I saw OldLumens thread on "Soldering wires to a star, a little differently" to make a low profile connection, and it got me thinking about another way this might be accomplished.
OldLumens Thread:
I decided to risk a Noctigon and possible Messing up an XM-L2 and a copper pill for an HD2010 to see if it would work. I soldered the Noctigon directly to the pill. You can use whatever thermal adhesive you like, today I felt like soldering.
I just want to add that I'm using teflon wire as I feel the outer coating on silicone wire is too bulky.
First I drilled holes through the center of the Noctigon LED Pads, and right through the pill. I made the holes the same diameter as the wire so they would fit tight.
I attached the wires to a BLF17DD FET driver and fed them through the holes. It was a snug fit.
This is when you should tin the pads around the wires. (I learned this after shorting the pad to ground on my first attempt)
Snip the wires flush with a side cutters, add some flux and a blob of solder on the tip of your iron to complete the connection to the pad.
It seems to work OK.
I covered the pads with a bit of Clapton tape and used a very thin low profile centering wing. The reflector tightened down very tight onto the pill of my HD2010 and got a really nicely focused, tight hot spot.
Anyway, I guess that's another way to wire up your HD2010.
Here's an ipad beamshot. In real life the hotspot is about three quarters the size. The ipad camera likes to collect all the surrounding light into the center.
The main thing to watch out for is shorting the pad to ground. That’s why I made the holes tight to the wire. You don’t want any solder to flow down the hole past the dielectric layer and shorting the pad to ground.
I tested the system on old aluminum MCPCBs first, and only had that problem once. Mostly the solder doesn’t gravitate onto nonconductive surfaces. At each step I touch the probes of my DMM onto the pad and the edge of the MCPCB to make sure that hasn’t occurred.
Yes, things could go south on you if you’re not careful and drill large sloppy holes, but so far it’s worked out for me.
I've been wondering recently why there aren't any mcpcb's with solder pads on the bottom, similar to what OL did in one of his videos... It'd be cleaner and easier use big reflectors.
Dang - I find this should be easier for me than O-L's method. Risk is the grounding, but easily can be buzzed out if it happened. The Y3 has the same issue with a flat bottom reflector, but the MaxToch 26mm copper DTP star should take care of that by extending the connections outside the flat section.
I think to have solder pads on the bottom would be more difficult to produce. Solder pads on the top only require a surface dielectric layer. To move them to the bottom, there would have to be an insulated core going from top to bottom. Then how are you going to keep them from coming into contact with the bottom of the pill?
I think this method is even lower profile than a piece of copper braid saturated in solder. I’m pretty sure I could have gotten it even flatter, but I’ve been using my side cutters for things they shouldn’t be used for. Rather than giving the wire nice clean flush snip, I had to kind of gnaw at it.
Test it out with old aluminum stars you’ll never use and a DMM. Teflon wires and tight holes.
I had this light out last night, and I’m loving it. The beam is perfect and throws true, a tube of light.
I bought three of these a while ago and played around at modding one of them. I was never really that impressed with any of the beam profiles it produced. They’ve been sitting in a box …ignored. I even had copper pills for all of them, but
never really got into the HD2010. Something just bugged me about it.
If you don’t get the reflector perfectly focused, it’s a so-so light. But now that I’ve got it right, I can’t believe I’ve been ignoring them for so long. There’s only one way…that reflector needs to sit as low as possible. It needs to do the reflector limbo.
Maybe on my next one, I’ll open up the reflector so the MCPCB is entirely inside the reflector. I’m sure it’s been done already…anyone got a link?
I think your missing out on something. White wall beam pattern has never been all that good, but in practical use, the HD2010 is a great light. I've gifted and modded a few, and everyone seems to love the things. I prefer the Y3 now for the $$$, but still...
I like it now! It’s great. I only worked on one other and it never attained a beam pattern that was truly focused. Now I know what it needs. I’ll rebuild my first one and work on the third.
Looks like a good option for some lights...especially the HD2010.