Pill holder removal tool?

I have a Dereelight Xsearcher on order with an XM-L U3 pill and a spare XR-E EZ900 pill. This is my first intro into modular lego lights with removable pills. Is there a standardized tool for removal of this pill holder? Where can I get one? Or does anyone have other suggestions for a tool? Trying to avoid having to make a tool but can if I have to. Thanks!

skeeterbait said:

I have a Dereelight Xsearcher on order with an XM-L U3 pill and a spare XR-E EZ900 pill. This is my first intro into modular lego lights with removable pills. Is there a standardized tool for removal of this pill holder? Where can I get one? Or does anyone have other suggestions for a tool? Trying to avoid having to make a tool but can if I have to. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Narrow needle nosed pliers will probably work.

It might, would be nice to have a premade spanner wrench though. Less likelyhood of slipping and damaging the emitter. May just have to cut one myself. Just thought I would check and see if such a tool was already available first.

I use a small pair of needle nose that I grounded the end off to make it fit in the "hole" better.

Snap ring pliers ??

Angled twizers, stick your finger between the legs till u get appropriate distance to match the holes then spin the light not the hand holding the twizers.

I use round tip jewelers pliers.

I use a pair of 90* Wiha Snap Ring reverse pliers. They work great and spring closed.

-- Adam

Yeah I was just thinking the snap ring pliers sound like the best idea short of a spanner wrench. But an adjustable optics spanner wrench like this runs about $45 and thats a cheap one.

skeeterbait said:

I have a Dereelight Xsearcher on order with an XM-L U3 pill and a spare XR-E EZ900 pill. This is my first intro into modular lego lights with removable pills. Is there a standardized tool for removal of this pill holder? Where can I get one? Or does anyone have other suggestions for a tool? Trying to avoid having to make a tool but can if I have to. Thanks!

Click to expand...

I was trying to remove the rear clicky switch in a light to install the glow in the dark switch cover, but to get to it, you had to unscrew the cover you had to find something that would fit into the 2 little notches just like in the picture above of the head. The problem was, after being told to use needle nose pliers, I realized that wasnt going to work, because the holes are tiny, and even small needle nose pliers wont fit into those notches/holes. Tweezers were even less likely to fit, because they dont have a tiny round point on the ends! So I just left it alone, but it seems to me the best thing would be to get an internal/external snap ring pliers, which should come with multiple different sized attachments, of which at least one or more should fit those holes and should help to unscrew that fixture, and the switch fixtures in the rear.

Just searched a bit on amazon and came up with some ideas:

Cheap lens spanner
Cheap snap ring pliers
REALLY cheap snap ring pliers
Cheap individual snap ring pliers
Cheap individual snap ring pliers set

Here's another way that sometimes works using stuff you probably have on-hand:

Take a large paper-clip. Bend it into a "U" shape so that each point of the clip will fit in the holes. Then use a long-nosed pliers to firmly grip the clip as close to the points as possible. At that point you just turn the pliers to unscrew the pill.

sinnyc said:

Just searched a bit on amazon and came up with some ideas:

Cheap lens spanner
Cheap snap ring pliers
REALLY cheap snap ring pliers
Cheap individual snap ring pliers
Cheap individual snap ring pliers set

Click to expand...

The lens spanner looks like it would work, but aside from using it for this, I dont know that you'd use it for much of anything else unless you needed to remove the lens from a certain type of camera. Plus its $15. But even the cheap snap ring pliers listed below the lens spanner is only $7 and it potentially could come in handy if you ever need to remove an internal or external snap ring.

I'd have to imagine that the majority of the public will never use a snap ring pliers for their intended purpose, as most people never find it necessary to remove snap rings, because many people these days are simply not do-it-yourselfers, but even many/most do it yourselfers may not end up owning products that contain snap rings that ever need to be removed. I've used them at 2 different jobs between the late 80's to late 90's, and I'm kinda ashamed that I dont already own a pair of snap ring pliers myself......

My snap ring pliers seem to be made out of sturdy tool metal. I have several lens spanners tend to bend if stressed. I have one pair of snap ring (circlip) pliers that I ground to a smaller tip for another project. They work fine on my Xsearcher. The holes in the pill are small.

I have several pair of stainless steel hobby tweezers I use, one of which comes to a really sharp point. It's kind of like the skeleton key that opens most of my flashlights. I also have the Kobalt tiny pliers set, which has a couple really small pair of needle nose with skinny, tapered ends. I keep thinking I'll buy a spanner or snap ring pliers as soon as I run into a pill I can't take off, but so far it hasn't happened.