I wouldn't consider Jetbeam to be a budget manufacturer, or the M2S to be a budget light 
I have a few budget lights and although the quality might be ehhhhh, they still perform well. ZY-T13 is a point and case. Id still pick the 7G5CS or Barracuda over it any day but for $30 its a dam good light. Convoy C8 is another….$15 and its a killer! Gave my dad one and he has used it EVERY night for roughly 5 months and its still running strong (batteries came from 18sixfifty ;))
Got a new surprise on the way……IE shhhhhhhhhh dont say a word. Everyone has to wait for the review and see how it stacks up against the 7G5CS (aspheric and stock head) and the Barracuda 
EXCITED!!!
Yeah, I'm going seriously consider what I buy now. My next charger will be based heavily on how feasible it is to exchange or return if I don't like the termination current or anything else. Flashlights will be okay if they're easy to mod or have great manufacturer support. That's why even though I really like the Trustfire TR-S700, I won't buy it because Trustfire support is unacceptable and there are no replacement parts other than LEDs and MCPCBs.
The bezel is stainless steel. There is no ano on the bezel. If it’s gold, it’s Titanium Nitride coated Stainless Steel. Be kind of hard to mess it up.
Its black and forgot it was SS!!! Black SS is still easy to mess up though, right? Its not black SS, it has to be a coating
Similar to the coating put on premium knife blades or drill bits.
The reason Army Tek doesn’t want you opening the light up is multi-fold. One, if indeed you got it open and tried to clean the lens/reflector you’d probably do more damage than good as the coatings on reflectors are very very easily damaged. Two, the lens has double rubber seals to give the light it’s maximum waterproof rating. They further rate it safe to 50 Meters. The bezel almost has to be glued in. It’s a fairly premium light, with trapezoidal threads and high end grease installed from the factory.
It’s rated weapons mountable, with potted electronics and buffers on the driver. With this much care taken to make it virtually indestructable, I think I might would leave it alone.
As a dealer it can be complicated to get lights repaired or replaced for a customer. I would assume most reputable dealers/vendors have policies in place to work out any issues. Two primary problems exist. Lead times and shipping expense - if you have to ship your light to China.
For example if you have purchased a Zebralight from me:
- DOA period is 30 days. Whenever possible I will replace the defective unit out of my inventory. The only time I cannot do this is if I sell out of a particular item. I generally reserve several units as replacements and so far it really has not been an issue. I will also pay for return shipping if an issue occurs in the 30 days window.
- 31 days - 12 months. US customers ship the light to Zebra’s Dallas facility. Zebra then fowards to China for repair. Return shipping is at Zebra’s expense. Turn around time is 6-8 weeks.
XTAR works a bit different, as they have no US Corporate presence.
- Same DOA policy applies if you have purchased from me - other dealers may only offer 15 days.
- Warranty period is 24 months. E2FG customers can ship their light to my shop for repair. Depending on repair, turnaround time is 7-10 days. If dealer of record does not offer repair services customer’s can ship their light directly to XTAR. Turned time is unknown but 6-8 weeks is a good estimate depending on shipping method.
- After 24 months, customers are charged for parts.
- Any XTAR customer can contact us for repair. For customer’s who did not buy their light from me I do bill for return shipping costs for under warranty repairs. Even though there is the expense of two way shipping it is almost always it is cheaper than one way shipping to China.
Yes, boiling water like a jar lid. That will soften any goop holding it and expand the outer part, which might be the head or the bezel from what I can see. Another step would be to also fill the inside with liquid nitrogen, but that might break joints between parts with different thermal expansion.
It does seem clear that the answer is intended to void the warranty when you succeed (or fail). But you didn’t buy it for the warranty, you bought it for the flashlight.
What the representative who gave that answer didn’t figure on was how the forum members would react. Most of us are really not much interested in products we can’t take apart. If you don’t succeed, I don’t expect they will be selling lights to any more BLF members.
a jar lid would be much more failsafe, i once tried to boil out a driver and dropped the whole pill into the pot!
hundreds of hours later the xm-l chip is still working great, but the driver never came out, the driver was very oversized and must have been installed with some kind of punch
put the lid in the boiling water for a minute to heat it up first so the water doesn’t get cooled down as much
Funny that “Army” is in the name of this thread. The US army, anyway, considers maintainability one of its most important, perhaps in some cases the most important, requirement. A piece of equipment stays in the Army longer than a soldier does and must train several soldiers to use and maintain it, even if it never sees combat.
I’m pretty sure that if the U.S. Army bought these, they’d have bought some of the “special tools” from them at the same time, and, probably paid through the nose for the tools :)!
then it seems unlikely armytek could have any military customers
Removing a bezel? Just remember, there are very few problems that cannot be solved by the suitable application of high explosives… J)
he would want the bezel removed intact, perhaps that ultimate charger of yours would be more effective in this case?
When I e-mailed Sandra about it and included photos, she said the same thing about other brands “also having dust” on their reflector / inside of their lens.
I replied and pointed out that this was rubbish, as none of my other quality lights have ANY dust inside, but she basically stood her ground.
The head units and tailcaps are just NOT serviceable. Whilst I am quite impressed by my Predator Pro XP-G2 (design, finish and programability), it is not “mind-blowing” in quality or ability.
And any company who tells you it is normal to have quite a bit of visible dust on the reflector or inner lens, besides a budget manufacturer, is full of cr@p.
Dust gets everywhere 
Funny thing is NONE, yes NONE of my other lights have dust behind the lens and they are all stored the same way. My cheap Convoy C8, which ive had the longest, STILL doesnt have a spec behind the lens
i assume the dust got in there during assembly
prob, not really a bother anymore since i cant do anything about it
somehow i think old lumens would be able to remove the bezel, he has an excellent track record