What did you mod today?

Ok that’s great news, thank you Dale. I just checked and have used Arctic Alumina two part adhesive. I’ll try your method and see what I can do. Do you think the noctigons will still be useful after?

Finally got a day off and put it to good use!

Convoy s2+ w/ 2 channel red / white triple.
LEDs: 2x Nichia 219C 5000k, 1x Osram Olsen SSL80 deep red (657nm). Do note this is a 3030 LED and is VERY DIFFICULT to get it to float centered on XP pads during reflow)
Driver: hacked 105c
FW: BLF-A6, surprisingly [to me] not that modified at all.

Cut one trace on thr MTN MCPCB is all it takes to make the one individually addressable

Isolate a 7135

That soldering was easy, you can’t see the tiny wire from pin 5 to the single 7135 leg.

It needs some work still, I forgot to make the red channel come on during hidden turbo and I want to mod the levels some, maybe add a red/white strobe back in. Definitely gotta
make the 6 mode group have a little higher R1 than it does now then crank R2 to max for a low/high red mode.

Yep. :+1:

Very nice CK :+1:

Thanks guys.
Wasn’t gonna post this one but gotta live and learn. Plus if at first you don’t succeed; spend more, spend more money. Or something like that I think.

Thankfully the 2 nichia bit it and the SSL80 was fine, it was the only one, the other Olsen I had was standard red and the deep red was one of my main wants in this light, otherwise I’d have just used a XP-E2 and not dealt with the crazy soldering.

Just for fun :smiley: :sunglasses:

Modded my cheapo Rayovac 3 AAA headlamp. I don’t use a headlamp that often, but when I do, it’s to work on something around the house in order to keep both hands free. Although I would love to get a nice ZebraLight floody headlamp, I can’t justify it since I wouldn’t use it much. The tint of the Rayovac headlamp isn’t bad for a cool white LED, and I like that it just has high and medium modes (no strobes).

The headlamp is also plenty bright, but I don’t like the narrowness of the beam. I’m constantly moving the headlamp up and down in order to get it in the position that I need. So I decided to replace the lens.

Taking it apart was very easy, just 3 screws holding it together. There are 2 O-rings, 1 for the battery cover and the other for the plastic lens. There was some type of thermal compound/adhesive on the back of the aluminum MCPCB, but my guess it was to hold the LED in place for assembly rather than for thermodynamics.

I thought about trying to make the Rayovac lens frosted, but it had a raised rim on both sides. So instead, I created a lens from some semi-transparent plastic I had. I used sandpaper to make 1 side frosted.

The final result turned out great. The headlamp now produces a much more useful flooded light.

I solved the last of the problems with my first flashlight rebuild.
S2+ with TIR, shaved SST-40 and BLF-A6 driver.
The problem was soldering the driver to that damn pill.
I used a blowtorch this time and it worked.
Though I overheated the spring so it stopped being springy. And fell off.
Oh well, doesn’t matter for now, I soldered it back on.

I turn it on….nothing happens.

If I bypass the driver and connect a battery directly to the leads - ouch, my eyes hurt. So it must be the driver.
I tried to remove the pill and connect battery to it directly. I touched the pill and the driver with wires, saw a blink. Weird…
Back to the host, it’s still dead.
Again, checking the pill. When I connected it I saw some smoke from the point on the spring where I touched it with the wire.

Did I reverse polarity?
No.

OK, how should I troubleshoot it further?

You might have heated the driver so hot with the torch that other things flowed and shorted it out, or you may have just damaged components with the sheer amount of heat applied. Blowtorch and the fine components of a flashlight driver are a risky and tricky combination.

I have demolished several drivers trying to solder them to a pill with a blowtorch. After I bought a 80W (Antex) solder iron (also good for soldering wires to DTP boards inside cavities) my problems were over.

OK, so the best thing to do now is cut the driver off the pill, unsolder the leads and do a visual inspection. Right?

Perhaps a photo of this driver/pill assembly would help, maybe a few photo’s from different angles?

Next time, before you put in the driver, tin the rim of the pill with solder. It’ll be a lot easier to solder the driver to it.

Been working on the TN42 XHP70.2 P2-1A. (crash test dummy) I think I got most of the resistance out of it. :smiley: Tested on a T/A’s Lumen Tube and calibrated with maukka’s lights.

4xVTC5D’s at 4.07volts. 8,840lms @ turn on.

4xVTC5D’s right off the charger, 4.21volts

9,230 lumen at turn on. I need more/better/ bigger heat sinking!!! :person_facepalming:

I SWEAR I seen just over 11,000lm Blip off the meter for a Nano Second! :open_mouth:

^

Nice KawiBoy. Looks like you are losing some lumens in your measurement around the bezel. If you can lower the light a bit deeper into the tube, you will probably get a better measurement. I think I read TA once saying that he lowers the light until he gets the highest reading. I do the same thing now.

Fun soldering tonight!

That’s how much slack I was working with. All 22AWG silicone

Pretty cool! What driver is this?

That looks downright scary Sk. Nice work. :beer:

That’d be mine. If you happened to know that and you’re asking for specifics it’s my v3.0 constant current 4Ch driver in 17mm.

Omg, with the current FW offerings this old board is my new favorite 7135 driver!

Can be populated from a 105c and a otc.
Dual channel 1x / 7x 7135.
Runs popular FW including star moonlight special and (wait for it) BLF-A6 without mods.
Fits in Convoy S2+ pills, with non filed retaining ring!