Hi all, I’ve been bitten by the NW tint bug and I’ve tried a couple of Asian sellers. First was Intl.Outdoors and their XM-L NW arrived with several bits of dirt and marks on the dome. Second was CNCQualitygoods and theirs had fewer bits of dirt (yay! I think?) but, more importantly, the LED itself doesn’t sit flat on the star. One of the electrical contacts has a small (0.25mm?) solder filled gap underneath it.
Now, I’m no expert and I’ve never seen this before (the 15 or so CW XM-Ls I ordered before from KD and DX were spotless), but will it affect the beam pattern? It’s to be used in a bike light with a TIR optic. If it will, do you think I can finish the reflow process and squash the LED down flat? I’ve seen and read alot about reflowing LEDs and I’ve soldered a bare XP-G to a board (shudder), but it looks rather scary and there’s the risk that I’ll end up with a duff emitter instead of just a crap one.
Any ideas/ advice?
Any US source of XM-L T6 NW emitters?
Also, anyone know if you can fix mechanical timers on clothes dryers? That’s slightly more pressing
Heat that puppy from under the star and see if it settles on its own. If not just press lightly on the dome without twisting it, then release and let it cool down. I had one recently that was not flowed properly and it fell off. I did just what I recommended to you and it's now better than a good new one.
sweet, thanks JohnnyMac! Do you use a point source of heat (high temp soldering iron, propane torch) or something more diffuse (wife’s newest frying pan, toaster oven)?
