53

I emitter swapped my Folomov 18650s today. :sunglasses:

This fixed the issue I was having with the emitter blue-shifting and getting dimmer with some fully-charged cells. Turns out the 219D just can’t take high current.

No pictures, but here’s how to emitter swap the 18650s:

  • The head looks like it’s in one piece, but it really isn’t. The bezel is the smooth portion ahead of the fins on the head. It’s just screwed onto the head. I applied 3M indoor stairway grip tape in a ring around the head and another around the fins and unscrewed. The bezel came off easily. There was no glue, but there is an o-ring.
  • With the bezel and lens removed, lift or tip out the smooth reflector to reveal the star.
  • The star is copper and is screwed onto the full shelf on the head with 2 screws. There is one wire connecting ground to the star. On the back of the star is a soldered post that directly contacts the top of the battery. The star also has 2 resistors on it. There is no other board at the head of the light. The driver is in the tail.
  • Desolder the negative wire from the star, then unscrew and lift out the star. Some thermal paste was used under the star, but more would be better.
  • The hardest part was heating up the star enough to remove the emitter without the post on the back getting out of position. I used a wooden clothesclip held sideways in a vise to grip the post on the bottom of the star, then used hot air reflow to remove and replace the emitter. I replaced it with a XPL V6 3D that I had laying around. I might end up replacing this later with an XPL HI for more throw.
  • I also added a copper disk onto the bottom of the post at the bottom of the star to allow flat-top cells to be used.