I can’t tell if it’s threaded in or pressed in, but I thought that the pill looked like this:
That pill in the pics above looks solid?
Are you suggesting just trying to push the brass piece out from the spring/battery side?
A couple of observations;
1) You pill is obviously different since it has brass directly below the MCPCB. However, true that you cannot tell which direction it is installed from. The battery side view would be more telling.
2) Notice how the zoom threads are on the aluminum pill on the tk-737. That means you should be able to torque the aluminum pill out using the outer head tube. That may take a lot of effort… good thing, you can get quite a bit of force on it this way.
I tried to remove the pill several ways, including a spanner on the two pill holes and also using a pair of strap wrenches on the head and body, but got nowhere. It does look like the center/brass part is screwed/threaded “inside” the pill body:
But, I couldn’t get that to turn either, so what I’ve done is just unsolder the original XR-E and replace it with an XP-G2 on a 16mm board that I had (didn’t have a Noctigon):
I think that it’s pulling slightly more current at the tailcap, but I’m not 100% sure, but I think that since I can’t remove the pill, this is pretty much all I can do with this light.
Thanks,
Jim
That XP-G upgrade alone is well worth the effort. I would have had pieces all over the bench by now, and not necessarily serviceable 
Now what about that lens that fell apart?
Thanks for your help!
It’s actually an XP-G2 (rather than XP-G) so it should be better.
I’m not sure what you were referring to by “that lens that fell apart”?
Your 1st picture in post 8. I assume it is reusable then?
Ahh! That wasn’t the lens, but rather the dome from the original XR-E emiiter that fell off. So it was an “accidental de-doming”, but it doesn’t matter since I’ve now replaced that XR-E emitter with the XP-G2.
BTW, here’re some beamshots after replacing the emitter with the XP-G2:
Sweet! Yes, this screw in reflectors have a tendency to guillotine domes from time to time.
I decided to try replacing the emitter with an XM-L2 instead of the XP-G2, and… I don’t know, but it seemed like the XP-G2 was brighter, even in flood mode, and also, the beam seemed nicer, especially when zoomed. Is this the common experience with this light, i.e. XP-G2 works “better” than an XM-L/L2?
At lower outputs, probably true. You get a more intense hot spot making the lens slightly more efficient.
I use XM-L in these lights to get the larger die image, but I know I am sacrificing some brightness. Remember that I am also using larger lenses. That flange on the lens is sucking up quite a bit of the low angle light.
Can you clarify what you meant by “At lower outputs”?
Did you mean with lower current?
Or, did you mean in lower modes?
I noticed that you can get the TK737 with different emitters, and I’m wondering if they all use the same driver, or maybe if the driver has different output pads for different emitter types like I’ve seen on some lights, i.e., so they just solder the emitter leads to a different pad for XM-L vs. XP-G vs. XR-E.
Of course, since I haven’t been able to disassemble the light, that doesn’t matter, and the only thing I can do is change the emitter :(…
I think that I will probably put it back to the XP-G2 and be done with this light …
Thanks,
Jim
I meant with the limited current, your brightness in an XP-G will be brighter since it is concentrated into a smaller area.
I rarely see the stock drivers put out much over 1.2A. And since this manufacturer is proud of the fact that this light is limited to 230 lumens “to manage heat”, I suspect this is all this driver will push. XP-G can take roughly 1.5A where an XM-L is happier at 3A.
Ok, thanks for the clarification.
Also, FYI, while I haven’t actually been able to see the driver, it appears to be regulated at about 1 amp… The tailcap current was ~1 amp regardless of which emitter I used, be it XR-E, XP-G2, or XM-L2. Given that, and what you said about the XP-G vs. XM-L currents, I can see that putting an XM-L2 in this light pretty much would yield less brightness.
Oh well, back to XP-G2 I guess…
FINALLY found all the parts.
It is glued in.
Here is the “odd” part. The pill is glued and screwed to the aluminum intermediate ring that allows the twist to zoom of the head. That ring is ALSO glued to the head BUT mine was not glued to the body so I was able to pull it off the body, and set a heat gun up blowing into the head to loosen the glue.
It took enough heat that the head is no longer black and is instead tending towards brown.
Hi
Thanks for the followup info… In my case, I think that I will end up just with replacing the emitter.
Thanks,
Jim
No problem, sorry it took so long.
Any recommendations on driver and emitter? Now that I have found all the parts, I’d like to try to get it fixed/upgraded.
If you can take some pics of the driver (both sides) some here might be able to help with that. Also if you can measure the diameter of the driver, that’d be good.
At least to me, it didn’t seem like changing the emitter changed much, but I have a feeling that the driver was limiting current to ~1 amp, so maybe if you could do something like a resistor mod on the driver, that would be more beneficial to start.
Some pictures would be great. Personally I like these with about 1.4amps. A NANJG 101-AK is a nice driver for this. And as noted earlier in the thread, the XP-G2 might be a more intense emitter for this smallish aspheric lens. This will give you about 400-500 lumens. Again, these put out more light in flood mode but that intense little square hot spot at full zoom out can reach right out there.
You could just pump this up to an XM-L. If the pill has good conductivity, you might even be able to pick up a Noctigon XM-L2 U2 with a 9x 7135 (380 ma) for a 3.4A output using a NANJG 105C driver. This should get you close to 1200 lumens and a great hand warmer for the winter. MTN Electronics will fix you right up with the parts you need.
Oh the driver is dead…
It had a component let go and let all the magic smoke out. That is what prompted me to disassemble the entire flashlight.