Convoy s2 TRIPLE XPL HI build

Alright, first shot at a build of this depth.

These are the parts:

Thanks Richard from MTN for the quick supply of all the parts I’ve needed so far.

QLITE REV A 7135 Driver (added 5 more chips for a total of 4.9A)
XP-L triple HI V3 2B on NOC 3XP +JUMP
10507 Carclo
Richard’s copper spacer
Convoy s2 host

I completely underestimated the difficulty of stacking the 7135 chips. Didn’t help that my lack of patients wouldn’t allow me to wait on a flux pen.

Anyway, I’ve roughly put everything together this point. Surprisingly, I haven’t seemed to torch the driver or cause any major issues. I have, however, seemed to lock it into DD. Tailcap readings are varying with every different type battery I put in the tube. I’m sure the readings aren’t accurate at all, but Samsung 20R is showing 7.8A at tail and PAN 18650B is showing ~5A. Either way, this thing is bright as heck, and the beam is lovely the way it is. Any ideas right away of what the likely culprit is?

the light isn’t running a reflector at all. It’s running a carclo plastic optic. So there’s no metallic pieces between the mcpcb and the lens.

So do you have modes working or no?

No. Modes aren’t working. My last response was to the assertion that it might be my reflector causing the modes issue.

Sounds like a short happened when you were stacking the chips. Re-check the areas near the chips. Is it possible to take picture and post it here?

If you have no modes, then you have a short between LED- and ground. As was said, most likely the short is on one of your stacked chips, but there are many other places it could be too.

I’m attempting to take a picture that would do any good to you guys for diagnostic purposes, but it’s proving challenging for these tiny parts. I’ll see what I can make happen.

I’ve searched over and can’t find any places where there’s an obvious short. I’d assume that if it were a place where a short was jumping or a slight connection the light would be flickering. Spring does not seem to be in any way touching leads on chips and all leads on chips seem to be independent where they are supposed to be. I’ve soldered the ground leads on the back side of the chips directly to the ground ring on the driver as I’ve seen on other posts here, and the 4th star has been joined to the ground ring as well. This should result in moon, low, Med and high I think.

Is it correct for the wire placement on the - driver wire to be spliced in with the “pin1: out” on the top left position 7135 chip? That’s how the driver was pretty wired and that’s how I put it back.

Take your DMM —put it on continuity setting—touch your leads to the outer pins of any chip—that will tell you if any of them are shorted out—not sure if you have to unsolder the LED—I have always checked in this manner as I add chips—if you do have a short good luck finding which one you shorted out

i took everything apart and removed the led from the pill. I filed all solder joints that were messy, checked for stray wires, and isolated terminals with some of the tape that Richard sells. Put it all back together and no luck. Why’s are the chances I fried the driver board with too much heat?

It’s more likely you fried one of the chips than the board itself. (or there’s still a short that you’ve missed) If a short develops inside a 7135, it’l short them all out.

That seems like a likely scenario considering how much time I spent on some of those things. That makes me wish I hadn’t glued those chips down to hold them in place. I’ll have to go around with the meter now and check the individual chips for shorts.

Could this be the culprit? There’s some solder flowing around the back side of this chip where it likely flowed into the positive connection. It looks the same in other photos, but I can’t really tell.

I’ve not detected a short on the pins of any chips, and it was said you’d see it on any one of them.

Well. I guess I just had to finish it off.

I still haven’t got a clue what is causing the DD only. I decided since my flux pen and some better solder, bronze wool came in today I’d give a shot at reworking this thing. It made one heck of a difference. I went back through all of the chips and reinforced/cleaned the connections with relative ease.

It’s certainly not pretty, but I’m fairly confident that the connections were robust and clean.

I reinforced the driver and switch springs with some braid.

Moving on to the pill, I added some ceramic thermal paste to the sections between the threaded pill and the triple led adapter.

I drilled holes and soldered/epoxied from the pill into the adapter.

Used some arctic silver to button down the mcpcb

Looking aT that picture the leds look covered in all kinds of crap. It’s no wonder they burnt out.

Added some copper sheet I had from a p60 install to tighten it into the head of the s2

Then it all went back together. Put an ar lens in front of the plastic carclo and noticed that it caused the battery tube to touch the spots where I had soldered the grounds on the chips to the driver ring and where I had soldered the driver to the pill. Didn’t think this was a concern as it all grounds there anyway.

Put a low drain cell in the light and turned it on to find that it wasn’t as bright/had a weird tint.

This picture was after a little while so it’s worse than it was to start but it gives the idea. The only thing I can think is that some of that thermal paste or some of the flux from the pen got on the LED and with it as a dedomed version has even less protection.

All but one LED is gone and with at least 4.5 amps showing at the tail cap it would t be long to go either.

I have had two Fet drivers from RMM just go DD on me and lose all modes…:confused:
I haven’t asked or mentioned it because I figured its part of building lights.I rarely if ever get shorts or reflector shorts on my builds.I don’t stack chips and have only had this issue with the fet drivers.

:_(

Going direct drive means you have a short between LED- and ground. The problem is finding where the short is, but it should be easier on a FET driver. However, I have had to completely strip and rebuild drivers to solve shorts in the past.

While I suppose it could be a faulty driver, I feel completely confident that I’ve totally screwed something up to cause the DD on this driver.

I’ve got a MTN-DDm on the way that will give me the 7135 low and DD high of the FET. No stacking! Less I can screw up. I’m not done yet though. I will not rest until I’ve completed a build with a full 16x 7135 chips. Itll just be behind a much less expensive led

I basically did strip this driver and start over today, at least within my own capabilities. I’m sure it’s something simple that I just don’t grasp because of my lack of knowledge. I don’t see anything obvious and connections are solid.

I had hoped that maybe somewhere in the pictures I posted there would be a duh moment where there would be something obvious and I’d feel like an idiot, but at least is know what the problem was.

There could always be a short within the actual pcb, it’s just much less likely.

I’m really not sure what happened to your emitters though.

Your white wire isn’t bridging to the ground ring, is it?