Here’s the light with a view of the driver.
I’m guessing this is the nick that did it.
Maybe you can try bending a paperclip into a “V” shape. The tips of the “V” go into the holes on the edge of the driver and then try unscrewing counter-clockwise.
I don’t know if a paperclip would be ‘stiff’ enough, and I don’t know if that driver is glued in or not, but might be worth a try since the light is dead now. If you can get it out, it may be that the leads/wires from the driver board to the emitter board broke off and you can try soldering them back.
That, or maybe possibly cracking the PCB, are about the only things that might go bad, esp. since these are twisties.
Try some needle nose. Small long thin ones should work. Unscrew that puppy and take a gander. Looks easy from the pics.
A nail? 2 nails and pliers? 2 nails hammered through some timber.
Ok. A pair of scissors worked great. Now what? I should probably try and pry off the pcb right?
I have removed 1 yesterday ... ;)
there is a nice little threadlocker do ..
need a vise to secure it around the lens, and a pliers to open ..
if possible, heat a little part, with heat.
I was worried about glue or thread locker. But this one came off without too much effort. Maybe all the heat from 14500s softened it up.
Good job, and thanks for the pics :)!
I’m guessing those 2 metal pads are for reverse protection, but before trying to take the pill apart, I’d probably try something like:
- touch the + side of a known-good battery to the positive contact area of the driver, then
- take some wire and touch that to the negative end of the battery to the metallic side of the pill (e.g., the threads).
Then see if it lights.
Looking at the pill now, I’m wondering maybe when you dropped it, the negative ring on the non-contact side of the driver might’ve separated from the pill.
Anyway, try the simple test above first to see if it lights…
Wow, lucky there wasn’t thread locker. I despise glued pills.
As others said, test it first. Assuming no joy, gently pry up the driver & see if there is any component with a visible broken solder joint.
No response from the driver, but yellow spot in my eyes confirms the led lights up when powered directly. I think this might be the end of the road for this light.
Do you see anything from the driver board that’s in the pic that’s contacting/shorting the bottom of the emitter? Maybe when you dropped it, the impact caused the driver to contact?
Worst case, I think you’re saying the emitter is working still, so just find a driver that you can use to replace the apparently-dead driver - that’s what I’d try to do anyway…
+1. Mine is locked down tighter than a vault.
It sucks the driver is dead, but at least you were able to get access to it.
There doesn’t appear to be any loose connections. The driver’s so small and there isn’t much slack to pull it out any further to see.
Why don’t you desolder the LED leads?
Anyone know a driver that would fit it? I loved the modes and the ability to take AA and 14500s. Only thing it was missing was a moonlight mode.
Things tend to go bad when I solder small stuff like that. I probably will anyways. But not today. It’s too hot for that type of concentration.
Don’t know of a driver for AA & li-ion with modes.
For li-ion only there are oshpark drivers.
~ Edit ~
Oh, hey! The coil!
The second picture didn’t load right till now.
I can wiggle the coil a little bit. But it’s connected at both ends. I don’t know what’s up with the red goop. If you click on the pic you can get a better look at it.
The coil’s wire has broken off the board.
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The red goop is adhesive to lock the coils in place and reduce audible whine.