Cracking open a Manker Boney LED pill 7+ DAYS on 1 fresh alkaline/Component pics/ Mhanlen verified 7 day run time@ 1 Lumen +/-

UPDATE III Mhanlen has verified the 7 day run time. The bad news was the fact that my lumen estimation was way off. Starting at around 1.5 lumen on a fresh alkaline, NOT the five or so I estimated… Big thanks to Mhanlen and I will get to modding the next round of lights with the lower uH inductors to try and get more brightness with hopefully a not to much shorter run time…

UPDATE II After the replaced inductor below allowed the light to run over 20 hours on a NiMh, I hit the wally world to replenish my supply of RayOVac AAA’s. I ran this light and an unmodified one on two new AAA’s that both read 1.607V at the start.

I started the test 09-24-2015 at 1930 hours Mountain time. The stock light was down to .894V and minimally useable light the next day at 2200 hours. The modified light was at 1.403V at this time and showed no significant dimming (it was already about 1/3 the brightness of stock after the mod, maybe 5 lumen).

I let the modified light run, taking daily voltage readings, but otherwise leaving it on.
MODIFIED LIGHT READINGS BELOW
09-24-2015 1930hrs Test start 1.607V
09-25-2015 1930hrs 1.413V
09-25-2015 2200hrs 1.403V Stock light down to unusable level, Stock light turned off.
09-26-2015 1930hrs 1.362V
09-27-2015 1930hrs 1.321V
09-28-2015 1930hrs 1.283V
09-29-2015 1930hrs 1.225V
09-30-2015 1930hrs 1.123V Down to about 1 lumen, same as a Nitecore TUBE on low
10-01-2015 1930hrs 0.951V End of useable light for my likes.
10-02-2015 1930hrs 0.618V VERY dim, but could still be a marker in a dark area
10-03-2015 1130hrs 0.498V Battery recovering as measured, still producing light!

After a few hours of recovery, the battery was able to produce a couple of lumen for about 10 minutes before fading again to a nice sub lumen glow…

I am floored by the performance here. I wish I could remember what my decision was on buying the 270uH inductors. I am thinking around 200uH would be a bit brighter, and not too much less on run time…. But as is, this is a few lumen that will be there when you need it…. I filled the pill with Black RTV gasket maker, low odor kind… I am thinking a little aluminum cap for covering the LED and this thing is my bulletproof light.

This sort of brings me full circle, back to the idea of the infinity light. I spent less than $10 and got a light that will provide light in a dark place for over a week solid, but for about two weeks worth of nights in reality, longer on a lithium primary of course…


UPDATE Replaced the stock inductor with a 270uh and now runs over 20 hours on RayOVac NiMh, still running. Previously would run about 7hrs on this same battery. After 20 hours it is still showing 1.264V on the NiMh…


On the review I did of the MANKER BONEY and in post #15 I had dropped the light several times and it had finally quit…

It has been a while, but I finally cracked into the pill and actually found out what quit and repaired it…

Initially, I had tried to pry the boards from the pill, but could not… So I took one of those fine Xacto saws and just cut the aluminum pill in two places and separated it…

It is no wonder I could not pull the pill apart, one leg of the LED is soldered on the same pad as the spring…. It looks like if you de-soldered the spring and could pry it at the same time, you would be able to pop the bottom (spring side) board out, as the only other contact there is a negative wire with some slack in it. I did not know this and lack the extra two hands for this, so my cutting was sufficient and I did not (sheer dumb luck) cut any components.


If you are going to do this, it seems the safest place to cut with a reference is when you look at the pill from the front and cut between the N and K in Manker, and then 180 degrees from there. I put red arrows to indicate the aproximate position for the cuts, you have to go a little into the boards to get through the entire pill. Then use a fine screwdriver to pry the pill apart.

The exam begins… a huge 24 gauge wire is the only other item soldered to the bottom board, and has some slack in it.

Joule thief components, well done little inductor and other items…

THE FAULT!!!, as the wire is most likely the heaviest component, it makes sense that it detached itself during drop testing. No issue, just touched it with a soldering iron that had some solder and reattached it to the blob of solder on the board… Quick test, IT WORKS… MWAHAHAHAHA….

Keeping it packed with RTV should prevent this in the future. I only had the gasket maker type, but it worked. Bad photo, I know.

I wrapped it in electrical tape for a couple of hours after I wiped off the ooze out of RTV and it is now ready for install.

