Pelican M1 disassembly pix

If we are lucky, maybe Pelican will distribute new reflectors..
1- unscew front bezel


2-Reveals hold down disc with hex cutout and Luxeon Star underneath


3-A 3/8 inch nut fits in the cutout and leaves room for the LED


4-The 9/16 socket is used to unscrew disc


5-After the disc comes out a bit, switch to a bolt to complete the removal.


6-The Star is mounted on a steel disc. Simply push the whole assembly up through the battery tube


7-Switch side of assembly


8-Housing with switch still in place


9-Housing with switch removed


10-Circuit, switch and LED assy.


11-Circuit. Philips chip says, "EA12081 - 3L518 - n4191" I think.

Very interesting and thanks for the pics. I was able to get mine mostly apart but did not realize the thin disc simply could be pushed forward out of the light. I guess there is no mistake now and we can all see that the M1 uses a low dome.
That circuit looks to have a lot of parts and I wonder how long before someone can improve it a little. Does it look like the star can be removed and replaced easily?...Are the lead wires the only thing holding it to that disc?
That long shaped board reminds me of the shape of the Dorcy AAA board also.

Anyway chance of a pic to show the refelector? i have heard it's somewhat controversial? And if you have a M6 reflector to put in the pic that would be helpful. VDG

The star seems glued onto the steel disc, and aligned with some tabs. I tugged on the star and it seemed stuck fast. My guess is epoxy, so one could try prying or shearing it off the steel disc, or chipping the emitter off the star and replacing it using some arctic alumina epoxy.

I don't have an M6 to compare. This reflector is stippled only near the LED. The beam is ringy.

Nice pics.

It looks to be put together the same as a Streamlight Luxeon tasklight (3AA). If you bend the tabs up and out of the way the star should come off (there was thermal grease under mine).

With all thos parts on that board it looks kind of complicated. I do not know enough about circuits to really say but I wonder if this board could be modified.
I see what looks like a bunch of resistors and I wonder if these could be changed to increase supply. I also see a blank pad labeled R3 and I am curious what this could be used for.
Tonight I plan to remove the star to learn the BIN and may attempt to swap it with a high dome just to see how it looks when mounted with this reflector.
Great pics and thanks again for the time to take them

My bro got this light and its ALRIGHT...
Review:
The Pelican M1 is a nice little light. It is about .5 inch longer than the e1l and significantly thicker. The button (red you cant miss it) is on the side near the bezel. I personally do not like the location and prefer tailcap clickies.

The M1 is anodized a dark black color and looks pretty cool. The Luxeon Star is regulated, and the output isnt bad. The light is reflected off a reflector. (if you can call it that) The reflector is PLASTIC, I repeat, PLASTIC!! Pelican could have paid a few extra bucks for an aluminum reflector like the M6! It is not fully textured and about 1/2 of it is texured near the Luxeon Emitter. It is pretty deep and allows some nice throw. The Lens is made of plastic and appears easily scratchable. It doesnt appear like it can be replaced.

The beam quality is questionable! You can see 3 different rings inside the corona!! The closer you bring this thing to the wall, the uglier it gets. (Which is SAD!)

Overall the light is ALRIGHT, for its cost.. Its not an E1L, but could use some drastic improvement.

Pros: Cheap, no too bad throw, short, uses 1 lithium, regulated, and stands on end (not that I care)

Cons: Bad reflector (bad beam quality), Plastic Lens (which doesnt appear replaceable, and cheesie button

Overall.. it is worth the $35.00

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif (3 of 5 thumbs up)

-tom

I am attempting to remove the star now hope it works out. The circuit is actually pretty easy to get to and should be easy to mod as it is nice and big. Can anyone tell from the photo above if this is a moddable circuit?
If it is simply as easy as adding a resistor to the spare pad,or removing one of the existing resistors, I would like to do it while I have it apart.
Any idea what that empty pad labeled R3A is for?

Cornkid, nothing wrong with plastic reflectors.. some of the best reflectors here on CPF are plastic. The Lionheart uses the IMS SO27XA, the LC probably uses the SO20XA and the MiniMag conversions use the SO17XA. All of these are plastic.

My Mag3X uses triple SO20XAs, and they produce a somewhat different beam from a single 20 (larger spot), but it's still flawless. I'd say it's comparable to the Surefire U2 and its vapor coated metal reflector. And for those who fear the donut, the Mag3X has no donut. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif It's not so much the material but more about the design.

Now that we've gone over all the uses of IMS reflectors, has anybody tried replacing the Pelican reflector with an IMS?

Its probably this chip, a up or down converter, controlled by pin 1:
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/pip/TEA1208T_N1.html

Datasheet:
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/acrobat_download/datasheets/TEA1208T_1.pdf

Resistor hooked between Pin 2 and Pin 3 on the datasheet looks to be the current limit set resistor.

Ilim = 238/Rlim

Looks to be a pretty weak chip, with a maximum input current of 0.42 A, which means it's output current is going to be even lower than that (in a up or boost configuration).

Thanks for the links however I really do not know how to read all that information...or at least I do not know what it all means.
I assumed this was a pretty weak circuit as my M1 only shows about 550 mAh at the tail cap. This leads me to believe the Luxeon is probably getting around 350 mAh.
I am hoping that someone can figure out if this circuit can be easily tweaked and improved.
I did swap the star for a high dome however the color is kind of weak compared to the donor light it was removed from. I assume this is due to the weakness of this circuit and that it is not driving the high dome as much.
I think if I can somehow boost the output a high dome will be much better with this reflector.

I also noticed from reading that data sheet it stated the chip was adjustable on the output. Any idea how this might be done with this board? Is it as simple as removing and replacing the value of a resistor?

Robo, you are really anxious to mod this! Seriously, it may take a while to reverse engineer this circuit and see if it can be modded easily. My guess is it's in boost mode to get the 3 volts of the battery above the Vf of the LED. If it's current regulated, 350mA is the proper current for a 1W Luxeon, low dome, high dome, whatever. That would be set like Newbie says, by the current limit resistor. I can't see exactly which one that is yet. I think your high dome substitution is probably just not very good, bin-wise. Unfortunately, boost mode doesn't bode well for using 4.2 volt LiIon batts.

PS - the current is in milliamperes (mA) not milliampere-hours (mAh).

Louie sometimes I get a little carried away and always want to change these toys of mine. You are correct when you say the high dome is not the best choice as it was from a donor light bought at GoldenGadgets. I thought it would at least give me an idea of the general shape of the beam with a high dome but would not be the best tint.
The results with the high dome were alot better however when I use the same high dome with the M6 reflector the difference is amazing.
I will most likely keep searching for a way to improve this M1 and think I will start with a better high dome. I will never be able to figure out the circuit however I feel it is only a matter of time before someone here greatly improves this light.

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but - did anyone figure out a way to boost the stock board? Or would the best bet be to just swap the board for one of dat2zip's boards for better output?

I bet the beam and output would be a lot nicer with a HD luxI or luxIII.

Nice pics... if someone can crack the circuit and it is easily moddable this could be a great(er) little light.

-Mike