I think I fried my nitecore mh20. I was on the phone and watching the football game and not paying attention but i put the battery in backwardsand plugged in the usb charge cable. It smoked a little. Now it will come on in low and that’s it. None of the other modes work. I fried it didn’t I? Any ideas? Or any idea where ican pick up another dedomed MH20?
Nitecore have a 5 year warranty. You can try emailing them or getting in touch with the place you bought it from. See here for the list of terms and conditions: http://flashlight.nitecore.com/terms-of-service
Be prepared receiving a pretty abused flashlight after service.
They use tones of super thread glue that it is hard, even for them, to open the head and repair it.
They have reverse polarity protection right? Something has gone horribly wrong - just don’t tell them you inserted the cell the wrong way. You most likely won’t be covered.
Accept it as a loss. It’s your fault. Email Nitecore and tell them what happened and maybe they’ll put reverse polarity protection in the charging circuit next model. IF they are feeling generous, they’ll offer you a discount or a replacement.
I bought the light used and it’s been dedomed so the warranty probably isn’t an option. Anyone backyard shade tree flashlight mechanics around?
What eebowler said. You have to accept that it was your negligence, it would be a great idea to let them know it did this in this circumstance, if they are in a generous spirit perhaps you’ll get a new light or a repair out of it.
Where do you live? The driver should be easy enough to get out. You probably just have to heat the driver up.
You could change driver with a 17mm (?) LDO e-switch fet driver , and Narsil firmware .
But you could probably need to change the e-switch to single click , or just use the stock (one of the two internal switches) .
If they’d de-domed it, then the glue’s been cracked on the bezel so it shouldn’t be all that difficult to get in and do some swaps.
An FET driver with e-switch capability would be nice, maybe an LD-2? The charging port would no longer be functional.
You can also fit a new charging board they are cheap.
I accept it totally my fault, I’m not trying to get a free light out of Nitecore or anything like that. Just would like to know if this modded light is repairable. Anyone offer any sort of repair service? The bezel and lense come right off but thats as far as I’ve gone, haven’t tried removing anything else.
So the driver is damaged? Is that the consensus? How hard are those to replace? Does it require sodering? I have zero solder skills
The charger probably fried for sure, the driver may have blown reverse polarity… the moon mode I think is on a different channel from the other modes, something obviously happened to the driver too since it won’t shift modes.
yeah, soldering for sure.
The guy ibought the light from said it was one of Vinhs moddes lights, i dunno tho. Ive already emailed Vinh about a repair but havent heard back yet. Anyone else repair these things? Or am i better off saying screw it and buying a modded mh20gt from Vinh off skylumens?
Yea Dale DB customs can fix it for you. If he wants? Or maybe Richard mountain electronics. If vinh changed the driver it should be easy. can you take a pic of the driver?
Yeah I’ll take a pic later and post it
I ended up sending the light back to Vinh and he replaced the driver for me. Just wanted to say thanks for the replies