Just killed a LatticeBright “XM-L” by driving it directly from a 3.5+V battery while submerged in white spirit. Gave it a few good zaps a few hours ago, can't say for sure if there was some apparent damage mostly due to my unwillingness to look at the thing while driving it.
Gave it another zap a few minutes ago, and it just died.
I have an old genuine XM-L next in line, but now I am in doubt with regards to submerging it with wires attached.
2013 manufactured cool white XM-L is enjoying a white spirit bath, with attached wires. I've given it some current, but the alu board doesn't even seems to get hot to my finger. Maybe the mia LatticeBright “XM-L” was already “cooked”, it came from a friend's headlamp whose emitter I swapped.
Going to raise the battery voltage to increase my diver's driving current. :-D
0K, at this point I believe the LatticeBright XK/XL I was bathing maybe died from overcurrent.
Estimating:
Test battery: two worn out King Kong INR26650E cells in parallel; let's say ≈40mΩ of internal resistance.
Multimeter and its leads, ≈200±50mΩ of resistance.
Emitter wires: ≈½ a meter both positive and negative, AWG24; 86.56mΩ.
This at least ≈277mΩ (≈277mV/A) from the measuring setup. Checking the current flow to the submerged XM-L revealed from 1.5A to nearly 2A, with a no-load battery voltage of only 3.54V! Boldsheesh fellows!
Test XM-L may be getting ≈3A when the multimeter is removed. Remember my testing is being done with my led's bathing fluid at room temperature, this means Vf remains higher also (excellent cooling).
I can see many of you may have killed a good deal of emitters this way because of hot bath (less Vf) plus high starting battery voltage. Seriously.
My old XM-L was left in the white spirit bath, waiting for nature to take its course. I extracted the board a few days ago and the dome nearly fell by itself, leaving just an unimportant tiny leftover where the bond wires are, yet not over the die which is… completely clear! (ᵔᴥᵔ)
I know have an XM-L2 in the bath. The good thing with white spirit is that it does not seem to completely evaporate at room temperature, of course because of the longer chain hydrocarbons.
It is fun to observe the white spirit slowly doing its magic and giving it some stirring just for the sake of it. I can clearly see a curious optical effect in the emitters while immersed: the die looks unscaled, like if it were dedomed. As time slowly goes by it can be observed how the white spirit diffuses under the dome, progressively soaking the die under.
If anyone is interested I believe this slow cooking method may be worth a try with the newer generation Cree emitters.
Yeah, it’s apparently the toluene that does the job best.
I.i.r.c. the nitro thinner contains toluene, unlike regular cellulose thinner.
But toluene is hard to come by (and i think it’s rather toxic too).
That’s why nitro thinner is presently the go to solvent, but it’s not easily available in every country.
I can order a liter online, but it’s some $15 including shipping cost.
Home Hardware also sells a lacquer thinner made up of toluene, methyl alcohol and methyl ethyl ketone, that seems like a pretty nasty combination.
Mem talked about his method of dedoming being a two step process, attack the glue first then swell the dome off. I can’t figure out if he was using different chemicals or wetting the base of the led for a while and then submerging it.
@Tom I also couldn’t find Nitro thinner. I read somewhere that MEK worked, so I started using it. The SST-40 dedomes nicely with it. The couple of XML2 U4-1A’s I did in it had the usual tint shift.
Readily available at HD. I have only tried it hot, so not sure how well it works cold.
The answer may have been under my nose this whole time (some pun intended there). I’ve been using a solvent called Wil-Bond made by imperial. I don’t recall ever trying to do a full chemical dedome with it for fear of phosphor damage and generally I’m impatient. BUT - I have used it with much success to clean up the bits left behind during my hot dedomes and it seems to make quick work of the silicone scraps. So I looked up the MSDS and compared it to the solvent list I’d linked previously… What I found is that it’s full of theoretically effective solvents. I will say it’s odor is definitely nothing to be taken lightly. Even the can sealed up and in a cupboard, I can smell it on hot days when I walk into my hobby room. The good news is it can be found in the US at Walmart and has free shipping for ~$18
I’ll throw a few sacrificial LEDs in there tonight sometime and see what happens. I don’t think I’ll try heating it at all. Don’t have the appropriate space or heating equipment for that right now.