Yep, I still buy 2 of certain items. I’ve ruined just about everything you can think of. Learned to just slow down and take my time. Things still happen, though. Nothing like firing up the light for the first time and seeing a flash and finding out you burned everything up.
For me I have three terrific kids a loving wife. Bad luck for them as apparently I’m told that I’m the dud. 
Yeah, it was probably more like a “scrape” than a “graze” actually.
I feel like I was putting too much heat into the mclike with attached LED by holding the soldering iron on the wire/pad for too long, but it just refused to let the solder melt and accept the wire (I had tinned the wire and pad beforehand so I wasn’t expecting so much trouble). Shortly after the scrape, I touched to LED because why not at that point, and was surprised that the covering (silicone?) felt tacky.
Yup, that section where I scraped off the phosphor was surprisingly BLUE!
It not the end of the world I guess, I was planning another mtnelectrons order anyway so I’ll just add an LED to the cart.
rofl xD
nice one
I just burnt out one of my XP-G2s running it at 6A two minutes ago! Good thing I have a second! xD
I've bumped, grazed, dropped, even had one slide right off. They are normally pretty rugged.
If I use tweezers anywhere close I only use blunt end.
It all takes time like anything, and the best have mishaps.
One other thing, if you learned from it then it's never a failure...
Guys, I would like to ask how do you maintain your lenses clean and not scratching it after modding your light? I’ve been wanting to swap the emitters on my lights to my liking but cleaning the lens is one of my main concern and all those methods I tried has failed and leaving the lens with micro scratches :person_facepalming:. Any suggestion how to clean your lens without scratching it? TIA
Water + air dry = no scratch but lens gets water stains
soft cloth = scratchessssss
microfibers = scratches
lens paper = scratches
air spray = dust particles
edit: I mean reflector. My bad
MAD TM26 - do you mean lens or reflector? Lenses should not scratch so easily. For reflectors, I use the same techniques I use to clean a digital camera sensor:
- air blow
- super soft brush, super light touch
- wet cleaning with solution and a sensor swab
Good post thanks for sharing.
Think of it as knowledge gained and thankfully shared.
I have an XPG3 incoming to do a swap on my 5 year old Quark AA.
I fully expect to mess something up, so I bought two emitters mounted on MCPCB
I completely empathise with you.
I rather reflow them myself.
It’s a magical moment when the flux solvent (IPA) boils out and the LED settles right where it has to sit when the solder (paste) melts and flows, leaving up to 4 squished out little balls of solder in the middle of the edges.
(edit)
Ouch that MT-G2…. 
@Threadneedle: OOF, at least mine is still 80% intact and useable until I get a new emitter/MCPCB. How did you manage to do that? (So that I can avoid the same mistake, lol.)
Haha, I know. I forgot to put on the gasket. Ask I screwed it back on I heard a crunch. I will now never forget to put a gasket on.
The soldering iron isn’t bringing enough heat either because the tip is too small or the temp isn’t high enough. When soldering inside the head it helps to wedge the mcpcb off its contact surface to minimize heat transfer to he head. Some are soldering stars to pills and in that case there’s nothing to do but use a good, high heat iron and thicker tip along with flux. The flux serves both to keep out oxidation and improve thermal contact between the iron and the metal. During soldering enough heat is dumped to soften the led covering whether it’s domed or flat and the longer you mess about the more likely you will damage the led. Most of us don’t do this often enough to get truly proficient so pat yourself on the back whenever you get it right, I do.
Or the tip isn’t clean, so that it has no decent thermal contact or just on a few spots.
I always have a tin with stainless steel ‘wool’ nearby to plunge the tip in and then i put fresh (flux core) solder on it.
Makes a heck of a difference.
(Of course i use solder with lead.)
None the less, the wire contacts on a copper MCPCB sure can be tough to solder.
But a good hot iron with some mass will do it.
I cracked a tiny piece of the die of an xp-l hi while reflowing a while ago. It still works.
This.
Always order spares. That way you don’t have to put your project on hold for a month simply because you accidentally destroyed something. Having failures is an inevitable part of modding, especially at the start.
Or order the LED on a DTP board