I bought a CREE XML 8x and it’s DOA.

When it’s all charged up and switched on (green light on) it will flash if you tap the casing – something loose?

It’s more hassle than worth (and postage) to send back so fancy taking it apart and seeing if I can fix the loose connection.

I’ve got the lens off and desoldered the + – wires on the front of the unit but cannot for the life of me work out how to get the rest of it apart.

Any experience with this please?

The driver will probably be glued to to an aluminum piece fixed to the back of the led board.
The screw holding the mount on normally screws into this. If you remove the screw the rest should pull out.

I was hoping that was it but no luck 🙁

Removed the mount and screw but it’s still not moving – I thought there may be a grub screw or similar at the top of/inside the thread but no.

Could the board with the lights be glued in place? (there is a white “gluey” looking line around the circumference of the board)

When I took an older version of that light to bits the led board screwed into the body.
You had to put a pair of pins (I used nails) into a vice spaced the same as the holes in the led board, drop the light onto them and turn the body to undo it.

Yep I took apart an original single XML light years ago. Had to unscrew the board similar to above, think I used a couple of small jewelers screwdrivers to unscrew it. Once you get over the initial friction you can do it by hand, i.e. without screwdrivers.

As it was only a cheap light and I can re use the batteries I resulted to brute force… I had to see how the bugger went together.

The board was glued on – I had tried heating it with a hairdryer and it still wouldn’t budge. Even when I had a thin flat screwdriver/knife trying to flip it out, it was glued in so tight that all that happened was chipping the board 🙁

The original problem seems to have been a long solid wire coming from the copper coil thing(!) was not soldered properly to the top of that small black chip/mosfet with the 3 pins on the right.

Not sure how I’d get one apart if the need arises again…

Thanks for the help anyway guys 🙂