100% Perfect dedome method

how i dedome:

first +–2 hours on paint thinner

de dome fell of than.

again a couple hours on the thinner again.

than for 5 minuts steam the led.

Cool, thanks for sharing.

Let us know what color the tint has shifted too, many do prefer slicing and lifting off the dome while the LED is hot because it’s been claimed that gasoline makes the tint greenish. Does thinner do that too?

Sub’d. I’d like to hear what the tint looks like.

I have a Fenix PD35vn with 1A (modded by vingh from cpf) and I think he uses gas to dedome. I removed his and reflowed my dedomed led into the existing 16mm fenix copper mcpcb and the tint was surprisingly less green and much more usable outdoors.

However there is a massive shift from the stock U3 1A which is my favorite tint so far, I’m not a big fan of non-cool white tints, but I did it to enhance throw on my BLFDD Courui.

I wish there was a dedome method to make it like a MT-G2’s Q0, it looks sweet outdoors.

In my experience you get less tint shift with an XP-L. I dedomed a V5 2A in gas and it came out with a tint similar to a Nichia 219 (which looks like your picture of the Q0). No green at all, with just a hint of rosy-ness.

Vinh doesn't use gas. He's always used heat as far as I know. He even posted a YouTube video a while back showing how he does it.

It is anecdotal, but I have dedomed hundreds of LEDs using gasoline and hundreds using heat, and the heat method appears to give much less green tint shift. I now use heat exclusively even though it is more risky than a gasoline dedome.

Not to mention massively faster. That’s what got me to bite the bullet and scrap a couple LED’s in the pursuit of learning the heat dedome method. At this point for me it’s rare to mess one up. The two tricks that helped me the most were less heat, and more of a lifting motion when doing the dedome after the leading edge of the razor has a bite in the silicone. Too much heat tended to leave bits of silicone on the phosphor layer. I either do it while the pill cools from reflowing, or run it at 1-2A for a minute or two and give it about 10 seconds to cool before I try to remove the dome. Some LED’s need more heat, some less. The red XP-E2’s I’ve done required the most heat compared to XP-G2’S and XM-L2’s.

Thanks for the tips. I use gasoline to dedome so far but gasoline method requires the cleaning afterward and also sometime the dedome is not really clean. I might want to try this thinner instead in the future.

Are there different types of thinner available? If so which one do you use?

And wouldn’t the compressed air damage the bond wires somehow?

Just as RMM says, I’ve used both methods hundreds of times as well, I prefer using the heat and knife method, but the reality is,with the knife method it’s almost impossible to get all of the residue off, so the gas method is more cosmetically pleasing for people.

Although the residue will not effect the beam pattern (and also protect the bond wires?) people tend to prefer the fully clean look which is only achievable with gas
I’m mostly talking about XML2 and XPG2, XPL is a different story because of the White layer below the dome

MTG2 is also totally different and can not be done with gas, it has to be done with a knife

XHP50/70 seems to be the hardest so far to de dome, but maybe I’ll continue experimenting, maybe not.

Regarding the tint shift I’m not so sure, you can’t pick how the tint will turn out, it’s always different to each led, doesn’t matter which method you use, I’ve had some gas de domes come out very white tint and some knife de domes come out horribly green!

I definitely think part of de doming is luck and there is no 100% certain way, although I’m sure some people me included have a 99% success rate, bond wires can still be broken

James, i thought the XHP50 dedome experiment was a success, with the first a slice & then a quick dunk in gas method.

I have used that on XP-L dedomes since & i really like how quick it goes, next time i think i will try the first slice then an even shorter dunk in thinner, because i don’t like the gas stank that sticks to the star even after an alcohol bath.

@pilotdog68, thanks for the update on the V5 2A dedome, thats exactly what i was hoping for, i just ordered some 2A just yesterday to try that out myself, so that is some very good news :slight_smile:

Thanks for the tip.XPG-2 R5-1A on Sinkpad dedomed successfully.Has slightly greenish tint,it is quite nice actually.

I haven’t done a huge amount of dedomes like some but the few I have done have all been gasoline with perfect results everytime. no mess nothing to clean up. just pull out and let the gas evaporate off( a few seconds) and an led that works great. mine have all shifted yellow but w/o having done the heat method I can’t make a personal comparison. as far as tint towards the green. I trust the more experienced modders here for that info.

I recently purchased a Dedomed XPL 6K tint from you and put it to use in my 2.5in Mag head. The color appears to be very cool almost 6500K despite being dedomed. So, just letting you know the XPL dedomed you sell is a home run for me.

Thanks,
bigC

I like the tint of the xpg2 s2 1d for dedoming , i use gentle wax grease and silicon remover for a clean finish which takes 24 hrs and then rinse with alcohol. XPG CW LEFT.

I use MEK works very quickly, less than an hour.

I remember using this stuff like this years ago when I was doing auto detailing. The can said it would remove silicone. I wonder if this will dedome a LED?

3M 08984 General Purpose Adhesive Cleaner - 1 Quart

3M 38984 Specialty Adhesive Remover - 1 Quart

+1 for MEK.

+1 for MEK....w/MSDS

This stuff is naaaasty.

I checked out MEK, turns out it is illegal in Sweden :frowning:

+ i dedomed an XP-L V6 1A with thinner today, first i sliced of the dome, and the i put it in thinner for an 1 hour. Very clean & very fast, and no residual stank from gas.

I wonder if you warm the solution slightly if it works better. I used thinner once and the dome did not come off, even after two days. It was my first dedome. I did suspend it upside down fully submerged. I finally took it out and slowly began lifting it off. Lift a little, set it down, again and again until I was convinced that the wires would not be disturbed. Then I got it off after about 5 minutes. Seemed like a serious PITA.

Honestly, I do not like running them exposed. So, my method now is to slice it down as far as I'm comfortable, polish it up and be done with it. That way I do not have to worry about using costly LED seal.