Fenix TK61 teardown and mod thread

Hmmm, I am kind of a disappointed with plastic reflector and all that plastic that holds the switches, pill also looks wonky :frowning:

Plastic reflector is more then fine, it helps with the weight and i guess a bit with the cost :slight_smile:

Doesn’t seems to affect the performance at all.

Yes, but for this premium-priced light you would expect that fenix would put a bit more effort and made machined aluminium reflector.
Maybe I just expect/dreamed too much, because this light is on my “want it so bad” list :confused:

Even the RC40 has plastic reflector i think….

I got the TK61, the feel in hand is amazing, the buttons you mention, are the best i ever felt on any flashlight, the feedback is great. One thing i think Fenix focused more is the driver quality.

antoninodattola, you got a PM.

I don't mind the plastic reflector. As long as it works great and is well built. Lower weight, and no worry of short circuits if you have to replace with smaller mcpcb.

Would be nice to have a bit more mass below the mcpcb. But at the stock 3A current, I doubt it would matter. Only add more weight and cost.

On the stock light I would like to see 4,5A on Turbo and an easy resistor mod to 7A. 0:)

Wow, I think 4,7A is more than enough over-drive to be amazed, toghether with de-doming.
I’m very tempted to mess with my TK61, but I don’t have a clue on where to get a R030 resistor, nor how to “stack” it on top of the R050 one (seems just a blob of solder tho, looking at pic).

Its quite impressive at 4,7A.

But Im already used to a ZY-T08 thats pushing 6,4A with constant current to a de-domed emitter. Its not a huge difference between the lights, and the ZY-T08 is much smaller. I want my TK61 to be a good step up. Im sure 4,7A + dedome is impressive, but I would know that there is still more potential in the light itself..

If the goal is only (4,7A and) 500kcd I would probably have bought TN32 instead. Seems easy to get more power out of it. TK61 seems to have more potential though. :)

You can probably find R030 from Ebay in the correct size.

Or just use three of these smaller R100 resistors from Fasttech. ( They are the same as one R033 when you stack 3 of them). They come in handy on many mods.

The resistor mod is a 5-10 minute job.

I have not done any long term reliability testing on the light though. Except some indoor test on high until the light got uncomfortable hot.

I have contacted Fenix. They do not sell replacement drivers. So if someone screw it up. Then no more TK61 driver....

I might rebuild the light to use a HX-1175B driver that can push out around 7A or whatever I want it to do. It uses a classic mechanical switch, so its not a direct swap. If I go for that driver I might consider a better pill too. I would loose the UI and button features of the stock light. But I think that would be forgotten once I see the throw. :D

Oh well... That is my backup solution at the moment. I did not buy this light for it to only push out 4,7A. J)

I have to focus on the scratch build competition now though. This time of year is really bright here too. So I don't really need a sick thrower now. In 2-4 months I might aim for 700+kcd. Ill see if anyone (or myself with help) figures out something smart to do with the stock driver first and take things from there.

In 2015 chinese will be sweating bullets to please us :smiley:

Deleted original comment as too far off topic.

When my HX-1175b’s arrive, I will figure out how to piggy back a 105c and pull the MCU from the HX-1175b. The same connection should be easy to do with your driver here too (Your stock driver controlling the HX-1175b). You would only need to connect battery positive, battery negative, and then the PWM out from your current MCU. Hopefully, the HX-1175b won’t pull power when no PWM is feed to it.

Anglo-centric, or Euro-centric, or Western-centric, or American-centric?

So how does it throw compared to those other big heads you have?
Fenix reckon 824m, are their distance measurements more accurate than general Chinese lumens measurements?
Thanks
Anton

As seen in my last thrower beamshots comparison thread all my other big heads are modified and far better throwers than stock.

Compared to a pretty much maxed out HD2010 with domed emitters its in a different league when it comes to throw. For the TK61 to be throw as good as a my hot-rodded ZY-T08 with a harder driven de-domed emitter is quite impressive. Im looking forward to see the true potential of the TK61. :)

[quote=Flitsmal]

Fenix reckon 824m, are their distance measurements more accurate than general Chinese lumens measurements? Thanks Anton [/quote]

Their throw distanse are based upon lux (kcd/cd) numbers. Fenix use ANSI standard. Id say Fenix numbers are as close to benchmark numbers as you get them.

How that compares to Chinese measurements? Cant even remember that I have seen any lux numbers on the budget lights I have bought. And If I had seen any numbers. They would probably be as overrated, worthless and all over the place like their lumen numbers on most budget lights. :D

How does 824 meters of throw translate to real life? Well, if the air conditions are perfect and you light up a white house or something, then its barely possible to see that the light hits it. If you try to light up dark mountains/landscape, you are not going to see much at 700++ meters.

