Convoy S2+ failing a ~75cm drop...

It happened to me, I have analyzed the fact and I arrived at these conclusions: (in my case)
The LED is not original Cree; for soldering is not used a good solder; LED is slightly off center and this causes a lateral thrust from the reflector, when there is a collision, even banal, the lateral thrust separates the LED from the base. Briefly: the LED was assembled cheaply and approximate.
I remedied solder it again, with good solder, and placing well in the center. The LED have not changed, but is closely supervised! :slight_smile:

Cree isn’t the one that mounts them to the mcpcb. I don’t see a reason to believe they aren’t genuine Cree emitters. It looks like whoever Simon buys his emitters from is either not using enough solder paste or not heating them high/long enough in the reflow oven.

But this was from gearbest. They could be buying hosts and adding their own leds. Who knows with them. Led might not have been relowed by Simon’s suppliers.

Good point.

It happened to my initial fake C8 batch. I suspect power quality of solder being used.

I later reflowed it with Cu MCPCB and it works fine till now.

If that counts, the light has been used on max power (10 mins or so at times) and medium modes (25-30mins average) at times.
If I just add solder and solder back the led to it, will it work again?

Make sure the Negative pad on the LED is aligned with the negative lead pad on the board. The thread above is a good reference for figuring it out.

The led die (square) came off the plastic too. The plastic is not properly marked + or -. I will have a closer look tonight if there are markings on it.
Thanks for this thread link.

I didn’t think it was possible to separate a good solder bond like that.
A cold solder? Yes.

Chinese manufacturers should stop using high temp solder already, my BLF A6 had the same problem in both the driver and the mcpcb, the soldering they use are the cheapest type with high melting point and fast-burn rosin, doesn’t work long enough before the solder spreads. Also tried to desolder leads from a nitecore mcpcb and even my 40W station couldn’t do the job.

I’ve been using low-melt solder for my reflows and haven’t had any problem even with my hot rod mods. Low-melt are more expensive, but it also saves a lot of time and headache.

Thanks. Just watched it. Looks doable!!

you can do them on the stove top . use some folded up tin foil to make a small metal spatula / plate with a longish handle … retin the star add flux and add solder …add flux onto the led base …and the star again and put it up on the heat … pull it when you see the solder go shiny and u’ll see it ….flow
…small thin tin plate gets cool and hot …fast

Thats odd! I hope it wont happen to mine :D!

Not MK, but Ive seen this question asked before and I checked mine today when changing batteries -its both ring AND solder to the ring on my red S2+ ;)!
Ordered in june, delivered somewhere in august(first came the fake one, then the genuine one).

Anybody in touch with Simon?

I hate to bother the guy, I recall reading he’s busy more than full time with childcare as well as Convoy
and I know looking at the Ali Convoy page they handle far more stuff than he could possibly be handling personally.

So I don’t want to add another straw to his camel, as the saying goes.

But I’d sure like to know what he thinks is normal for the S2+ lights — and what he can identify as some third party’s changes.

It would be good to know what kind of solder is specified for the emitter-to-board — is that why this one broke off when dropped?
and whether using the threaded ring, the spots of solder, or the ring plus solder are all normal variations from him, or unexpected from some third party, in the S2+ (and other?) lights.

I complained to GB about the soldered driver I got in my last S2+, and the reply was they don’t have any more of those to send me, do I want wallet and points credit. Feh.
I’d guess that means no more cheapened ones from their cut rate supplier …. but that’s for a different topic.

Perhaps ask JDub to read this thread, he seems to have pretty good contact with Simon so he could ask?

Here I am.
This is the first I’ve heard of this happening on any Convoy light. I don’t think I own a convoy light that hasn’t been dropped and I’ve never had an issue. I would like to confirm a few things before I contact Simon about this as he probably gets a thousand emails each day. Were the lights this has happened to purchased directly from Simon? As previously mentioned, items labeled Convoy coming from other sources (particularly Gearbest) may not have been assembled by Simon and several fakes have been found. As far as fake Cree emitters coming from Simon, Nope. Simon knows his stuff, would not be fooled by a fake and would never knowingly use anything that wasn’t genuine. That said any company can have a QC issue from time to time so if these are purchased from Simon’s Ali store I will certainly let him know. Simon takes pride in the quality of his products. If this is something that has happened to 3 out od 3000 lights I would suggest contacting him through his store but if this is happening to multiple genuine Convoy lights I will definitely contact him.

Thanks for chiming in.

No they were purchased from Gearbest when the first batches of Convoy S2+ were released and are the genuine ones.

I am positive this is an XM-L2 T6 neutral led as it compares really well to my Fenix BC30 light. No problems with that part.

slightly OT: Can the BLF A6 A17DD-L FET driver be used in the S2+ flashlight? Does it fit? Thanks guys. Currently on promo.

that had to be a incomplete reflow.i would place the emitter on the pads in the proper polarity and use a heatgun on low.
i have reflowed many emitters this way.even with a harbor freaight 5.99 special.stand it on its rear with the nozzle pointing up and hold the star at the very edge with hemostats.when the reflow occurs the led will align itself perfectly.that the stop point.let it cool and it should work again.since it didnt flow the first time there should still be enough flux in the paste.

I would simply buy an led on a noctigon from RMM and be done with it. I have dropped my s2 many times and the only issue was a slight flicker BUT that was before I had info on pre-soldering the pill—as a result the ground was compromised