This morning, out of frustration at my oh-so-green S20, I unscrewed the bezel and removed the lens.
There is no doubt that the lens coating is the issue. There is noticeable spring pressure upward on the reflector and the light will not come on with the lens removed; I held the reflector down with the tip of my finger to regain contact and cycled the light through all modes. The light without the lens is a rather cool white - I’d say at least 2B or a bit cooler. No hint of green whatsoever. I’m off in search of a better lens.
Incidentally, the lens measures 1.6 mm thick by 19 mm diameter. The red “o-ring” is in fact a red silicone channel that the lens fits into; the pressure of the bezel compresses the channel into what I’m sure is a good waterproof seal. I suspect there’s very little forgiveness in either thickness or diameter with a replacement lens. 1.5 mm thickness would probably work, as you can feel the silicone channel start to compress almost one full thread before it bottoms out. It’s fairly well squeezed when everything is tightened up.
May I ask how you unscrewed the bezel? Seems pretty hard with the 5-point notch system and I think someone said that there’s glue between the threads too. :o
It would sure be nice if the tint could be changed just by replacing the lens.
I don’t have an S20, but I do have an S10, which has the same bezel design. Unscrewing it is very easy. At least on my S10, there was no threadlocker between the threads.
1. Get a rubber pad from your grocery store. The kind used to open stuck jars.
2. place the pad in the palm of your left hand.
3. Hold the flashlight in your right hand and press the bezel hard into the pad in your left hand.
4. Turn to unscrew the bezel. It should come right off.
To remove the lens and lens gasket once the bezel is off:
Place a battery into the battery tube and press. The pill and reflector should move forward several mm and then stop (it stops when the alignment tab hits the bezel threads).
After it stops, grip the outer edge of the reflector and unscrew. The tab should engage the bezel threads and unscrew through them. The pill should then come out.
Once the pill is out, unscrew the reflector from the pill. A standard 16mm star fits just fine.
Another good technique to remove bezels with an odd number of points (meaning there won’t be 2 straight across from each other for a pair of split -ring plyers to engauge) is bondo. You can pick up a small tube of bondo almost anywhere, use a piece of cling-wrap / plastic-wrap to cover & protect the light and then fill the bezel with bondo and allow to dry, that gives you a nice, perfectly shaped tool for bezel removal, just wright on the tool what light it’s for, a $7 tube of bondo should make tools for all your lights.
First time I unscrewed the bezel on my S10 I used long-nosed pliers inserted into the little notches in the bezel. It worked, but was slow. It also caused scratches when the pliers slipped.
The rubber pad works much better. It’s faster and has no chance of scratching the light.
Thanks for the replies, I was surprised that it was so easy. It opened easily by pressing against rubber and twisting. The bondo trick is sounds good too, might be useful in the future.
So changing the lens seems to be an easy task. But where to get a good replacement lenses? Such lenses should be pretty popular if it fixes the tint in these lights.
That’s the trick…someone said KaiDomain sells one. I posted on CNQG Ric’s AR Coated Lens thread, about how many folks need a 19x1.5mm lens for their S10/20s to help the tint. Feel free to show him there’s a market for these on that thread.
Im not so sure if its the lens only…
I just swapped in a XM-L2 4C N/W emitter, and it went even greener ! even without the lens !
Is there somthing else here causing this in the S20 ?
The S20 uses a non pwm driver, forgotten what it’s called exactly, but it’s supposed to be more efficient as the light doesn’t constantly flicker like pwm drivers. The drawback is tint shift when driven at lower levels.
I really don’t get what all the fuss is, unless you’re using it just for white walling in practical use the slight green tint isn’t noticeable.
I discovered its alot to do with the reflector angle that contributes to the tint in the S20. i tried a different reflector over the S20 pill while bench-testing it and the tint is normal with a different reflector.
