Watch this space…
So my Z2 lasted 10 months, now the switch is intermittent/broken.
I have been hoping someone would take these apart and figure out how to mod them.
Pulling the green cover off and unscrewing the little retaining ring, there’s no apparent way to get the switch out (nor, after taking the battery tube off, is there any apparent way to get the pill out from the other side). The switch is a little black button offset in a white ring set into the gray metal of the head.
This switch is most likely just worn out; the LED lights up with the button half-pressed slightly off center, and changes modes erratically in that condition, but it’s dark when the switch is fully clicked.
And this, as mentioned above, has been my everyday-pedestrian-crosswalk attention-getting light. It’s saved my life a couple of times last winter on dark rainy nights — during the commuter hour, in a crosswalk, when some idiot with superbright blue headlights was racing up to the intersection.
Fast strobe straight into the windshield, wait, wait SCREECH OF BRAKES as the driver wakes up.
Ah.
I’ll probably try a little tuner/electronics cleaner and try that in the switch area, if I can’t figure out how to remove it.
Fortunately I like this light enough that I’d already bought a spare Z2
(from FT, still in its box, you know, “just in case” — well that worked out).
So — anyone else working on these lights?
(Meanwhile, I just swapped a little-used Z1 head onto the Z2 battery tube, which works fine. The Z1 is meant for 3v lithium CR123 cells but lights up OK on the AA battery tube with 1.2v NiMH and also fine with li-ion).
I suppose I could hope the switch in the Z1 is a little better made, but that would be optimistic.
Time will tell.
I actually prefer the Z1’s three speeds (bright, low, strobe; with mode memory) to the Z2’s five speeds (bright, medium, low, fast strobe, SOS; also with mode memory).
Somewhere in this thread I promised to mod my z2. But it has not happened because the z2 is extremely unservicable. I also have not been able to do anything about a faulty switch I had, just impossible to get it out, press-fit extremely tight, perhaps glued..
Yeah, it's a very tough light to work on. It's even tough just to cut in half. Maybe I'll finish that up tomorrow and post some pictures so you can see just what you'd have to deal with.
Thank you in advance (grin)
I’ve been thinking of just drilling into the white plastic around the switch and around the battery-contact button to try to get some leverage to twist and pull those things out of the head, but waiting a bit to see if anyone has had a better idea work out.
Also ordered a “Moon M6” to see if that very similar light is any better. (Says it’s 1xAA three-mode)
I’m still using my Z2, by the way, as it’s easily pocketable, and I rely on the strobe (and mode memory) for walking at night, so it’s always ready to deter careless drivers. And it’s noticeably brighter with a lithium-ion or an Energizer lithium primary cell.
The “Moon M6” was a decent little light, but had “next mode memory” so less useful as a crosswalk light…
Mine isn’t around anymore, must have been in the box-o-lights that I at some point gave away. It was goodlooking though 
They are still available at some stores in AliExpress 