What I consider usable throw length will always be lower than the paper numbers. I would say throw length in meters are based on barely lighting up something in perfect conditions.

A 1000lumen light with 170kcd/824meters throw I would say is good for around 150-700 meters depending on how much light you need and what you are going to light up.


RMM have already (before this thread started) been working on the TK61 driver circuit, and he is not done yet. Ill wait and see what he is able to do with it. I have offered my TK61 driver circuit as a "backup" in case he wants to experiment on it.

Good luck with the new driver…
Soon you will be lighting up a whole mountain from 1 km away!! :smiley:
So this light has to be one of the best stock single emitter throwers around?
Cheers
Anton

Yes, one of the best. Probably the best if you are considering throw vs runtime.

TN32 is a very nice option too. Maybe better stock depending on what you are looking for. Its got more power/output. I would highly recommend you to check out that light too.

Thanks RaceR86! Although those are awesome lights, I don’t think I will ever buy one, as my budget max is around $50 per light!(At the moment… :smiley: )
I do however like to keep track of what lights are best/close to best, and then see what budget options are available to compete(well, almost compete)with those lights. I am very happy with my srk,zyt08 and even Yezl Y3!
Cheers
Anton

Thanks for the excellent write up on this light. I wasn’t sure if I was going to resistor mod mine or not, but I think I will now. I already de-domed it and added some thermal paste to the pill before putting it back in.

I also don’t mind the reflector. I’m digging that the light is as lite as it is. The extra weight up front would probably make it top heavy and I like my lights better balanced. 6amps would be nice put I’m still not convinced that the heatsinking is all that great on this light. I wasn’t even sure I cared to push it a whole lot harder than it already is. But reading this I think I’ll just do and and see how I like it that way. I can always swap it back if I change my mind.

Thanks again, excellent job on the post.

Hey man, my friend is in process of modding mine. We will only make a current bump, from 3A to 4/4.2A, with 1x R100 (max for “safe” operation with stock transistor - recommended by Vinh) resistor i think it was. It should get nice bump to around 1000>1350lm i think?

Is dedoming a very hard thing to do? if yes, would it better idea to first order few XM-L2 U2 1A or 1B in order to have replacment if the current led is burnet/damaged during the process, or if it get green tint which i cant stand? thanks in advance.

De-doming is very simple now that they figured out the gasoline method. All you do is soak the emitter in gasoline for a few hours and the dome falls off. After than you have to be very very careful of the emitter though. There are tiny bond wires on it that WILL break if you bump them. They are absolutely fine as long at you don’t rub something like the reflector up against them. A lot of people use rubbing alcohol to get rid of the smell of the gas. I just very gently run mine under warm water until the smell is gone. This seems cool enough that mine came out neutral rather than green. But as always batches vary so yours could be different.

I just resistor modded mine just now. Very simple to do. I used a r025 that I pulled off an old driver and it’s rocking out pretty good now.

Thanks for sharing, i just got my R200, i think i will go for the Vinhn recommendations, even its just ~ 1/1.2A bump, i guess i will get around 250/300lm + from it, over that and even at 4.2A you are risking of burning the transistor, and i’m to lazy to search/ordering an new transistor…

BTW my resistors are 1/2 watts, will that do the job? is 1 or 2W resistors better?

About dedoming, not sure yet, btw do you wash the led it self with water? and even in gasoline? its work after? :~

Sorry i’m fairly new to this stuff, thanks.

I’m not really sure on the watts of the resistors maybe somebody else can chime in on that. But I have de-domed hundreds of emitters with Gas and they work just fine and stay working too. I have some that are over a year old and still running strong.

Just soak for a good long time in the gasoline and the dome will fall off. The warmer it is out the faster it will fall off. If after a few hours it hasn’t you can always pick it up and tap the star sideways on something so it falls off, but it’s better to just let it kinda float off by itself. It will come off cleanly. You can even leave them overnight if you want. It won’t darm the emitter at all. After I have pulled them out I rinse mine very gently in warm water. Many others use the rubbing alcohol. They just give it a soak in it then let it dry of course. This is by far the easiest way to double your throw. The biggest thing to be careful of is not bumping the top of the emitter after you have the dome off. If you do it’s likely to kill it. Probably the trickiest part is putting the reflector back on without bumping the emitter. It pays to take your time. I don’t even want to think about the ones I have killed by bumping them because I wasn’t paying close attention.