Busch & Muller Ixon IQ Premium - Longevity & repair help

octagonalman

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Well, I've been using the Ixon IQ Premium for my daily commute home from work for well over a year

Hi, is yours still going strong? I've had mine for about 9 months and it decided to die. It doesn't illuminate except for the status light.
Does anybody have any experience in opening the unit up? It seems to be plastic welded quite tight.
 
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Steve K

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Hi, is yours still going strong? I've had mine for about 9 months and it decided to die. It doesn't illuminate except for the status light.
Does anybody have any experience in opening the unit up? It seems to be plastic welded quite tight.

Any reason to not return it to the dealer for replacement? Even if the warranty is expired, it would be worth a shot.

back to your actual question: my guess is that the plastic housing is ultrasonically welded and unlikely to be opened without damage.
You might be able to epoxy it back together afterwards, though (using JB Weld or something similar)
 

octagonalman

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Any reason to not return it to the dealer for replacement? Even if the warranty is expired, it would be worth a shot.

back to your actual question: my guess is that the plastic housing is ultrasonically welded and unlikely to be opened without damage.
You might be able to epoxy it back together afterwards, though (using JB Weld or something similar)

I bought it from Bike24 and haven't heard a response from them yet, but return postage will be one-third of the purchase price.
I've bought a Chinese light with their attempt at the cut-off/anti-dazzle beam and it's not bad at one-quarter of the B&M Ixon IQ Premium.
I'm thinking with the B&M that I might try to remove the pin for the hinge and then attack the cover surrounding the battery terminals - unless anybody else has better suggestions. :)
 

Steve K

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hmmm.... I've bought a few things from the UK, but hadn't thought about potential warranty issues. That would certainly eat into the savings from the lower price (and for the record, I'm located in the USA).

I've sent a small package to a buddy in the UK, and was rather shocked to learn that the cheapest package would still cost $15 or so in postage. Crazy!

My only suggestion in regards to disassembly is to try to reverse the assembly process. You'll need to look at the various seams in the plastic housing to get an idea of how it was assembled. If luck is smiling on you, you'll find a few screws that hold it together. More likely, it is all glued or ultrasonically welded, and disassembly will require a dremel tool & cutoff wheel, or some brute force.
Take some pictures of the process.... I'm always curious about how these are put together. :)
 

Derek Dean

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Howdy, I just saw this post...... and I'm sorry you had an issue with your light. Mine gets used 3-5 nights a week and is still going strong, through all kinds of weather too. I still haven't seen anybody produce a light with as nice a beam as this one. I never did try to take this one apart because it's mostly plastic, but it sure has been a great little light. I got mine directly from Germany for about $85 shipped. I knew it was risky, with the cost of return postage, but it's turned out to be a good deal for me. Good luck with getting yours fixed, or finding a suitable new one.
 

angerdan

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Busch & Muller Ixon IQ Premium - open unit

I've had mine for about 9 months and it decided to die.
Does anybody have any experience in opening the unit up?
Sorry to hear your light died. My copies are working fine since six/five/three years.


Here you find some pictures on how to open the unit and to fix loose contacts by soldering:
mtb-news.de/forum/t/ixon-iq-tuning-wie-gehaeuse-oeffnen.328993/
mtb-news.de/forum/t/erfahrungsbericht-ixon-iq.305708/page-5#post-5394596
taschenlampen-forum.de/threads/kurzreview-busch-m%C3%BCller-ixon-iq-premium.44669/#post-602427


And here a guy did mod the Ixon IQ two times - 2014 with an Cree MK-R (20W) and 2015 with the XHP70 (30W) (but got some serious heat problems):
mtb-news.de/forum/t/die-selbstbaulampen-der-ibcler-teil-1.434819/page-188#post-11788663
photobucket.com/user/ballermon/slideshow/IXON IQ Cree Project
photobucket.com/user/ballermon/library/IXON%20IQ%20PowerUp

mtb-news.de/forum/t/die-selbstbaulampen-der-ibcler-teil-1.434819/page-205#post-13325391
photobucket.com/user/ballermon/library/IXON Cree XHP Project


If anyone has problems with displaying photobucket pictures on Firefox, use this plugin:
addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/photobucket-fix/?src=search
 
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octagonalman

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Re: Busch & Muller Ixon IQ Premium - open unit

Many thanks for the links and traversing the language barrier for me. I definitely didn't come across those webpages using the keywords I've been using.

In the meantime, the imitation stvzo lights on Banggood have been getting better and more affordable under the Xanes brand.
 

octagonalman

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Re: Busch & Muller Ixon IQ Premium - open unit

After smashing out the pin with the help of a drill bit and hammer, I had a bit of trouble getting the circuit board out. I thought that since it's busted anyway, it doesn't matter too much.

https://imgur.com/a/iIrgB

Anyway, the indicator LED is visibly darkened at one side. Perhaps there was a surge somehow. I've only been using rechargable NiMH and taking them out to recharge.

The main LED is still fine so I can proceed with replacing the circuitry - maybe not increasing the power output though!
 

Steve K

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Re: Busch & Muller Ixon IQ Premium - open unit

After smashing out the pin with the help of a drill bit and hammer, I had a bit of trouble getting the circuit board out. I thought that since it's busted anyway, it doesn't matter too much.

https://imgur.com/a/iIrgB

Anyway, the indicator LED is visibly darkened at one side. Perhaps there was a surge somehow. I've only been using rechargable NiMH and taking them out to recharge.

The main LED is still fine so I can proceed with replacing the circuitry - maybe not increasing the power output though!

thanks for sharing the photo! It's always fun (for me, at least) to see what is inside of these lights. The inductor, i.e. the donut shaped device with the coils of wire, is much larger than what I usually see in small bike lights.

The burn mark on the LED does indeed suggest that it died due to excess current. Hard to guess why it failed, but I'd guess that there was another part that failed that allowed excess current to be delivered to the LED. I could keep myself entertained for quite a while staring at the board with a magnifying lens, trying to find other damaged components, but that's just me. :)
 

octagonalman

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Re: Busch & Muller Ixon IQ Premium - open unit

It took a global pandemic to gather enough motivation to attempt a repair.
I went for a less intrusive approach in keeping the LED and lens intact. Behind that there's a 5-mode LED driver with two cells in parallel. The battery protection board does get triggered in the 'high' mode after a few seconds, likely in the overcurrent state. I only had one in my drawer. Then there's a micro-USB to 3.7V cell charger and that exits to a magnetic micro-USB connector. Basically using up a bunch of parts I had hoarded across many years.
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