How can I dissasemble a Lumintop GT4695?

lunarFu · December 28, 2023, 10:38am

Lumintop, Thank you for replying to the thread and providing additional information. I however have a few comments on what you stated.

Firstly, we have chosen a high-capacity 46950 battery and integrated it into the flashlight for better protection and safety. By housing the battery internally, we ensure better protection against accidental drops or impacts. This design also makes the flashlight more compact and durable.

I have not seen many flashlights that use external batteries. Regardless, what does that have to do with the battery being non-removable?

Additionally, we have implemented a hidden charging port for convenient charging anywhere and anytime. This design consideration takes into account user needs, ensuring easy charging access when outdoors or in emergencies.

So flashlights with removable batteries can not have hidden chargeports?

Secondly, after numerous real-world tests, we found that integrating the battery with the circuit creates a stable whole. This ensures that contact resistance does not significantly reduce the effective voltage of the input drive circuit. This design not only improves overall efficiency but also safeguards the stability of the drive circuit operation. This design consideration ensures the stability and reliability of the flashlight during use, providing better safeguards for your outdoor activities.

Right, if you unscrewed the parts of the flashlight and did not tighten it enough it would make it not work as well and not be as water resistant, however that would be user error.

(Lumintop’s products have a five-year warranty and a lifetime paid warranty. If the battery life is over, you can send it back to the factory and our professional staff will replace the battery for you.)

How are you addressing the recyclability of the battery once it or the flashlight eventually dies? Say, past the warranty of 5 years, at 6 years.

Does your 5 year warranty only apply if the battery is fully dead? What if the capacity of it is severely degraded to where the light could only be on for 10 minutes on a single charge. Would the warranty still apply?

flash17 · December 28, 2023, 1:37pm

Can u send me a better pic of the bottom of that battery. Thx u

Henk4U2 · December 28, 2023, 2:49pm

I can see the surgery was performed with great success. What about the patient: did he/she survive?

lunarFu · December 28, 2023, 9:01pm

Here you go, QR code reads: 04qce35221101 bd3a2185814 (I think)

Negative is rerouted to the top of the battery, can’t tell if there is any protection on the cell. Hard to tell w/o removing the wrapper.
Diameter is: 46mm
Total length: 97 ± .5 mm

The top contacts for the positive and negative are sanded down smoothly. Probably in an effort to have a better matting surface with the flashlight head.

lunarFu · December 28, 2023, 9:06pm

Yup! all is still working and without a mark. I was a little scared of cracking the housing because I had to put my whole weight into it for the threads to loosen up.
The thread locker they used was also a pain to clean fully out of the threads. Isopropyl did not seem to do much to help soften it and I did not want to use acetone. I had to use a metal pick to get all the hardened thread locker chunks out of the threads and then lube the o-rings and threads w/ Molykote 111 before assembly.

undefined · December 28, 2023, 9:14pm

The better question is why did they use blue loctite. If they really wanted to keep people from opening it, they should have used red.

lunarFu · December 28, 2023, 9:19pm

It was blue in colour, but behaved like red loctite in that it was crispy hard, very stiff and extremely hard to break. Actual loctite blue remains more gummy and flexible from my experience.

undefined · December 28, 2023, 9:25pm

Based on how much was still on those threads, it definitely wasn’t red loctite (or a blue colored knock off of red loctite). That much red loctite and you’d have had to use a torch to get it unscrewed.

lunarFu · December 28, 2023, 9:44pm

Ok Mr. Blue Loctite expert
I do work out, so my arms are better than multiple torches

But ya maybe it was just alot of blue, or maybe the blue hardened more than normal due to the heat given off by the light or the use of a primer.

undefined · December 28, 2023, 9:51pm

Going by the pictures, it’s pretty impressive you managed to get it unscrewed without damaging something. They used an obscene amount of thread locker. After this thread, I can only image what they’ll try next to keep people from opening their own lights! “Lumintop GT4695 v2 - Now with pinned and welded caps!”

lunarFu · December 28, 2023, 10:05pm

Thanks! Those strap wrenches were awesome.
Ya, I assume Luminous did that because of some issue they saw. Maybe end-users were unscrewing the lights and putting the battery in upside down or loosely and then blaming them when the light didn’t work. Or maybe the threads loosened up during shipping on pre-production models. Or they had people swap batteries with new lights before and return them.
That or they are just being evil and making sure the light will be useless in X years, so that we the customer has to buy a new one.

