Nitecore EA4W repair

Hi there, yes I'm new, hello all. I've been around in the past reading reviews and such but not a flashaholic so never posted before.

Right so now that's out of the way, I dropped my EA4W on the road and busted it! I know it's an old light but I had actually pulled it out of the desk to check it still worked and was going to donate it to a friend who's never going to buy/use 18650's so thought she could use this instead. It was running when I dropped it trying to put out the garbage bin, it bounced and turned off as it hit the second time.

Now I've mostly dismantled it and the LED actually works (applied direct external power)
Putting batteries in, the switch/light still flashes to tell voltage and operating the switch sends small & various voltage to the LED but all under 1.0v e.g. .3, .6, .9v. I presume this is under what's required to do anything but this is where my knowledge ends. So basically my question is can I replace the circuit board with something else and where do I get that from? I don't particularly care if it's going to increase the output or enhance the light, as long as it's not worse than stock. I searched around but didn't know what I was looking for anyway and didn't find anything that looked like it'd work.

Any links or help appreciated, thanks


P.S.
I sent an email to Nitecore but I don't really expect them to reply and/or have spare parts at a reasonable price.

So did you take the light apart and can see the electronic driver board? Being that it failed due to a drop, there must be a broken connection somewhere. If you can post some pictures of the driver board, that will help. Your best option is if Nitecore will repair it for you for a decent price. Otherwise, you could attempt to repair or if all else fails, put it up for sale on Ebay. I'm sure that someone out there will find some value even in a broken light.

Since you verified that the LED works, can you verify that battery power arrives at the driver board? Is the switch working properly? If power is getting to the driver board and since you know the LED works, then there must be a problem with the driver circuit. Try to isolate where the problem is. Hopefully it will be an open connection somewhere caused by the jarring from the fall.........and not a burned out component. That is a guess at this point.

Hi, no I didn't get the board out of the housing yet, it's stuck in there real good.
I tried a lot of force already and it didn't move at all, only choice left was to put it in the vise which I figured will break it, or something. I found an old thread that said there were some non Nitecore boards available but the links were dead.
I'm in Australia so the option of posting to HK or China for repairs is out, just too expensive and if there's an Australian agent that'll also be stupid expensive. If I have a go at getting the board out in one piece I'll test some more.

I have taken my ea4 apart a couple of times and fitted a new led.

To remove the driver i used a piece of hard 10-12mm od plastic water pipe cut to about 75mm length.

Once the reflector lense bezel and white plastic reflector seat are removed place bezel down on a hard surface and a rag stuffed in above the led, so when the driver drops it wont damage the led.

Now with the plastic waterpipe tool place it over one of the two positive anodes in from the battery carrier. Now tap softly with a light hammer alternating between both pos anodes left and right.

The big white aluminium heatsink plate under the led is pressed in and will drop out after moving a couple of mm,s. The whole driver will fall out with it, which has a driver, battery pcb in a plastic shell. The rubber switch also has a plastic piston and guide that makes contact with the internal switch and it can fall out just make sure its in its place before re assembly.

Once the driver is removed just hook up a remote power supply to test - hope this helps in some way.