Sometime ago I received my C2 from DealExtreme. My initial reaction when I saw the output was to blow it up or launch it up in the sky. I contacted DX and they offered to replace it for me, they seem to be good people. Problem is that the C2 is out of stock and I do
not want to wait for a replacement two more months. So I decided to dissect it to have a look at the driver and the innards of the switch. I took the switch apart and had to superglue it back together, utter junk. Then I went for the pill..
With the protective cover off. Strange looking star thingy. I desoldered one lead and measured current to the led, 1090 mA.
Very good. Now I decided to leave the driver alone since it is soldered to the pill with high temp solder, very hard to get loose.
It turns out that the star thingy is glued with a dab of ordinary contact glue to the heatsink. No thermal paste. Not so good.
I put in a cutdown P4 WC tint star. Put some thermal grease under it.
Put the broken cover back on. I will fix this with epoxy later.
The result is good. The light is now about as bright as it should be, slightly over 4000 Lux in throw and slightly over 8400 Lux in total output. It's almost as bright as the DX Eastward YJ U2 style light.
Before i changed the emitter the output was about 2500 Lux in throw and 4000 Lux in total output.
This b*gger was the problem. Defective Cree led, bin unknown.
This is not a good flashlight. It is poorly designed and constructed. With a good switch and better quality control it would have some potential.
Stefan
