My TK11 took a beating, now the beam is messed up...

Hey everyone. I've mentioned before how much use and occasionally, abuse my Fenix TK11 gets whilst I'm using it at work. For those of you who haven't seen mention of that, I'm an electronics, computer and network engineer and where my TK11 gets the most use is in crawlspaces and attics of residential and business premesis, both completed structures and building sites. I generally don't mind it getting the odd knock or scratch here and there because it's a very well made light and it really can take the abuse.

It got slightly more than a small knock a couple of weeks though, when it fell (got knocked actually) out of the attic of a building I was working in, down through two stories and landed on it's head on bare concrete. Obviously it took a little damage from that - there's quite a bad ding on a couple of the crennelations on the head, but the light still works. It did "stove in" the positive contact on the 18650 cell that was in it at the time, meaning that I can only use that - at my own risk... I know not to trust it - in lights that have a pointy positive spring or contact at the end of the battery tube.

Anyway, apart from the battery and the slight damage on the ridiculously robust head of the TK11, it seems the fall also knocked the LED slightly out of place as well which causes the beam to have more artifacts and distortion than usual. This is really hard to describe so I will go and take some photos of the flashlight later so you can see the damage, but I was wondering if anyone has ever successfully opened the [apparently factory sealed] head of a TK11 before? I don't really want to void the warranty, and I think this thing is still under warranty. I suppose that if for some reason it does fail in the future I would want to be able to send it back, but I'd like some input on whether the driver and reflector assembly can be removed from the head so I can maybe get a better look at the damage to the LED holder and possibly repair it... because it seems really unlikely that the actual driver circuit is going to fail given the amount of abuse it has taken already and the fact that it still works. I'd just like to sort the LED alignment out because as many of you know the beam pattern of the TK11 is bad enough when the LED is in it's proper place, never mind a few millimeters out of place :shakehead

Thanks in advance, pics to follow - and I'll also post those in the "lights at work" thread if I can find it and dig it up :thumbsup:

I don't know the answers of your questions but about your thoughts on voiding warranty my guess is that it could be hard to claim warranty anyway when your light has got beaten up as you describes.

The led normally should be epoxied in place. i could only imagine that the reflector might have shifted.
However, i'd see if you can have it done by warranty.
Opening the head on fenix lights can be difficult, and you'll need to boil it in a plastic bag, as it is glued.

You're probably right Gunnar, although you could also argue that a flashlight used in a military deployment setting would also undergo a similar level of use and get the same treatment as my light. It's not like I throw it around or anything, I do generally look after all my lights but this is the only one that I'm not too concerned about taking a fall here and there, as it's built like a tank and can take it.

I'm not boiling the head of it in a bag, so if that's what's necessary, I'm just going to leave it as-is and put up with the slightly distorted beam. Still haven't gotten to take any pictures of it yet... I might get time for that later today.

hrm.. I think the shock of the impact actually damaged the LED itself -- if you look at the LED, does it looks slightly distorted / bubbly?

No, the LED looks fine, and I don't believe the reflector has shifted either. I believe the problem to be that the LED has moved forward slightly in the reflector assembly, as the distortion that I described in the beams hotspot is in the form of a dark spot with a light corona around it - not really a hotspot if you know what I mean.

As fate would have it, the light may have to go back to Fenix for warranty repairs anyway. I had it at work again today and out of the blue (no knock this time) the tail switch stopped working - the usual TK series clicky switch issue of the switch doing nothing. It was switched on for about 30 mins or so and when I tried to switch it off the switch wouldn't function. It clicks, but does not operate the circuit. The beauty of this light is that you can lock out the tail cap, so for now I can still use the light as a "tail twisty" but I'm about to email Anthony at Flashaholics where the light was bought and see if I can get the switch replaced under the limited lifetime warranty.