How to reflow solder an LED emitter on a PCB or MCPCB.

dittos.

Thank you everyone. Hearing that my work has helped someone makes this very worth while to me.

Very nice, thanks a lot! Sticky’d.

WoooHoooo!

Thank you!

I’m planning to do my first emitter reflow in the next week or two, this video was incredibly useful. Thanks a ton.

Good luck on the reflow sac. Quality solder paste goes along way to a perfect job if your going that way and dont forget to get the + and - in the correct orientation. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thank you, and good lux!

If you have flux soldering tin you can do the same as with paste

Its best to add some mass so the temperature does not raise too quick, I used a 12mm iron plate and on top 6mm black anodisated aluminium plate on my induction stove

On the Aluminium I use a IR thermometer but it works great if I heat up till solder melts and then reduce the power of the stove

My very first reflow using a sinkpad an XHP70 with a skillet and hot plate. I will purchase a Infrared thermometer from Harbor Freight to do some testing and also see how hot the sinkpad gets as soon as the solder paste turns into liquid solder. :slight_smile:
BTW, Harbor Freight is having a good sale right now in my area, so I can purchase an Infrared thermometer with a coupon for $17.99! I guess that’s a good deal…lol… :question:

Nice job Willie. That looks pretty darn good for a first attempt. Looks like the emitter is sitting down all the way. I see the extra solder beads were pushed out the sides, and the dome is still in tact. What more could a guy ask for :slight_smile:

Thanks! Appreciate the compliment! I just followed what you had said in your video and it came out almost as good as yours…hehehe I did test it afterwards using a 3.7V lion, but that wasn’t enough voltage. So I put another cell in series and that did the trick…lol Only ran it for a few seconds. Wow, I touched the bottom of the sinkpad to see how warm it was and my it gets hot…lol :smiling_imp: BTW, Thanks for your tips and videos! :+1:

This is really very helpful to me.
Thank you for the video!

Thanks for the tutorial. Saved it to my favorites for future reference.

I was curious how the emitter was centered then I found your vid, duh, it's the BOING BOING BOING of course! LOL Thanks for great vid and details man!

Cheers!

Huge thank you for this video! Looking forward to to doing my first emitter swap and now I feel (relatively) confident. :slight_smile:

Hi there :)…

I had “Curious cases of Benjamin Button” recently with newest batch of noctigons. Symptoms were that after re flowing everything was tested and works flawlessly(mode selection and everything) and when you assemble it to flashlight I got High mode only :smiling_imp:
So atiny is trying to change modes(i can hear high pitch noise) but high mode still remains…

That happened around 5 times out of 50 emitters so I guess it could be that what Mitko mentioned.

I did not try yet but I think electrical insulating thermal glue like AA or Fujik(if it really must be used) can resolve this issues if they ever happen to you.

Indeed, sometimes you wont be having a short connection but just a modes lost( it stucks on high), or like on some of my drivers offtime memory function disabled

That is so irritating… A lot of effort to assemble everything and than wtf happens! :frowning:

Mitko what is your method of correcting this issue?

I’ve had a similar result when there is power bleeding off to ground to led negative on the driver board. High mode always.

If there is a short of some kind in the MCPCB the best solution would be to just dump the mcpcb and use another one. Trying to prevent a short with thermal epoxy would likely result in having to use a layer so thick it would negatively effect the thermal path.

No first version is not for sure. Triple checked that.

It is pita to reflow dedomed emitter on new mcbcp since I can’t use tap from above cause I’ll damage perfect emitter.