I’ve been working on a mod for a few days and it seems that it can’t decide wether it’s a success or a fail. Is it possible for a flashlight to contract the ZiK virus and shrink its brain?
It all started out to be an RGBA using a board with four Luxeon Z. Unfortunately, the board that came with the four coloured emitters was square, so I had to grind it to fit a Convoy S2+.
Ahhh. There goes that stupid ouchyfoot again, always trying to fit a square board into a round hole.
I figured I’d grind and drill blank board, and then reflow the emitters from one board to the other.
I won’t do that again!
These little Luxeon Zs only like to be mounted once, at least on a multi board. I’ve done these boards before using a new board and new emitters with solder paste and everything snaps nicely into place. Taking them off one board and transferring them to another is a horror. They only have two pads with a hair between them, that goes for the board as well. Removing them, some pads retain solder, some come up bare, so more paste must be used.
The old solder doesn’t want to flow, and excess just spreads to fill the gaps between the pads, or attaches itself onto the neighboring emitter. Trying to shift them around just makes matters worse. The next thing you know, all four emitters are attached to each other all cockeyed. The more you work to fix it, the worse it gets. Finally the emitter pads are all clarted up with solder in one big shorted mass. Not to mention the ones that get tipped ove into the hot solder.
After an hour of work and six ruined emitters I said “to hell with this”. I went from RGBA to RGBR/O to RGBW.
Three deep breaths. I heated the board for the hundredth time and wiped off all the solder with a damp Brillo pad. Fresh start. Four new emitters. RGBW. All working.
One of the main reasons I wanted to build this light was to test that waffled optic. One of the main faults with multi die emitters that work independently in a reflector light is that because they are all offset, the beam profile looks like a donut with a bight out of one side. I was hoping this type of optic would even that profile out, and it does. I just thought I’d mention that now in case I lose my train of thought with my woebegone whining.
Standard RGBW driver. I didn’t bother changing the wires because it’ll only be driving one emitter at a time @ 700mA
I sanded and glued down a plastic ring to keep the optic centered.
Sure, it looks sweet, but there’s something wrong with its brain and I can’t figure it out.
((more whining to come after these messages)
Now the problem is that it cycles through all the modes W-R-G-B-police strobes etc just fine. Once, sometimes twice. The next time it skips the strobes and goes to white. Then it goes from white to red to white, sometimes a green shows up, the back to white then only white.
If I set it down for five minutes it works fine, then gets all mixed up again until I only get white. I’ve resoldered all the wires. (Cheap melting Chinese wire), beefed up the ground, but nothing works. It’s sporadic.
