Arghh! Almost did it last night, my pliers are 1mm away from the LED. Still struggling, do I need another thrower that can’t out throw TN31 or TK70? I am afraid it will fail or tint will shift to ugly tint.
Definitely looks more focus than my X6 and tint is still ok to me. Does your X6 out throw TN31 or TK70? I read somewhere but can’t remember clearly that de-domed X6 still can’t out throw them.
I read someone lift the dome up with sharp knife either. Looks like it is not very tightly glued at all.
But I haven’t dedome mine yet. Still waiting for the day it might happen when I suddenly have the urge to do it.
Luminous LED’s in general are a lot easier to de-dome than CREE.Cree uses a stronger adhesive.
SST-90 and 50 LED’s doent require heat IMO.You can but not much fun watching the dome slide off your flashlight
after a ping of your tweezers. XM-L’s , power up your torch and when hot its almost easy to de-dome…not quite…
I did it too, and my flashlight was an Elektrolumens ST90 (cost over $250 shipped to Australia)!!!
I had been very unhappy with the throw and output ever since I got it a week or so ago … my Sunwayman T40CS easily out-threw it and my Nitecore TM11 easily “out-lumened” it. :~
I had my heart in my mouth as my pliers slipped and scratched the dome several times - I was really afraid of the pliers suddenly slipping and gouging into phosphor and bond wires or something. But after about 6 or so slips, the dome came loose at one end and I used my fingernail to pry it up and removed it perfectly - no scratches on the board or anything!
As you said Scaru, there’s already a protective layer over the phosphor as it is shiny / sealed - it is not exposed to the air for those wondering.
Also, the adhesive on mine seemed to only be around the circumference of the dome and not over the entire die (phosphor / bond-wire square) itself, so there was no way the phosphor or bond wires could be ripped off in the process.
This is unlike an XM-L, for which pulling off the dome will almost guarantee tearing away half the die and definitely ruining it. Put it this way people … I’ve ruined several XM-Ls trying to de-dome them, but have been absolutely successful with my one and only expensive SST-90 flashlight.
Day time here so no beamshots or anything … but for initial whitewall testing, my ST90 now has a brighter more concentrated hotspot than my Sunwayman T40CS. :bigsmile: