Nitecore EA41 Pioneer tear down - (Pic Heavy) !

[Dr.444]

Hello ...

My EA41 died last week, contacted Nitecore & they asked me to return the light for fix,
since i live in Egypt it's gonna take months for the light to get back to me!! so i decided to mod it :thumbsup: .... here is a tear down for you guys

The whole thing ...


Under the reflector ...


Thermal paste under the star ...


LED on an aluminum star...


The heatsink was very hard to remove , so i had to destroy it ...


OD of the heat sink is about 30.5 mm ...


Thickness of the heat sink is about 2.5 mm ...


Plastic cover not removed yet ...


Switches covers (Rubber & Plastic) ...


Switches ...


Back of the switch , the orange tape is for adding space ...


Contact plate ...


Driver in the plastic housing ...






Driver ...








Everything is different from the original EA4 .... (reflector - Heat Sink - driver - switch - plastic housing - led ) :thinking:

So everything is better except for the heat sink, still sucks !! :scowl:

Thanks.

 

[snowlover91]

Wow I don't think I would have the nerves to do that! What are your plans for fixing the light? How will you get a new heat sink and do you have any idea what the problem could be?

 

[blah9]

Awesome, thank you for sharing these pictures. This is very cool, and I will love to see what you end up doing with the light!

 

[koolranch]

Very cool, keep us posted on the new build.

 

[zipplet]

Is that an LED I spot between the two switches?

I wonder if the other lights they make with the same switches also have that LED. Seems silly as the rubber buttons are black so it would never be able to shine through.

 

[Crazyeddiethefirst]

Thanks for the excellent photo documentation and descriptive verse. Looking forward to hearing the fix and perhaps seeing a thick copper heat sink?

 

[Crazyeddiethefirst]

PS does anyone know if the switch LED is a voltage indicator like so many of their other lights, perhaps abandoned when the problems with the early switches presented?

 

[zipplet]

PS does anyone know if the switch LED is a voltage indicator like so many of their other lights, perhaps abandoned when the problems with the early switches presented?

I also wonder this because if you look at the explorer series they have a secondary red LED which does do that and doubles as a continuous red light source / location beacon!
(And the buttons look very similar)

 

[snowlover91]

Is that an LED I spot between the two switches?

I wonder if the other lights they make with the same switches also have that LED. Seems silly as the rubber buttons are black so it would never be able to shine through.

Yes it is it is a blue LED which will give you a different number of flashes to indicate battery level. Three flashes means above 50%, two means it is below 50% and one means the battery is low/needs to be replaced. On my EA41w it works great and is useful for giving you an idea on when to recharge the batteries and seems quite accurate. When I recharged my Eneloop Pro batteries before a camping trip they took about 1100mah to charge the the light showed over 50% which was quite accurate.

 

[Dr.444]

Wow I don't think I would have the nerves to do that! What are your plans for fixing the light? How will you get a new heat sink and do you have any idea what the problem could be?

It wasn't easy , spent more than 10 hours for this :sweat:, Will replace the driver - LED - heat sink & maybe the switch as well ! for heat sink will get a copper one & cut it the same shape as the stock heat sink but thicker.
Dunno what the problem is but the driver seems fine .. there is no burning smell or anything .. everything looks fine so i though it might be the LED so i tested it & it didn't work !!!
currently i don't have any LEDs to test with the driver! when they arrive will see if it's just the LED or the driver as well .

 

[Dr.444]

Awesome, thank you for sharing these pictures. This is very cool, and I will love to see what you end up doing with the light!

Very cool, keep us posted on the new build.

Sure, i'll keep you guys updated

 

[Dr.444]

Is that an LED I spot between the two switches?

I wonder if the other lights they make with the same switches also have that LED. Seems silly as the rubber buttons are black so it would never be able to shine through.

Yes it's a bright blue LED , you can easily see it throw the rubber button.

 

[Dr.444]

Thanks for the excellent photo documentation and descriptive verse. Looking forward to hearing the fix and perhaps seeing a thick copper heat sink?

Yup, that's what i've got in mind

 

[Dr.444]

PS does anyone know if the switch LED is a voltage indicator like so many of their other lights, perhaps abandoned when the problems with the early switches presented?

I also wonder this because if you look at the explorer series they have a secondary red LED which does do that and doubles as a continuous red light source / location beacon!
(And the buttons look very similar)

What snowlover91 said, yes it's a voltage indicator, also used for the location beacon function. (standby mode) !

 

[kj2]

Nice tear-down :thumbsup:

 

[Mr Floppy]

Dead LED hey? I wonder if the poor heat sink contributed to the short life

 

[odessadream]

You show nice pictures but you don't tell how you opened it ! Did you start from the outside (is there a way to remove the Al coloured ring at the protection glass and than you can take it further apart ?

Did you have the 2015 version of the EA41 ?

Are you planning to "dedome" the LED to get even a more throw EA41 ???

 

[zipplet]

Aaaaah thanks for clarifying the blue LED!
Excellent teardown pictures too.

Looks like a light I might be interested in getting hold of.

 

[emarkd]

This is awesome, thank you for sharing. I've got one of these as well, a 2014 model. It still works fine but if you come up an awesome mod I'd be interested ☺

 

[Dr.444]

Nice tear-down :thumbsup: