobbyist x-acto knife with a curved tip. With the tip underneath I was able to go around the edges slightly widening the opening. Once the opening was big enough I replaced the knife with my smallest screwdriver, then my next smallest, and then the screwdriver tip from a Victorinox mini. With that I was able to lever out the ring with no damage to the glass.
But now Iām stumped againā¦. the driver does not move no matter what I do.
I desoldered the two solder blobs to the switch.
I removed the 2 screws
I cut around the grey potting compound where the driver meets the head.
But no matter what I try the driver is stuff fast. Even inserting a rod into the back of the battery compartment and then hammering on the bottom of the driver with a pliers did not cause it to move even one mm.
I also tried using my hot air gun to attempt to reflow the LED while inside the light. As expected no luck. The heatsinking is quite good and easily wicked off the heat.
Whoops! No I didnāt realize that. None of the posts I looked at on how to disassemble the light mentioned that. :confounded: Or if they did I missed it.
Unfortunately, my misguided attempts to modify the light appears to have destroyed it. :weary:
I reassembled it, but now the light doesnāt work properly. It doesnāt turn off. Pressing the switch causes the light to turn off only while the button is held down. And while holding it down I can see it cycle through the modes, but the moment I release the button, the light goes back to max power.
I donāt think Iām going to attempt to modify a Zebralight ever again.
I canāt even take a close look at the driver to see if maybe something got shorted or dislodged, since I canāt remove the PCB.
EDIT:
I opened it up again to attempt to remove the positive wire. But how do I do that?
The tip of the wire passes through a hole below the left screw. The hole is completely filled with solder, which I canāt remove. My solder sucker isnāt long enough and doesnāt have enough suction. Also, even when I keep that solder liquid by keeping the tip of my iron in it, the driver still does not move at all when I insert a pick into the screw holes and try to pry it up.
I need more detailed instructions on how to remove an SC52 driver. The existing pictures on the internet are not sufficient.
I never opened a SC62, usually there is no solder in the plated through hole and the wire is soldered to a pad next to it, but in the case of the hole filled with solder ( e.g. in the SC700 there is no pad, instead of a wire itās a solid pin soldered to the through hole) then you need to do as you did, pull on the driver while melting the solder, add a lower temp solder (ZL use lead free solder) so that it melts more easily.
And as I mentionned itās easier to pull with screws to grab on :
congrats on your mod, and thanks for the great photos
you might have better luck blending the dark center with a pebble tir, than with that dc fixā¦
Last night I āmoddedā the dome light in my subaru. I removed a 13w incandescent, and installed a 5W LEDā¦ Lumens tripled, and power use went down 60%
But the spectrum quality of the LED light is disgusting, so I went back to incandescent.
Thanks jon_slider , Iām sorry if the photos is too much . Yeah, but I still donāt know what Pebble TIR that would fitted well. Also, what degrees would be match between throw and flood? I donāt have any experience with Pebble TIR before, any idea?
WARNING:
What youāre about to see is pure bastardization and flashlight modding blasphemy
First there was this
(well, it misses a triple DTP MCPCB with Nichia 219c 5000K 70CRI and a triple TIR optic :zipper_mouth_face: You can find them here :D)
Then, there was this
And in the endā¦there was this
Iāll tell you what I did! I did what could be considered a ābastardizedā FW1AA!
