Broke a torch and a bone? Man, talk about unlucky. I sympathize 
Hope the bike isn’t broken at least 
Thanks. Just based on a quick visual inspection it looks ok. But I definitely need a new helmet. The jacket, shorts, and shirt I was wearing were all ruined.
Yeah, I already figured those would be a total loss. At least it was them and not your skin and skull; the armor did its job.
I’m so relieved that I’m not the only one who broke things
I killed the MELD-X RGBW driver that came in a light I bought from pinkpanda3310. I transplanted it into a new host with a RGBW XM-L and it worked, but unless the head was unscrewed slightly it just lit up all the dies dimly. Left it on my bedside table and the next morning my son got it and inserted the cell the wrong way, although I’m not sure he got the tailcap back on.
Now the driver just lights up all the dies dimly even when bench testing and I’m not sure whether it was a short or reverse polarity that killed it.
Lessons learned:
- Never leave a cell in a light with a fault
- Keep Li-ion lights out of reach of small children
- Good RGBW drivers are hard to find
Turned a working Samsung TV into a non-working with a preventive replace capacitors job.
my utorch ut10 suddenly died
i think it is the switch - like most of my other lights
it got stuck in a blinking pattern
would not turn off
removed battery
after that it would not do anything
seems like switch
unrepairable as far as i can tell
things are glued in-the electronics[‘driver’]
plus surface mount switch would be a pain to find the part and then solder it without burning or melting other parts
- i wasn’t doing anything but trying to use it, though i have had it 2 years or so, and i prob use it 40 times a day, so 29,000 switch cycles.
wle
I broke the atrocious stock driver in my Wuben E01 when I drilled a hole through it so I could lever it out. It had terrible visible PWM and a double-tap for strobe which meant you couldn’t change modes quickly so I don’t feel guilty at all.
Unfortunately I also ripped a component and PCB trace off the cheap single-mode driver I was filing down to fit. Now I’m left with a non-functional E01, but to be honest I think that’s still a win - the stock driver really is that bad.
If anyone knows a source of tiny multi-mode boost drivers please let me know. I know MTN sells Lumintop Tool drivers, but postage from the US makes it too expensive.
I haven’t broken anything in a while. When I do, It’s usually bones…lol.
I may have overdriven the white flat in my Jaxman Z1...
I broke my rose gold S1R Baton II. Did an emitter swap en didn’t remove the cell when I solder the MCPCB back into the light. I shorted something. FFS
Ouch! That one is worth fixing, for the beautiful host.
Shoot me a PM if you want to get rid of it though, my wife would love a flashlight that color ;)
I’ve started a new build. So far I’ve scrapped 2 parts. 100% hit rate so far. I’ve only made 2 parts and I’ve had to make both of them twice. 
i broke m Aldi 1500lm zoomie today
i took the battery out and stupidly thought ” i wonder if its brighter with some samsung 30q’s”
so uhh that was a dumb idea as the led is only lighting up one quarter of the chip and even then its so very dim that its hard to tell its on
it guess i could replace the led (which i think was an xp50)
Which Aldi lights have authentic XHP50? Would love to see the light.
Maybe not so much a breakage, but a screw up for sure…
I was admiring some boards I got in from Oshpark today (am I the only one that does that?) when I realized a major flaw: I completely forgot to add the vias around the ground ring. Doh! At least the board is big enough that I could manually add a via with a drill and some copper wire.
PS - my first ever board with a crystal oscillator!
What’s the oscillator for? Why do you need a different and/or more precise signal than the MCU makes? Are you making an accurate clock for a sunset/sunrise alarm light?
Close… it’s a time-based night light for our toddler room (and for travel). Sure, I could just plug in a night light, but what’s the fun in that?
I’m repurposing a Sofirn SC31 for nightlight duties. Sunrise/sunset would be fun, but bedtimes are set by the clock and not the sun. Goal is to have it turn on each day at 8pm, then back off 10 hours later. Rinse and repeat. Other UI features single-click on/off override without affecting the timer, and click-hold for ramping up and down to select a brightness. Low voltage warning using the LEDs under the switch.
Originally, I kept the stock driver and replaced the SC31’s PIC with an attiny412 and used the internal 32 kHz oscillator to help with timekeeping (via the Periodic Interrupt Timer “PIT” peripheral). But it was slipping 13+ minutes each day. I could probably have calibrated the timer to be accurate enough, but this serves as a great excuse to try out new things!
Cracked the lenses of my Jaxman E3 and the OTR M1
I must be doing something wrong with these lights 
I disassembled my AAA Tool. This is the newer Osram LED model with the TIR optic. For some reason Lumintop felt they needed to glue the pill into the head on this one. I have the older style AAA Tool and it isn’t glued at all.
Anyway I got the pill out eventually, but somehow in the process I broke the driver and now it’s only single mode. The driver was also glued to the pill I believe, so maybe the glue breaking loose damaged something.
Luckily Mtn sells the drivers for these, so I have some on the way. The stock Osram LED is so cool it’s almost freaking purple. Someone measured it and its like over 7000k.
I plan to put an SST-20 in it when I get the driver. I already know the high CRI SST-20 looks great behind a TIR, much less green than with a reflector even on lower settings.