here are a couple of internal picts I just took:
the regulation circuit is obviously on the bottom and the flasher on/off circuit above under that bit of asphalt. The 2 are quite separate.
and the other side with the heat sink and LED:
I think this is pretty high quality construction actually, look at that heat shrink on there and the white heat sink epoxy holding the LED to the metal bracket.
It's obviously around R5 and R5A that the flash rate is set as I was able to affect it by pressing a dampened finger over them. Then experimenting with some wire to short them I got a little careless I'm afraid and let out the magic smoke, quite a realistic effect too. So stay away from Q1 when you're messing around if you short it to the neighboring capacitor it will let out a little puff of foul smelling you just blew me up smoke.
interesting thing is that it failed on. So now i just have to take the batteries out when I want to turn it off
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's Q1 that it hosed so I am going to try to replace it with another surface mount transistor and see what happens. If anything I may be able to bypass their strange control circuit alltogether and just use a regular clicky switch and there is even room in there to put a new PWM system against the regulator chip... Could turn into a bigger project
Or perhaps I'll just buy a new one!