Here it is:
I am not sure what kind of glue it is, but you can see the spill of it on the pictures.
That stains can be removed but they definitely stick, so not grease 
Any suggestions?
Heat is always good to remove a lot of differnt glue types.
Someone suggested in another’s thread to use lighter fuel on a thread locked olight pill. But I haven’t tried this personally…
Werner suggestion is good. Have you tried to put the light in a bag and then in boiling water for a couple minutes?
Till now, not. I tried to clamp it on a vise but i didn’t want to broke it so i stopped.
But I have a bigger problem now.
BANG! I fried the led.
It happened when i tried to add more heat paste under the led. I soldered off, put on that grease, and resoldered, it worked but i put too much tin on the cables and the reflector didn’t fit. I removed some, but the cables were very poor quality, the insulation melted off. I reassembled the light, but the beam was off center, so I reassembled it. The light flashed once, then turned off automatically. I did it(ugly me) twice, then the led went south. I tested the driver with voltmeter( i dont have spare led now) and it showed 8V on high without load, about 6v on mid and 2.6v on low. I think the driver is working, and because it has a small coil, it may have enough sag under load to make that 4V. So i am looking for a new led. I’ll stick with stock reflector. Any suggestions? xm-l2?
I fixed it with an other xm-lt6 led. Now it is working. I started modding it for sure.
I did a resistor mod with a 0.22Ohm physical resistor. Before the mod, with the stock t6 led it could do 12.8klux at 2m.Now, with 1.8A tail cap current it does only 13-14.5klux, the biggest measure was 16k, once.
My question is that isn’t is too little increase in luxes for the double amperage?
Another interesting thing imho, how much does the reflector centering affect throw ? apart from being an unevven hotspot?
My reflector is floating on the solder blobs, even with centering rink installed. How could i get rid of this thing? I use as few solder as i can, but it isn’t few enough. Grind down the reflector with dremel?
You are dealing with a couple of the big challenges with this light.
I'm guessing the poor lux numbers are due to the emitter no longer being properly focused. It's a big deal because the reflector is designed to project the light out from a fixed point in the base of the reflector. It sounds like you remitter is now lower than it should be and maybe also off center. I'm I reading you right on that?
Be very careful grinding. I tried that on a HD2010 (similar reflector design) and ground through the finish in 2 spots. The reflector is likely thinner walled then you perceive it to be down in that area. I don't know the answer as I have yet to revisit this issue after ruining my HD2010 reflector. Look around the HD2010 threads for a solution as they have about the same problem. Check out what this DBCstm did in Post 461 of the following thread (he has since taken this emitter out and gone to xpg2. Look toward the last post in the same thread.):
Have you really doubled current?
How is the spot size before and after?
Yes, if my dmm works well, it now doubled, about 3.6A to emitter. Hotspot seems to be about the same. It’s edge is just not sharp, it has a “fog” aroud it.
I haven’t measured because the reflektor bell is glued to the pill, so i have to disassemble the whole light to work on each part. Afaik, i measured the throw right after i got it, with stock soldering, i think the reflector fitted well. It was 50.4kcd @1m. Now it is about 62Kcd.
Increased, but not by much. I think i will try to get thinner cables(anyway 3.6A needs a huge cable) and work with even less solder, or file down that solder blob more. No doubt it is off-focus, if i shake the light the centering ring rattles.
Update; I’ve got a new idea. I’ll solder a thin copper strip to the terminals, so i can bring the blobs more away from the reflector. Just one mm is enough.
Sounds like a good idea. I hope it works. If it does, I will be copying your approach on my light.
just a note on this light.
It is fairly critical to get the base of the reflector, plastic or metal( i have worked with both) to be seated tightly against the centering ring. The centering ring for the plastic reflector is a bit thinner than the plastic centering ring for the aluminum reflector. To get the most throw and best focus of the hotspot, proper seating to the centering ring is necessary. I do agree once a 20mm star is installed in this light it is more difficult to get clearance from the solder connections but not impossible. Here’s what i do that may help. I put pressure on the wire with the butt end of a set of tweezers and then use a wiping motion with the soldering iron to get the solder to “lay” down as thin as possible. Hope this helps.
