My first modding experience? A DISASTER... :_(

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
1

Ok, this year i went all thru the flashlight thing, spent few hundreds euros in stuff and appareils

I’have a Courui D01, which i thought needed an improvement. So i bought a 2in1 soldering/reflow hot air station and went for few basics steps
Changed the tail cable with a 14AWG silicone from a famous R/C site. Good, didn’t see any improvement, but seemed obvious to me, since the emitter cables where still untouched.
So the plan was, change the emitter cables, and than stack a R120 in parallel over his sense resistor which i bought at Fastech on pourpose…maybe do a wire bypass instead, i’ll decide later, i thought
well I’ve the manual skills of a dead opussum, anyway…never you try, never you learn…
so i went for the emitter cable swap 14AWG was pretty thick to handle, anyway led lit for a while, few seconds, not very steadly.
but since i was holding things with my hand i don’t know what happen precisely, but at certain point i stopped holding it, but the light won’t turn on again (the led was free and the flashlight not re assembled…just in case someone thought of a short caused by the reflector)

i double checked if some solder touched something it shouldn’t and wasn’t able to see anything. also the star had the + contact eradicated by the bending cable…i thought nevermind i’ll scratch some mm^2 of the covered trace and solder there instead that using the missing pad
Later i checked with the continuity test on the dmm and on the star and also on the pin of the led soldered onto the star, and i got continuity, meaning the led is somewhat shorted…WTH? i didn’t even still mod the sense resistor……

ok I had a terrible zoomie 2S cells called T5 or T6 something i could do more tests.
but before that i would like to see if i can improve that, stacking a resistor over a suspected R200 should do something magic i thought, hum….

well my SMD resistors are bigger than that so I’ve tried with a simple solder bypass, but what i got is getting the light always in moon mode, well, i have modes, steady lightining, SOS, blinky, yeah, but they are all in moon mode!
I must have touched something right? so i started to try cleaning everything seemed to go outside his pads…maybe some solder is in contact with the outer ring (GND) well, i even used a cutter to scratch solder away, but still don’t know if something is compromised or is just some sort of short

I’ve tried to let the tin flow itself gainst the proper pads, using a hot air gun, but what i got is just a whole mess, i think I’ve moved an unknown R270, the original R200 and a white thing that could be a cap.

Well i think i’ve finally managed to place again things in their places, with the hot air gun again, placed with tweezers and then melted the whole place hoping that they will position themselves (and so it seems) I also placed one of my R120 instead of the original R200, but still I got moon mode only.

Lately I tried the second led in the Courui driver and got nothing :_(

For some minutes my delusion was so big i barely managed to not kick the whole pieces out of the window

Now my room is a mess, full of cables, and pieces, drops of solder everywhere, pills, reflector, batteries, soldering gun,tin, boxes ahhhhhhhhh and i got nothing…

should i give up….yes i should….for today….

2

3

You single handedly just put me off modding lights for like a year with that post

4

My guess about the LED is that it overheated while it was on and held in your hand. With very little heat dissipation capable from the star alone I’m guessing a bond wire was damaged possibly.

There is very little reason for wires any bigger than 18ga, 14ga wire will be much stiffer and more difficult to manage.

Don’t give up, there is a lot of learning to be done on your first few attempts at modding if you keep at it.

5

“…now my room is a mess, full of cables, and pieces, drops of solder everywhere, pills, reflector, batteries, soldering gun,tin, boxes ahhhhhhhhh and i got nothing… ”

ahh… the joys of modding :~
Having been there myself… I know just how you feel

6

Thank you guys.
I feel so guilty I started a productive research of sweets and candies… So I got this to find relief ! Leave those flashlight alone…

7

run that exhaust fan while you’re soldering, and don’t lick your fingers til you’ve washed your hands …

8

That looks yummie!

9

You are right hank! How did you know I Ve been breathing all that smoke??? And yes… Even my hands smelt of disgusting solder… BLF power
Someone knows where I could find a courui 38mm driver?

10

It was :party:

11

The Pedobear lolly?

12

“pedo” sound horrible….

Anyway… I took few cells 10440 protected (just in case) measured the voltage to stay below 3.8V to direct drive the dimmed led (the second one) … And guess what? It s still dimmed…
So I tested some efest imr10440… 3.99V… Still moon mode… Is it compromised too?

13

It sounds all too familiar. Modders are all big liars, they tell you all about their successes but keep silent about everything they destroy all the time.

14

If the LED is barely glowing, you might have killed it by too much current.

15

I didn't read all the details as I have to run, but I got the jest. Brought back many memories of past experiences I have had modding. It can be rough road, especially early on. Hang in there. It does get better.

16

An old man once told me:

"Those that make no mistakes don't do anything"

17

I do have a to chuckle a little bit at this, because we've all been there. Some people seem to have a rougher road than others, but one of my first attempted modifications resulted in three forcefully dedomed emitters before I even got the light fully apart. I was also trying to solder with a $5 Harbor Freight iron and cheap Chinese "63/37" PLASTIC solder (I have three different reels from FT, and none of them are anywhere near 63/37 or 60/40 solder).

Take a break, regroup, do some more reading and thinking, then try again.

Your light with "moon mode" only has a blown LED. It's dead.

18

I’m in a similar situation. I recently built a 17mm DD+single-7135 driver. While it worked it wasn’t anywhere near as bright as my Convoy S2+ 8*7135 flashlight. Two spring bypasses, a melted switch, and 3 blown LEDs later I have to stop. The combination of frustration, and lack of sacrificial LEDs, is forcing me to take a break. I have a few XP-Ls on order but given the way things have been going I don’t want to put them in this light until I get the issues sorted. Gotta source some cheap XM-Ls to test with first.

The entire process has been frustrating as you all seem to understand very well. On the plus side, I’ve learned and accomplished things I’ve never done before, so it’s not a total failure. Baby steps, right?

19

3 Blown LEDs? How did you manage that?

20

Good question. The first was the XP-G that came in the light. It lit up, rapidly dimmed and gave off purple light, then quit altogether. The second was a loose XM-L that I reflowed onto a cut-down sinkpad. I used thermal grease between the sinkpad and the pill. I can only assume that I didn’t properly reflow it because it lit very brightly for less than a second before going dark. The third was an XM-L on an aluminum board as pulled from another light. It worked before being tested with this driver. It didn’t even produce light that I’m aware of. It just stopped working. All three, upon close examination, look like the LED lead wires have vaporized. It looks like there are tiny hollow tunnels where the gold wires should be.

This is all in a 501B style light with a thin solid pill. I know it won’t be able to handle full-power for extended periods but I didn’t expect it to be an LED killer.