Now you can repair your Manker Boney if it should fail on you…

Those Xacto saws are great for little things like this…

Nice write up! There is more in that little pill than I expected. Thanks for sharing. :)

Awesome details. Thanks!

More than I thought in there as well! It seems that if you just drilled two small holes in each side of the metal, you could then inject RTV and the pill would be essentially solid… I don’t think heat is going to be much of an issue with this light…

Great job!!!

The bug has bitten you…mwahahahaha

One of us!!! One of us!!!

P.S. do you have a clear shot of the components on the driver (the joule thief chips and whatnot)?

Good work and write-up, WarHawk is right :bigsmile:

No the shots I posted are all I have for now…
may crack into another pill soon though… If I do, I will post better pics…

Thanks for the write up. It’s a shame the components are not potted from the factory…

YES, I thought they were in my review… It would be easy enough to fix for either the manufacturer or the user… A couple of small holes in the outside of the pill and a little RTV or silicone, bingo…

Even cutting them apart like I did for the fix would make it not too difficult to bulletproof the light… It survived quite a bit of nonchalant torture before giving up though… so by no means weak out of the gate…

great info!

that shows once again the light is very good value for the low price…

since the NiMh Cells (Eneloop) do not deliver as much brightness as Alkaleaks….

is there a way to “push” the driver a bit? :wink:

Good to know that its easy/simple to repair and nothing fancy when it comes to electronics, thanks for sharing ;)!

It looks like a Joule Thief circuit of some sort. I would imagine changing the size of the inductor may help… I have some of the “resistor” looking ones on the way… I knocked the inductor off of the next one I opened to fill with silicone… :open_mouth: I will let you know how that goes… The run time is significantly shorter on the RayoVac NiMH rechargeable AAA’s I purchased. I put it on one night and went to bed. Got up seven hours later and it was off…

Ordered some of THESE 270uh inductors from the ’bay and rebuilt another pill with one…

First off, barely fit… No silicone for now, just put the halves together and as the inductor is a higher impedance one than the stock, it is dimmer. Perhaps half to two thirds the output of stock. Still plenty in a really dark place, but not so good for hunting behind a desk in a well lit room…


Components shot #1, the open pads to the left are where the previous inductor was, cant find it now… I have re-tinned the pads for the inductor already, barely any solder there originally…

A PCB Joule thief, though I am not sure about the diode, except for reverse current protection…


Two Views of the first lead soldered down…

How I bent and soldered the other leg, but had to slip some shrink wrap over it to keep the inductor leg from grounding on the LED - lead

IT FITS!!! more pics later… I want to do some runtime tests and brightness shots.

The hardest part, soldering the spring back on…

EDIT: Run time increased, made it all night on the NiMh AAA that it could not do before…

UPDATE 20 hours and still running, about3-5 lumen level at least…. This is on a WalMart RayOVac NiMh. Shows 1.264V on the battery still…

Got over 7 DAYS run time from this mod… Updated in OP

Well, thats epic :D!

How come no one will make such light by default, why they release light that can run for around days or 24, but not 7 days, like yours does after mod?!

Is that so hard, are those inductors so expensive IN BULK or is it too much of hassle?

No, they are not that expensive. HERE are some 220uh (50 pcs) and HERE are some 270uh (100 pcs)
EDIT: These are 3mmX7mm inductors above, the ones in the pics are 4mmX10mm, so the ones above should be easier to fit…

I would think that there is a limited market for these kind of lights anyway, that would be the reason that no manufacturer makes one. They are not bright, but the 18(?) lumen stock one is not bright compared to other lights we all have anyway. The draw to these is the fact that with one AAA you can have a bit of light for a long time. I have been without electricity for some periods of time in my life, both camping and in other situations, including natural disasters. The thing is, a bit of light (4-8 lumen) is enough for doing a bunch of the “normal” things you need to do in the dark. IF it is really dark, you do not need a lot of light.

Perhaps a group buy could be organized for these modded from the factory?

I would be up for running one if there was enough interest, the only thing besides the larger inductor I would request is that there are two holes in the side of the aluminum pill. This way we could fill them with RTV or JB Weld or whatever and pot them ourselves…

I would buy a few of the modded ones!

Group buy sounds great, if they potted them, even better!

I’d applaud that — and if they’re done well and reliable, they’d become a recommended item for including in every disaster/earthquake/emergency kit.

A little light for a long, long time can be a lifesaver.