How do you strip existing driver to attach new one?

Stupid question. I have a light that has like a 30mm driver. No way I’m going to find a replacement in the same size, but I want to increase the amps with a new driver because it’s only like 1.5 amps. I have TONS of room in the existing driver housing to wire just about any aftermarket driver i want. But obviously I’d have to “hang” it off the existing 30mm driver plate and use that for the connection to the battery.

Question is: How do I do this? Just scrape with a soldering iron tip all the chips off the existing driver and wire the new driver to the obvious places for negative and positive on the old driver? Thing that scares me a little: Won’t there be PCB traces left behind in the existing (now defunct) driver — even after I scrape off the chips — that could cause a short circuit?

In other words. I want to use the existing driver as a connection plate. Not use any of its components. How do I do this? Just scrape off the chips from the old driver, and wire accordingly? Won’t the embedded wiring in the old PCB driver board cause problems even with the chips gone?

Hope you guys understand what I’m saying. Thanks for any help you can give.

On SS T08's, all I do is remove every single surface mount component (all components) with an iron, then use a meter to verify the + and - contact pts and go from there. More knowledgable guys avoid removing the components, but I'm not at that level. As far as I understand, the existing traces should be no problem at all because there's nothing there to act on them. As long as your new driver is sandwich mounted safely, there should be no risk of shorts. I usually try to get 3 wires connected for the neg. signal from the new driver and therefore act as stand off's, keeping the driver rigidly suspended off the old driver board. The 22 gauge wire I use as the stand off's also provide good electrical and thermal paths for the new driver.

Probably not if you can get the pcb clean. But if you want you can add a pic of the PCB. Often one can cut off the supply traces easily, rendering the remaining stuff on the PCB dead.

You could build a contact board from scratch using that hobby board stuff that has holes for thru-hole components. Radio Shack sells it if you want local. Then cut and solder copper sheet for the contact points. Copper tape would suffice in its place, but would tear easy.

Slideshow links:

Here: http://s1054.photobucket.com/user/TomE2012/slideshow/T08%20-%20manx

and here: http://s1054.photobucket.com/user/TomE2012/slideshow/Small%20Sun%20T08

Thanks to everyone for their quick answers. I scraped one PCB not too long ago that ended up looking pretty much exactly like Tom E’s, once I scraped all the components off. (I didn’t use it because I could fit a stock one in afterall.) But it’s what’s going on inside the PCB board (that I can’t see) that bothers me, but if you guys all still have both hands, then I guess a short isn’t a real concern.

And also thanks for 4wheeler’s tips about using the Radio Shack stuff and building a blank driver from scratch. I never even thought of that. (That’s why BLF is such a GREAT resource.) Where this one already has a board (albeit an underpowered one), I’ll probably strip it for this mod. BUT I do have one light where I lost the original oversized driver (DOH), so building one from scratch will be perfect.

Also I will test the scraped board with a DMM and make sure nothing is awry.

I didn’t get it here, but the mod will be on an A0 copy and I have HIGH hopes for a new driver and an L2 or U3.

http://www.cnqualitygoods.com/goods.php?id=1341

Thing has a SUPER super tight spot, pretty darn close to my HD2010 (which now has an L2 and BOY did that pep things up in the light-output dept.)

Thanks again.

I blow my heat gun over the driver for a short time while holding the driver vertical and the parts just fall off. Give it a little shake. Probably takes 20 seconds.

Besides verifying the + and - contact points, it probably would be a good thing to measure ohms between the + and - contacts on the stripped board to make sure that they haven’t been inadverdently shorted together (e.g. a bridge from the melted solder or whatever)?