TLS Q5 in a Surefire 6P wont work.. Please help..

I recently aquired a TLX Q5 bezel. It looks like an M6 bezel, but with the TLS C to M adaptor I am able to lego it to my bored out 6P.

It will not light up. I pulled the springs to reach the cells ( due to the adapter) and still no light?:candle:

Any feedback?

Thanks,
bigC

Remove the tailcap and batteries and look down the tube from the tail end. Can you visually verify that the outer spring is making contact with the unanodized shoulder in the flashlight neck? Drop the cells into the tube. Can you feel the TLS head's center spring push on the cells?

If you have some easily rubbed off coloring, try painting some of the coloring on the battery top button and on the shoulder of the flashlight neck. Then install the TLS head. Remove the head and verify that the coloring was rubbed off, indicating electrical contact by the springs.

Try comparing the spring lengths on the TLS head to the springs on another SF TH with SF Turbo LA installed.

Have you verified that the TLS head actually works? Try hooking up 1xLi-ion to the outer and center springs. The Cree XR-E Q5 should light.

I have the same head and adapter. The adapter came with an extender that looks like a circuit board embedded into a brass ring. In the middle of the circuit board is a smaller spring and surrounding the brass ring is a larger spring. This adapter is pressed onto the outer spring of the head and makes this combo work. Did you get one of those adapters?

Big-C gave me this light tonight to try and troubleshoot.
I tried it in a number of P60 hosts, both with the included adapter and with a longer spring he supplied. No dice. I hot wired it straight to 2x18650 cells.... nada.






I think the DC-board is bonkos on this one. It sporadically flickers dimly at random. I am going to fiddle with it some more to try and bring it back to life. Too bad its messed, its SMOKING paired with my M2 body.




BUMP... any ideas? Its pretty straightforward, XRE-Q5 in a brass pill with a large reflector. If I can't revive it, I'll just do a driver swap. I have some 3-18V 17mm boards that would work well in a light like this.

yeah,driver swap most probably will revive this module,that hotwired is my last option as well.
Or try desolder those 2 wires on the emitter and hotwired the emitter,if it light up than it is confirmed the circuit is fried.

Kramer5150,

The extra pill is actually the spacer needed to be used in a 6P hosts

Since the reflector is already an OP texture, you could transplant a new driver and swap the XR-E for an MC-E. To test that the LED is working and that the problem is the driver, you can use 1x123A and connect it to the LED directly. No need to de-solder the LED connections. Still, the problem could be both LED and driver, and this test can't determine that. Since the problem is either the LED, driver, or both, at some point you have to de-solder the LED anyway, so I suppose you may as well do it now. Then use 1x123A to test the LED. Get a known-good test LED and connect that to the driver and power it up.

FYI, I have a TLS E to M adapter and a TLS TX3 head and the combo works without needing to use the extender dongle. The pill is backed out a bit to help focus the Cree MC-E that is transplanted into the head.

Fiddled with it last night and its a dead pill. I could not get it to light with ANY cell or host body combination... even hot wired outside of the host.

I am pretty sure they soldered the DC board from the inside, either that or its just pressed in place (looks like the latter).

They didn't even adhere the LED to the pill... its just loosely floating with some thermal paste. Good news for me is that it will be as easy as desoldering 2 wires to pull the LED.

Is there any easy (IE non-destructive) way to get the DC-DC board out?




It looks like its just pressed in, as theres no trace of solder anywhere.
:thinking:

If the driver isn't grounded to the brass pill, then the photo you showed of how you powered the light might not work. I see a wire touching the center spring and another wire touching the brass pill.

Before you disassemble the pill, you should touch the Batt- wire to the outer trace of the driver board instead of the brass pill.

Now maybe the driver is grounded to the pill internally, but since there is no visual indication of any grounding, I would avoid the issue by going directly to the ground trace on the driver. If the LED still doesn't light, then I'd feel more confident that the driver is dead.

If the driver is friction fitted into the pill, then a non-destructive method could be to solder some wires to the driver to make a convenient handle and pull out the board.

You could try using a thin, strong screwdriver blade to pry up an edge of the board. Depending on the friction or if there is any glue, you might make only superficial, cosmetic nicks in the driver rim or you might chew up more of the board.

Justin Case said:

The pill is backed out a bit to help focus the Cree MC-E that is transplanted into the head.

Click to expand...

Did you have to open up the opening for the XR-E to fit the MC-E? This sounds like something I might do to mine.

(Edit)
Never mind. I did a search and had plenty to read. Thanks!

Thanks all for your replies!! Yeah Justin I tried to touch the battery -ive to the outer trace, but still got no response.

I finally got the little bugger apart by pushing it out firmly with a small allen wrench and tapping on it with a hammer.


I can't see whats wrong with it, the mode control EPROM is on a daughter board and COATED with thermal grease. I wonder if this stuff is semi-conductive and thats whats messing it up?

This light has no thermal conduction path directly to the outside body tube/walls. Do you all think 1.4A will overheat the XPG-R4 I plan to use?:thinking: Its just a big reflector, brass pill and spring.

The thermal path is through the brass pill, down the reflector, into the bezel/holder thing. I, too, thought about dropping a XP-G into mine with a nice driver.

I believe that the original driver pumps out 700mA to the emitter on high. I tested mine with a few different battery combos and the amperage that I measured drops as the voltage goes up at the tail cap.

I am using one of these heads to run a Diamond Dragon
at 1.5A
No problems so far but I only use it for 5 minutes at a time