I really hope this is not an industry trend, because I don’t appreciate being locked out of my own flashlight and I do think this would make it more challenging to recycle.

Boaz · December 28, 2023, 11:11pm

Now your career as a hard to open flashlight opener begins .

texas_shooter · December 28, 2023, 11:52pm

The whole outer body, tail and top donut ring are the negative shell. Only the top disc is positive. That’s just the way the 46xx series are made. So no PCB protection, these cells are designed for up to 1100 watts output. 80% recharge in 30 minutes.

lunarFu · December 28, 2023, 11:58pm

Right, the bare cell is just positive on top and negative everywhere else, however these cells have the negative rerouted to a ring on top of the battery. The rest of the ground points are insulated on the cell. Considering that this is not a normal 4695 cell, how do you know for a fact that no protection board exists? Have you removed the wrapper on a luminous 4695 cell to verify?

texas_shooter · December 29, 2023, 4:42am

This is a normal cell for the 46xx series. They all have a large positive point, so a 250 amp PCB would be rather thick and obvious as it would only be on the top. As this top looks like all the other EVE46950’s I doubt there is one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J66KQuUQwQI&t=4s This video cuts the outside.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG4ttGqOyMc&t=90s This one goes into the guts.

lunarFu · December 30, 2023, 7:37am

Sooooo I got bored and took the head apart too.

I did damage 2 things slightly this time:

Scratched the pin lock ring holding the driver in; I didn’t realize it was reverse threaded so was trying to open it in the wrong direction. I was able to clean it up with sand paper and a buffer wheel.
Ruined the reflector finish; When trying to get the lock nut off I tried using acetone to remove any further loctite, this however evaporated and landed in the reflector and ruined the clear coat paint on the reflector by bubbling it. It should be fine though as the actual reflector is made of aluminium which can be polished easily.

Components on driver board:

Unknown MCU, SOP-16, potentially a STC15W202S or similar. The model # is sanded off of the chip. Pin-7 is not connected to anything.
W332 GM99, QFN32, Lipo charge controller
3x tx 150n03 xds2218a, QFN8, MOSFETs
SB1045L, TO-277, Schottky Diode 45V, 10A

Take away:

There is no threadlocker on any of the head components.
The lock ring under the driver is reverse threaded. All other threads on the flashlight are in a normal direction.
The LED board needs to be de-soldered to remove the driver PCB.
I did not need any special jig to remove the lock ring / bezel holding the lens and reflector in. I used a rubber mallet to hit it a bunch of times to the left to unthread it. No damage.
The threads for one of the screws holding the LED board down to the head was stripped from factory. It was just sitting there 1/2 loose. Will need to rethread the hole and use a bigger screw when putting it back in.
Yes, @texas_shooter the 4650 cell is not protected. You are right.
The lens is coated with something on the backside.

Pix:

SammysHP · December 30, 2023, 8:43am

Urgh, that’s bad. A reflector cannot be made by polishing, you can’t get the surface smooth enough. You need a PVD machine to coat it again.

lunarFu · December 30, 2023, 10:02am

True, probably wont be as great as the original. Maybe I can find another reflector that would fit.

Henk4U2 · December 30, 2023, 10:41am

I’m not proud of it but when you use superglue, to immobilize a centering ring, you should also wait a few minutes before re-assembling the reflector

The_Flashaholic · February 11, 2024, 10:33am

Just got the GT4695, the battery is DOA and won’t charge. Typical Lumintop quality.