Before you saw it in half, could you try to fix it in a vice with something to protect the anodizing between and try to wrench it on the threads or maybe the other way around fix it by the threads, that is one other way had thought to try to open it when i get some new hugsbys for the sacrifice, because i am not sure even if it could work if it is even possible to do non destructively.
If that is not working maybe try heating it up before, if it is epoxied in there.
If that don’t work, then i am totally out of ideas how to get this head open, well maybe if it don’t work and you take a hacksaw to it finally, we can draw some conclusion then on how they have put this head together.
Good Luck & remember to take some pictures so we hopefully can get some leads on how to disassemble it.
Well, I was able to get the brass ring out, just grabbed it with a small pair of needle nose and pulled, and it popped out.
But, the head? No luck. I’ve tried heat, and also some BGA epoxy remover, but it just won’t come apart. At this point, I’m still not 100% sure where the head comes apart, but looking at it, it HAS to be at the driver end of the knurled area. But even knowing that, I can’t get it open, so it must have some super, super glue or something :(!!
EDIT: This shows where I think (guess) the joint is:
On you picture i see that your bottom o ring above the threads is still on, that is where i think the joint is, if you take off the o ring you will see uneven material where the bare aluminum & anodized aluminum meet, that is where i suspect the seam with glue are.
4,7mm to 5mm down from the lower part of the knurling.
Of course I don’t actually have one of these in hand, but it’s pretty common for the anodized portion to be larger than the bare portion on a solid object. The whole light was anodized and then machining operations were done to it (eg it was turned on a lathe). This applies anywhere that you see bare aluminum.
Looks like a good guess to me. What tools have you tried so far? Strap wrenches? Wrapped vice grips? etc?
Are you willing to destroy this one “for science” since it’s taken a fair amount of damage already?
^ Wow, talk about taking one for the team. Thank you Ohaya. Anodized threads that appear well cut, nice. They do appear to be normal right-handed (clockwise) threads. There appears to be some type of substance stuck to parts of the threads in the second to last picture. Doesn't appear to be any of the typical thread lock colors though. The below table is from here.
On jerm03’s original thread, there was some mention that there seemed to be some difference between the stock XP-1 driver (which doesn’t work with 1x10440) vs. the stock XP-2 driver (which works with 1x10440)).
I now have several XP-1s and the one working XP-2, and looking at the driver externally, there is a visible difference, so, although I haven’t taken the driver out of the XP-1, I’m pretty sure that they have different drivers.
Here’s a pic of 2 of the XP-2 drivers (on the left) and 2 of the XP-1 drivers (on the right):
As you can see, the driver boards do look different.
I’ve tried with the head in a vise and using pliers and strap wrenches (the head is tiny). I have some vise grips, but I haven’t been able to find them so no, I haven’t tried those.
As I mentioned in that same post, I’ve tried heat (boiling the head in a bag, heatgun, etc.) and using BGA epoxy remover.
Yes, done that :)… Maybe someone ELSE could contribute to the effort (don’t mean to destroy one, but to try stuff).?
Don’t look at me! 0:) I’m more of an 18650 person for now. All I can contribute is suggestions / strawbossing.
Wrapping the two parts in leather or rubber and then gripping with large tools may be good. Channel locks or even two large pairs of slip-joint pliers maybe?
A thick wrapping of tape can also work of course, but that seems a bit wasteful if the leather or rubber will work.
EDIT: also I see that you didn’t mention freezing the head. That’s another thing to try, some types of glue will free up / whatever when frozen.
So i finally got my extra XP-1’s & XP-2, so the first thing i did was to take the XP-2’s head and stuck it on my XP-1’s body with a Efest 10440 inside……and it didn’t work i thought did i break it? but no it only needed a button top to work, so i stuck a little 5x1mm magnet on the top and it worked GREAT very nice and of course much brighter.
I used the XP-1 head on the XP-2 body and that got it much brighter also very nice, I gave that one to my father, i like the shorter XP-1 size more.
And while i fiddled with all the heads screwing and unscrewing i suddenly hear a different noise from my original XP-1 head, and i looked down and SUCCESS :bigsmile: i had got it open just by chance :).
Now there is something more to this when i got the XP-1 initially i wanted to take out the driver, so i tried to solder and use a solder braid on the bumps on the driver board, luckily i failed so i heated up the head maybe 3-5 times maybe more, this obviously broke the thread sealant and suddenly the head just came apart in my hand much later.
This is my original XP-1 head with the partially removed solder bumps
Hugsby XP-1 dissasembled
Including the lens and top o ring.
LED without the protector
Head with the plastic protector
The mcpcb is 8x7mm and sits on a tiny shelf……that could be plastic i don’t know (the bottom looks whitish) i will probably order some upgrade LED for this and test in the future.
Does anyone know if it is even possible to cut down a noctigon or sinkpad xp mcpcb to 8x7mm?
Today the Hugsby P31 was in the mail, ordered it from http://www.ebay.de/itm/311216985989?\_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Since it has the older XR-E Emitter it would possibly benefit from an upgrade. But the problem is the same here - the two parts of the head stick very hard together and are probably glued. The part on the driver side is only ~5mm wide so it will be difficult to grip it without damage.
i got my xp1 last week. and i was also able to unscrew the head…………. by luck…… i guess.
when i examined the light, i noticed that the head wasn’t straight, turns out mine was cross thread @ the head. so even with the thread lock i can still unscrew the head.
mine is an xpe2, nice tint too. i was thinking about changing the LED to one with a neutral white tint, i guess i don’t need to after all.
Try heating up the head, the thread lock should get much weaker, it worked on my xp-1 as you can see up above here.
I am also interested in the P31 as a mod host, have you tried a 14500 in it yet? i should support it stock, i wonder how the heatsinking is, if it get nice and toasty in the whole body or if it only get hot at the head.
After ~5 min the head gets about 30 °C warm but not hot (with a flamed trustfire 14500 at4,1V), the rest of the body supports the heatsinking quite well. There are some threads about the P31 at BLF with a bunch of information since this model is rather old (the glued head was topic of discussion before). The one I’ve bought is the 3-mode model but there is still a XR-E with its ringy beam in it.
i thought did i break it? but no it only needed a button top to work, so i stuck a little 5x1mm magnet on the top and it worked GREAT 
very nice and of course much brighter.
