Led durability question

Another forum someone had a thread topic where they were complaining about the durability of LEDs. Someone else pointed out that it largely is due to the components used not the necessarily the LEDs themselves.
This makes me wonder about my Hank lights. I know he makes a quality product, but do his lights have the potential of being as reliable as Surefires or Streamlights? I’m just using them as examples because of their use as weapon lights.
His lights do have added complexity, and complexity always adds to more chance of breakage. But are the components themselves quality? Again not doubting his work, but just curious as to what y’all know of the parts used.
Thanks

LEDs are killed by heat and by uncontrolled current.
Or fire but thats rare unless the battery goes in which case a more expensive light is probably not going to save you.

If the light has decent heatsinking and thermal overheat protection then you should be fine.

The driver could fail and overheat protection not work or feed uncontrolled current but these are incredibly rare failure modes.

The most likely failure point is frankly the switch or driver just not working (not killing the LED but itself stop functioning).
The LED chips are surprisingly robust.

If anyone disagrees feel free to contradict what i have said.

I had a 7135 chip fail (not in an emisar/noctigon light) and saw several people report this problem so it seems to be not uncommon.
Although their newer drivers don’t use 7135 chips for the regulated output but a linear FET, which can fail if there is too much power burned in it, but I donk think there have been reports of that happening (the DT8 and K9.3 would be the lights in which the most power has to be dissipated in the linear FET).
Aside from that there are not many points of failure, the drivers are fairly simple, LDO and MCU are from Microchip, Op-Amp from Ti, FETs from a Chinese brand.

Ah I saw one user that reported crushed components on the cell side of the driver after their d4v2 fell on the ground head first, the cell’s positive pole collapsed and the cell then hit the components, because it really tigh in there, only about 0.5mm between the cell and components (0.5mm brass buttom + 1mm spring - 1mm components). So that looks like a point of failure.

Recent similar thread about Noctigon/Emisar: How Durable are Hank Lights? Any hard-use photos?

I don’t think complexity necessarily contributes to increased failure (theoretically it can, sure). The aspects of engineering design and construction matter more. For components, even the cheaper chips and such are pretty reliable but again, engineering is a important aspect there and components used at their limits or in designs that may push them past their limits…may fail. Hank does good lights, uses good parts. Generally if the flashlight world discovers components that are shoddy or undependable, everyone stops using them (that has been seen before in certain types of 7135 chips).

Even a very complex light like those with lots of aux leds and the additional soldering and wires crammed in such tiny places can last forever and survive impacts if constructed well. Hank’s drivers seem to do pretty well but other than impact damage (which few lights are really designed to handle well, from most brands) driver failure is probably the most common irritation. Even those that are designed a bit better are often not designed as well as they could be, so it’s somewhat expected that they will go at some point. This is partly due to engineering talent, partly due to keeping costs low, and partly due to space constraints in most lights. It can be done better but will people want to pay the end cost?

I thought the guy was being overly pessimistic because nothing makes me think my Hanks or Zebralight is junk. Just wanted to see how valid his argument was as I have no reason to think that my lights are going to fail anytime soon.
Now I have bought some cheap ones off of Amazon that are pieces of junk so I know they exist but I don’t think that they’re junk because of the LEDs, just poor craftsmanship and/or components.

Possibly…and/or just new to lights and unsure of things, potential fanboi attributes included. :slight_smile: There have been some past issues here and there like most mfrs, but the great thing with Hank is that his lights are indeed pretty well made AND if there is a problem he takes care of people with parts or replacements without long delays or jumping through ridiculous hoops - or just leaving them in the cold entirely. Better than others, the same as many, a bit short of a small amount of other lights out there. But he brings us enthusiast designs and features with great quality for less money than what we see from other equals. Good deal all around. And he’s been with us for quite some time, too. My sample size of his models is small but thus far no problems and high satisfaction for me.

Yea, you are definitely not getting 50,000 hours life running on turbo.