Why bastardized? Because it doesnāt have Anduril It could have it, butā¦ it wouldnāt be the same
So, what does it have?
bezel, head, the screw on the shelf, driver retaining ring, tube, tail, and inner o-rings from the FWAA
TIR optic from a deceased Olight S1R Baton
DTP MCPCB from a the Eagle Eye X3R (not filing or grinding needed, fits perfectly )
Samsung LH351D
3535 gasket in buttefly shape (wings were cut )
āblue aquaā GITD tape
the driver is a 17mm DrJones H17Fx Driver w/ lucidrv2 - 7135 + FET
reverse clicky switch with a slightly larger PCB (not from Convoy)
transparent 18mm rubber button with the inner ātongueā shaved and placed in reverse position
outside white/transparent o-rings from the Jaxman E3
CONS from this mod?
well, it is taller than the FWAA and even the DQG Slim Ti AA, and there are some āgapsā that I tried to cover with the white o-rings
- the switch is not stuck in place, it is pressed by the tube, which is in reverse position for that purpose
- it does get HOT AS FOOK in higher levels, since there is no mass to absorb that heat
- I cannot fit a forward switch, for momentary modes, because it is too tall for that tail space
PROS of this mod?
- It is just cool AF to have it and it will be even smaller than the real and upcoming FW1AA
As for the tube, yup, I needed to use it that way to secure the switch PCB, considering that the other end as a wider opening that doesnāt allow contact with the PCB. So I needed to do that.
The other option would beā¦using the tube of another flashlight, which is also possible :innocent:
Iāve had great luck with removing the donut holes in quad E17A LEDs by sanding down 1 side of the lenses to make them frosted. You can experiment with how much flood vs throw by using different sandpaper grit. But too high of grit (ie. less of a frosted lens) may still result in a slight donut hole. But at least you can control the final beam vs buying something to cover or replace the lens.
Thanks for the screw trick. With that I was finally able to remove the driver from the light.
Unfortunately, it took an enormous amount of force. The board bent slightly and some traces and parts ripped off.
I tried connecting the extracted driver to a battery and switch outside the light. Itās irretrievably dead.
Now I have to figure out what to do with the broken light. The anodizing, lens and switch are all in perfect condition. It would be a shame to just toss this. Some options:
I wonder if Zebralight would be willing to fix it. Or if they have an old SC52 driver they can send me. I guess Iāll try sending them an email. Theyāre pretty good about responding.
or perhaps I can use it as a host. Itās not great since the space inside the head is so small owing to the one-piece driver/star, but I could probably transplant the guts from an FWAA into it.
EDIT: Quick response from Zebralight. They canāt repair it as they have no SC52 boards in inventory. I guess this light is now a host for me to try to put something else inside.
I guess in attempting to mod this I probably should have started with one of my defective non-functional Zebralights rather than one that was working perfectly.
Taking a closer look at the driver I now see what happened.
The bypass hole for the positive driver wire was completely filled with solder. I wasnāt able to remove it as my solder sucker wasnāt strong enough, and I couldnāt get solder braid in.
To remove the driver, I inserted my soldering iron into the bypass hole while lifting up on the screws with a pliers.
Unfortunately, even though the solder seemed molten, the positive wire actually hadnāt released. And itās possible the tip of the wire accidentally bent downward and resoldered itself to the positive pad on the top of the driver while I was trying to remove it. The head is quite small and between my iron and the pliers I couldnāt see anything when I tried to remove it.
When I exerted force to remove the driver, it actually ripped the positive contact bondpad from the board, along with the metal can lining the bypass hole. Also ripped off the board was a large trace on the underside that went under the inductor coil from the positive wire to a capacitor. This trace coming off actually tore chunks out of the body of the coil and left the coil dangling from the board.
I also noticed that one of the switch contact pads on the board is dangling. Looks like it ripped mostly off, but is still connected.
As-is, the board doesnāt work at all.
On the upside, I gained some valuable insight into how Zebralights are constructed and what not to do to them.
To thinkā¦ I might have avoided this problem had I purchased one of those super-powerful cheap solder suckers someone on BLF was talking about 2 weeks ago.
Iām not sure itās possible to remove all the solder with a wire in a plated through hole even with a powerful solder sucker.
One other trick that I use is to lower the temp of the SAC/SnCu solder with BiSn which melts at 140C, and when things still donāt want to come off I add lead to it, which depending on the proportion of Sn Bi and Pb can melts as low as 95C (Roseās metal).