It’s no use. The screw that holds the reflector is totally shredded… It’s completely round inside. What should I do now?
Of 2 lights, looking at tailcap screws, one of the screws has the head grooves all rounded out.
I think they’re using hand tools, not precision tools.
And cheap pot metal screws of the fragile “use once to assemble, do not remove and replace” quality grade.
Blame it on the supplier.
Hey, save any possible penny and the dollars look after themselves.
Those could be Recex Screws (haven’t looked at mine, yet). It’s a combination square & phillips head. Usually a proper size square drive will work, without a combo driver.
For mangled head, try square drive while lightly tapping with hammer, while turning, may need extra set of hands.
Ouch! The one who assembled your flashlight had drunk all the baijiu
Another problem is how incredibly hard it’s been screwed down. I thought I had it at one time with a flat head. Then my Wera gold power bit broke in half…
If you have a vice (or something else that can securely hold the head still), you could try a left-handed drill bit to hopefully back the screw out. It’s tempting to reach for the EZ-Outs, but they have a tendency to make things worse.
Put a drop or two of light “sewing machine” oil around the stuck screw.
Set it aside for 24 hours to give the oil time to work its way down around the stuck threads.
Then try anything that could back it out.
A little debris down in the threads can jam the thing; getting oil in can relive that jam.
I could see that the abrasion pattern of the tube edge was only hitting the driver ring about 1.5 inches directly around one screw head.
I sucked in my gut and decided to unscrew and drill to get better contact. I found a bit in my Milwaukee set marked PH1 that fit very well.
They came out fairly easily with moderate applied downward force which alleviated my anxiety, somewhat.
I used a 1/8 inch bit to drill out the driver holes and scraped the burrs from both sides. I checked the threaded holes in the body and scraped a very small burr from one.
Used a toothpick to maintain the alignment while replacing the screws and used only moderate torque to assure seating.
The result is very satisfying. Before doing this, I handheld the light through 3 consecutive forced turbo cycles (aprox 9 minutes)
I just got through cycle one and started to force a second……no way!!! Ouch!
My hotrod is HOT now. Thanks for the tips and encouragement to newbies like me.
Looks like we got the same results! Awesome.
Has anyone actually removed the reflector screw? Mine has to be superglued or something…
Things I might try:
Penetrating oil and whack a small cold chisel into the head to try to make a slot for purchase.
Penetrating oil and try to turn the screw by tapping the head around using a punch or cold chisel.
Drill or grind the head off, once it’s apart try to unscrew the stub with pliers, mole grip etc.
Drill the screw out all the way down, if you are really good, and lucky, you just might keep the threads in the reflector, otherwise be prepared to tap it the next size larger, or helicoil it.
Ask a favour of a colleague to EDM (spark erode) it out (you probably need to work in aerospace for this option).
Tig or stick weld something onto the head that you can crank on.
Edit: if there was any sort of head left un-mullered, I’d first try an impact driver, with a diamond coated bit.
Thanks for all the tips guys, but I think I’ll give up for the time being.
I quite satisfied anyway. I just hoped that I could change the LEDs to 219c 4000k.
I measured the candela to 56kcd when I first got it. Now after spring bypasses and drilling bigger holes in the driver board I got 73kcd 
side switch board modified to even out the LED brightness
Cree LEDs of the same reel usually have quite the same Vf,
but for those tiny SMD LEDs the emitting area is a lot smaller, so they may vary a lot more
Unsoldered LEDs and switch just holding my temp stabilized iron at 300°C at the other side
also skillet might work well
then cut the trace to one LED and add a resistor
add solder paste
add resistor and wire
2 white LEDs with 19.1kOhms each
Lots of nice tips here on fixing issues. Thanks for posting up all and keep them coming. 
Got two Q8 today, measured about 5250 lumens with the first one and 4820 with the second one with Samsung 30Q. Did the usual modifications at the tailcap with the first one (some cleaning, thick wires over tail PCB traces, spring bypasses). Gained about 1000 lumens for a total of 6250 lumens. Easiest mod ever, like it.
And also flashed my own firmware without any problems.
What do you mean by “thick wires over tail PCB traces”? Could you post a picture?
Thanks! :+1:
But what is the purpose of this? And the red wire?
He cut the traces, red wire is for a clamp meter