I did it. Now the reflector sits quite well on the centering ring. However, it didn’t give me any improvement on throw @2m. Still about 14.5klux.
If you do it like me, make sure you insulated the tabs wery well, because mine is shorting out again somewhere after the measurement without centering ring. It turns on, and then off after one or two seconds, so there may be a sligjt shorting somewhere. Repairing it tomorrow
Thanks for the report siletto. Nice work. It looks good. If you don't have any, you should get some kapton tape. That stuff is so handy for preventing shorts. It would be cheap short-prevention insurance to put on those copper tabs. I'm pretty sure I will be copying your mod on my light.
Best wishes locating the short. I imagine you know that those plastic reflectors conduct electricity due to the metalized finish.
I don't know if 60kcd is reasonable for the T13 with a dome at 3.6 amps. Anyone out there have any thought on that?
I'm betting you know that if want to up throw significantly, you will need to dedome, get the emitter on copper, and up the amps.
Yes, i am aware of that dedome.maybe i’ll do this one tome, but since i screwed up my first xm-l dedome in gas, i am a bit afraid of dedoming.I think ill buy some 1.5dollar xp-e to practice on, because breaking down xmls are a bit expensive learning tool.
As for the reflector, it has its metal paint on the inside, and this short exist with reflector removed and led floating in the flashlight bell. If i put it together, it even won’t turn on. Without reflector it lights up some seconds. Tomorrow i’ll test the driver agin with that 1 ohm resistor to ensure it is working. If it is, i order the 60mm kd aspheric lens for future modding and maybe an xp-g2.
Man, i can’t believe this. As for the light cutoff, it wasn’t a short… Somehow one of the two batteries had only 3volts in it. So after some seconds, it tripped, and won’t turn on until the battery regenerated a bit.It is working now.
My next question is how should i clean the reflector? It is full of small scratches, but also a bit greasy, so i’d like to clean it off. Maybe dishwasher will work?
Reflector cleaning is dangerous stuff - only thing I do is blow it with a hand squeeze air ball, or I've rinsed them, then blow the water droplets off -- it does nothing but remove dust and particles. I even tried soap poured directl on fingerprints, then rinsed, didn't remove them at all - no effect. You can't touch or rub them - they will scratch. Others have had success, but dunno how -- licking is probably the best way, believe it or not.
60 kcd at 3.6A on a T13 isn't that bad - not sure of your specific, exact mods. I've gotten 145 kcd at 3.2-3.4A, de-domed XM-L2 U2 on copper, and 155 kcd with an UCL/p lens.
I was wondering if some RODICO watch cleaning putty might help clean the reflector, anyone tried it?
I only trued up the pill surface, then put a small copper disk under the led board because i removed too much form the pill and it was rattling, of course with a whole bunch of thermal grease, and did the resistor mod. That’s all.
Well, i removed the centering ring, but with the ring installed it gave me more luxes.
I Just testrd it yesterday, and i think my smartpho e light sensor(maybe because it is ander gorilla glass) reads less than it should. I could light up a hillside about 700m away-of course it wasn’t too bright.
I finally received the 60mm lens from KD, and sadly my lens is also a crap. It looks good outside but projects the die image around a ring, like a smooth reflector with rings. I contacted kd but i doubt they will send me another. I’ll try the dealextreme, they have an 59mm lens, but with unknown focal properties.
Hi Siletto. Sorry to hear about that lens being a let down. Thank you for reporting on it.
I actually assembled a light, and did a throw measurement. It is in fact better than reflector.
Phone measure(about 20%conservative):
reflector:91kCd maybe 110k
this lens:122KCd maybe 150k
With quality lens it could be imho closer to 200k with xml2u2.
Will try an ez900 direct to copper @ 2A.