Zebra H 501 OPENED. Formerly, how to open a Zebra 501- PIC HEAVY

Does anyone have any idea how to open a Zebra H501? Searching here and the expensive forum have not yielded any fruit as of yet. I have an old Zebra H501w that crapped out some time ago and I’m of a mind to mod it/ fix it. As the frustration grows I am becoming more fond of the idea of passing a dowel up the battery tube and whacking with extreme prejudice and see if that pops the driver out. Before I go crazy and really trash it, I was wondering if someone might have a more intelligent approach. Any suggestions?

edit: Made the title a question, I didn’t want to accidentally give someone the idea that I had a clue if they were wondering the same.

So I got it apart. Scary easy until the gray epoxy thermal compound.
Here is how I started.

Turns out I just needed to lift right here under the stainless ring.

There is the little button.

Leveraging up under the board and then applying solder gun I was able to slide the board off of the wires.

So then I tool this screw out and started chewing away at the grey epoxy.

Then I got the heat sink /button stop thing out and exposed more epoxy.

Lots of tedious scraping with dental pick

So after scraping the bulk of the gray crap out I pushed the emitter into the head and this drove the driver and emitter down toward the bottom and I just coaxed it along.

This is the emitter before cleaning some more.

And the driver and emitter without gray crap.

That’s all I’ve got for now…

this might help?

Suscribed!

Looking at pictures of it I’d guess the ring around the switch was press fit. Maybe you can get some purchase under it via the switch boot? The lens doesn’t look so easily replaceable.

These are pictures from a french user here : Lampes Torches /!\ Addict! /!\ [Topic Unique] - Page : 834 - Vie pratique - Discussions - FORUM HardWare.fr

Hope it helps!

Thanks all. I will take the Lithium route. Tomorrow is an eleven mile run but after that I will see if I can’t dive in. I will see if I can make it light up again. I suspect I will not be able to put it back together and I will have to see what can be shoved into it. It is a nice form and an easy UI.

Pics with attempt tomorrow….

Ok, plan B. I got distracted playing with other things. Tomorrow, should be good.