PT APEX

I have 1 PT Apex and access to two others that all have encountered the same problem. We (a couple dog mushers and I) cut the cord on these and with great care to match the polarity we put a trailer type connector on the cord. with the extension going to the stock battery pack and another going to a Dcell pack with same power and the A cells. The first one worked wonderfully for 8 months and just "died" in the middle of a trining run. The little green indicator light still comes on, but no main beam. The other two had the same end result, but never produced a main beam after the cord cutting. So two questions. 1.) Does any know how to fix this (I'm pretty electronic incompetent beyond the basics)?
2.) Can these be modded into something brighter with a tighter beam?

Your contacts could have corroded from moisture and so on. Did you have a battery in the light when you cut the wires? This might have shorted the light and killed some of the electronics.

I'm thinking of doing more or less the same and I know of at least one other member who has done it before without any issues.

AFAIK there aren't any good reflector/optic mods out for the Apex. You could probably turn down a reflector to fit, but that is a lot of work and doesn't always work out well.

Does anyone know what the current drive to the luxeon is?

Hello musherbryan and welcome to CPF

I'll tell you what I would do.

Control all connections to be sure, that they will work. When they are ok, take out the batteries and open the head, take all apart. Desolder one wire from the Led and test the Led with one CR123 or 2xAA cells if it works. If not, the failure is a smoked Led, otherwise the driver is smoked.
So in case one, change the Led, in case 2 change the driver (i.e. flupic powered by one LiIon 18650 cell in mod. housing).

Hope this helps. Best regards

_____
Tom

An IMS 17 reflector fits in their with room to spare. I think it improves the beam quite a bit.

oh boy I think I need to go to head light school!!! those last two responses left me in the dark. Time to do some research and get a basic electronis book at the library. are there places where I can readily find the so mentioned parts?

musherbryan said:

oh boy I think I need to go to head light school!!! those last two responses left me in the dark. Time to do some research and get a basic electronis book at the library. are there places where I can readily find the so mentioned parts?

Click to expand...

musherbryan, as for the parts:

LuxIII Led's you can get by member "PhotonFanatic",Cree-Led's in the "Groupbuy-forum", LiIon-cells by member "AW", a Flupic-board by member "Goldserve" and the 17mm IMS reflector at the "SandwichShoppe".

Best regards

____
Tom