BLF A6 FET+7135 Light Troubleshooting and Mod thread

Oops I just realized higher temp= less brittle. Doh!

Yes, more mAh should mean longer runtime, at least on the low / med modes. The effective mAh value changes with higher current though, so a high-drain cell might last longer on high than a high-capacity cell.

Ok here we go. 20 minutes at 350f and another hour at 500f. Another hour to cool. Not much happened…. the other wing snapped off with about the same amount of pressure or maybe less! I’m not really going to try to understand the science of tempering as I feel my plate is full enough just trying to understand drivers! Feel free to chime in if you know what I could have done differently. But I’m still happy with the result after a little grinding and sanding.

My results won’t prove anything. :frowning: With a fair amount of twisting pressure applied to one of the tabs, it bent a little and didn’t break. The reason I say it won’t prove anything is that I failed to try breaking it before re-tempering. I don’t know if it was ever brittle to begin with. :~ Thanks for trying with yours. By the way, if the Instructables article is to be believed, it is supposed to be at temp for 1.5 hours and then slowly cooled. It could be that you just didn’t get it hot enough for long enough. I set my oven to 500F when I did mine. I put the clip in at the start so it would heat with the oven, and set the timer for two hours. If yours is still brittle, you may want to bake it again, hotter and longer. You don’t have any tabs left to break off for testing, but getting it done a little better may keep your clip from self-testing (breaking) in the future. :wink:

My references are stored elsewhere and it’s been a long time ago, but IIRC the rate of heating is rather unimportant; the rate of cooling (quenching) can be critical, and the shock of cooling to quickly crystallizes the metal structure which is what causes brittleness. Some alloys will do OK cooling slowly, some need a more rapid but controlled initial quenching to avoid softening. It’s not as simple as the instructables thing would have you believe, but you might succeed with dumb luck and the worst that can happen is that you end up with a brittle or too-soft clip so go for it.

IMHO this is not a well designed spring; there are too many sharp radii and that is where stresses concentrate. That doesn’t mean it can’t work well but it does make perfect tempering a lot more critical and tougher to achieve. Good luck!

Phil

Quote DavidEF: "With a fair amount of twisting pressure applied to one of the tabs, it bent a little and didn't break"

This ^

I broke both of my tabs off while holding firmly in tabletop vice. The snap wasn't immediate had to wiggle each couple times. So at least the two little wings seemed to not be that brittle.

Thanks. The Instructables article does talk about quenching first for hardness then doing the tempering to keep it from being too brittle. And they are talking about a knife, not a clip which is bent in several places and is going to be under daily stress. So yeah, it may not be the best application of that Instructables article. :stuck_out_tongue:

My zebralight sc52w has a clip that screws on. Which light are you referring to?

I’m kind of pissed, I haven’t received an answer to both my PM and email in a week now.
My BLF A6 is an useless piece of aluminium and malfunctioning electronics as of now. :frowning:

which one? I don’t know the diameter of either group of lights, they have 2 clips.
Googled and the two seem very close —- 0.9 inch, and 0.94 inch

Sigh: FREE Shipping Worldwide on Orders $50+

I have size issues.

I tested my order: one of each tint. The 3D didn’t light up. The others did.

I pulled the 3D tailcap and did the screwdriver bypass and it lit fine.

The 3D tailcap on the 5A didn’t light. On the 1A it will only if I really crank down.

Putting a paperclip spacer in the 3D tailcap causes it to work on any light.

So, the 1A lights on any tailcap. The 5A and 3D light only on the 1A or 5A tailcaps.

The 3D and 5A tubes are visibly shorter to the naked eye. I can easily pick them out (1A is longer, 3D is way off center).

So as I understand it, I have two short battery tubes (from 3D and 5A), and one short tailcap (from 3D). And I need to email that to heyanqing1@banggood.com

Is that accurate?

Sounds like you have it all figured out burnsd! Sorry that happened to your lights.

These things happen. I still have three functional lights at the moment. And if BG/Manker makes good, I’ll have a trio of perfect interchangeability.

I love the UI, the moon and turbo modes, the bike flasher, the batt check… Overall really love the design. I can’t wait to torture test these as a bike light on the terrible roads here.

That clip though…

……………….
Copper washer from the autopart store
Imgur

This is the one I bought for my A6.

http://www.zebralight.com/Pocket-Clip-for-H31-H32-H302-H51-H52-H502_p_80.html

I’m sorry I can’t speak for banggood. But maybe Neal is keeping an eye on this thread.

Am I the only one who likes the clip? It clips.

I ALWAYS solder the bypass wire inside the spring. The spring is steel, usually, and the solder is likely to let go at some point due to the compressions of the spring when loading cells. So, if the wire is on the outside it is quite likely to cause a short at some point. Inside, it’s contained by the spring itself and can’t reach ground.

Edit: And also, if you must put a ring inside for proper tube to retaining ring contact, remove the retaining ring and put this spacer between the driver and the retaining ring so you don’t have loose parts. Once you re-install the retaining ring it will be spaced upward to meet the tube but everything will be snug and contained. :wink:

Before going to all this trouble, double check that the tube is inserted properly. Even if the clip is on the wrong end, I guess it’s possible the tube could be machined backwards, but it’s normal for the clip to install on the tail end of the tube. It only works one way, it’s not reversible.

Good point DB. I’m having a tough time with flowing at the base of the spring. I think I need a better iron and some helping hands.

Just remember, heating up the pad at the base of the spring is also heating up the switch. Pretty much as easy to kill the switch here as soldering directly to the switch.

Try removing the spring from the board, soldering the wire on in the middle, then run the wire up through the spring and solder the spring back on around the edges. Cut the wire a little long, coil it inside the spring slightly so it’s got easy room to compress, then solder the top end of the wire to the top of the spring. I like folding the wire over the very end of the spring then soldering it. Even if the solder lets go of the spring the wire will stay in place.

Edit: A through-pcb bypass for high amps…