Cooked the gold coat off another Wurkkos spring. Possible PSA

I say this is maybe a PSA because I own 4 wurkkos flashlights and this has happened on two of them now. And not on any other light. And I have…7 sofirns too. Just wurkkos. There’s no way I’m the only one who has or who will have this problem. Unless I’m that unlucky.

So here’s what it is. This first happened to the tailspring on my TS25. The “gold” coat on the spring started flaking off pretty quickly after getting the light, after a handful of uses. Didn’t think much of it until the flecks started migrating around the flashlight. First noticed something was weird when screwing in the tailcap and i could see little arcs between the top of the cap and the anodized threads. Made no sense. That was the bare aluminum on top of the tailcap sparking to the “gold” flecks that had gotten stuck in the greased threads.

So can’t leave the spring like this. Fleck ends up in the wrong spot and flashlight would get very hot very quick. Bought new springs and doubled them up. All good since.

Now the same thing is happening on my HD20 headlight, but it’s the spring up top on the driver side this time. Noticed something was up when the light was getting hotter than usual under normal use and when onboard charging wouldn’t give the flashlight over 500mah. Usb tester showed 5x higher resistance trying to charge it than it usually does. When I unscrewed the head and started poking around at the spring the whole spring just popped right off the board, leaving the gold coating that was on the base of the spring still soldered on the board. Like it had jumped out of its skin. Or like a butterfly coming out of its soldered down cocoon or something. Going to be a trickier fix, if anybody has an tips there, appreciate it. Lucky I caught that one before too much conductive gold started raining down on the positive terminal.

Worth mentioning, whatever this gold stuff is, it’s very very attracted to magnets. So if you see some coming off your spring don’t try and use a qtip to mop it up or try and blow it off and get some in your eye. Just grab a magnet. Sucks them right up.

Only other thing these two lights had in common besides both being wurkkos 21700 lights that were both purchased this year was that I had used a Molicel p42a in both of them at some point. But I’ve used those in every 21700 I have at some point or another. That’s the only other thing I can think of.

So ya, watch out for that.

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Probably it’s because the quality of the materials… L☻L… !? Buy the way i never had any issues with my gear… Mods - Flashlights - Chargers - Batteries… L☻L… !

I hope you knocked on a bunch of wood after saying that lol

No, i don’t need to… L☻L !

So how do I solder this top spring back on. Its still got a little ring of solder already where the spring used to be, there’s just gold stuck on top. Remove that or leave it on? Say I leave it on then what, a little solder on the spring, a little rosin flux paste stuff, the just let them melt together? How much heat can these boards take? Ive been using tin-silver-copper solder lately should I be using lead for this?

Sorry, I suck at soldering. I’ve always tried to avoid it. Weld or braze everything instead. Ive got a little bit of the Tourette’s. Just a little bit. But just enough to make soldering interesting

Just a thought. Do you have a hot air station? Maybe tin the spring and meld them together. I don’t know how much those boards can take but I imagine the quicker it can be done the better.

Ya I do. I was thinking doing that but with the soldering iron. Would be quicker no? Less heat overall?

I don’t know. I guess if you had a high watt soldering iron that could melt the two together quickly, that would be good. A high wattage iron may be better than hot air. No I’m questioning myself. LOL I am not a master solderer but I have been messing around with small electronics for a while. I have just in the last year got a hot air station. Works very well but I haven’t use it for your the job your doing.

Ya i’ve got an iron of sorts on a 240v 50amp dedicated circuit lol. But I usually use a butane soldering iron just cuz i already have a bunch.

Ive got a lot of glassblowing/lampworking stuff and a lot of welding stuff, so name something that gets real hot and I probably have it. Just never got into soldering with a little pen cuz I don’t have a steady hand at all. Same reason I couldn’t be a surgeon. The only reason lmao. Nothing else. Otherwise I’d totally be a surgeon. Got a perfect score on the medicine exam and everything